Channels and templates

Yes that is possible, but in that case, I’d ask why? If the site doesn’t need Channels (DB storage), why not just do static HTML files?

So, and please pardon the crudity of the summation, it really is just another blogging platform?

Not at all. ExpressionEngine allows you to decide how to build your website, and how to store your content. It can be used to blog, sure. But, the true power is it can be used to build anything you need, doesn’t get in your way, and doesn’t force a workflow on you.

I don’t see a need for ExpressionEngine if your website doesn’t need a database, or dynamic pages. Which is what it sounds like you were asking in the first post.

Well, now you piqued my interest. In this case, the only thing dynamic about the pages is the inventory and that’s read from a different database entirely. What other kinds of sites would have content so dynamic as to need this kind of flexibility besides blogs and news?

I’m curious why you decided upon EE in the first place, given your evaluation of the platform? If the inventory is coming from a different database your probably not going to see the full benefit of EE’s flexibility to be fair. That said, if you are going to continue with EE I would suggest at least a ‘page’ channel for the more static content pages. This would allow editting of the page content (and any SEO fields you wish to bake in) from the admin panel. I’m sure your client would appreciate that more than having to hack HTML files themeselves, or having to request your assistance for any changes?

To consider it ‘just another blogging platform’ took me back a little :-D With no fields or channels present in a default install, it allows the creation of a truly bespoke data structure, storage and delivery platform that can be used for pretty much any type of site. The capacity to do so is built in elegantly and natively, without the need for extra files/code/plugins, unlike other ‘blogging platforms’ 😉

I’ve used EE for a number of specialist sites over the years including real estate, auto dealers, classified ads, catalog sites, e-commerce, blogging, photographers, service companies and more. All of these had the data built around their precise needs, internally, easily managed by the client, and fed through to the frontend exactly how we wanted it, without having to deal with platform generated html structures and limitations.

What were you using prior to giving EE a spin?

Prior to EE, we were using one of two platforms: a homegrown CMS designed to closely integrate with dealer inventory and CRM, and Wordpress for more generic websites. The idea being in both cases to let the customer do their own maintenance. What we found over ten years or so is that auto dealers don’t want to do maintenance, at-all-ever, and will happily take the extra billing to just get their stuff done with a phone call, so I tailored both to make MY job easier.

Fast forward to today: we’ve been out of the website biz for a couple years, exploring the idea of taking on a couple of clients to fill in the dead spaces so I was looking at EE as another option. Our original CMS is in Classic ASP (ancient and dusty), Wordpress isn’t flexible enough, EE looked like a good choice.

Problem is, EVERY example I came across talked in terms of creating a blog site. Every. Single. Stinkin’. One. Even the EE docs are written to be blog-centric - or so it seems to my mind. I like the EE paradigm, but it took me four days of off-and-on work just to get half of a static home page made.

Could I have done it successfully with a guide? I’ve no idea, I couldn’t find one.

Do you know what, you make a very good point on the ‘getting started’ examples! One suggestion I can offer, to help show what can actually be done that isn’t a blog, is to take look at the example channel sets that are available in the docs (Available Channel Sets). These show some basic but common use cases that will better demonstrate the kind of thing that can be created, as well as how easily it can be integrated on other similar sites without much effort.

Earlier this year I started putting together a Getting Started guide, which I am hoping to put out on iBooks at some point. It’s not finished yet, so I might just add a couple of examples for non-blog channels that will help others who find themselves in a similar position to yourself. Or maybe a blog post or two in the coming weeks….

Thanks for the idea!

Hmm one thing I find amazing about ExpressionEngine, is that you can literally start with a static html page, and break it up into sections however you like.

You could create shared components which could be repeated on various pages, make content dynamic with channels, break that up into categories if you like and determine how this data might be entered by a user in what specific field types to make things editable, replaceable or ongoing (blog style). In this way, you could even create one page that runs your entire site, and the only thing that determines the contents is the channel, field and category structure, with the entries submitted to it. (This is my preferred method).

You can let site managers (or your future self) have as little or as much control as you like over structure, layout and content, and let the forms you give them for editing or submitting content determine exactly what type of content they submit and how (if you like) - and this content can be used in as many ways and places as you would like throughout the site.

For example, one form could supply content to a number of different views and pages throughout the site to create content if you choose, or even act programmatically based on input if you want. It really is about as far from wordpress as you can imagine in its custom workflow capability.

You could create shared components which could be repeated on various pages, make content dynamic with channels, break that up into categories if you like and determine how this data might be entered by a user in what specific field types to make things editable, replaceable or ongoing

?

The issue for many new users is how to manage and organise the smaller snippets of content that will only be seen on a homepage. For example the header, intro, a few alternating rows of text > image, image > text.

And things like contact details which are global in nature but still need to be organised into a group (not a channel).

These are the things that throw new users, there needs to be a more organised approach to managing one off website content out of the box as well as the unconventional which is where EE shines.