ExpressionEngine 3 is here
Having moved away from ExpressionEngine for all new projects, it'll be interesting to see whether they can tempt us back.
The control panel is redesigned and rewritten from the ground up... Some of the smart interactions include small things that anticipate your needs. The Create menu always refers to content, but what if you don’t have any Channels yet? The Create menu will offer to let you create a Channel instead of an entry.
I know Ellislab are no slick PR machine, but this blog post is their announcement to the world that ExpressionEngine 3 is ready. And they're leading by telling us the control panel looks and works better than it did. I know the control panel was bad, but, come on, is that the most exciting thing they've got to shout about?
If we're going to switch back, some essentials for me are support for re-using custom fields between field groups, less need for addons and one-click updating. I can't see any mention of the first two, and am disappointed they think the following is progress when it comes to updating:
Updates are simpler, faster, and less error-prone. As many users became more and more dependent on add-ons, what was once a quick and simple update became a bit of a chicken and egg scenario, especially before we adopted Semantic Versioning. Two basic changes prevent a world of problems: user-servicable folders, and not trying update All The Things™ at once.
With the new user-serviceable folders, you have two folders to replace when updating: system/ee and themes/ee. That’s it. You don’t have to pull any files out to save for later, and you don’t have to remember to put things back when you’re done.
Having chosen ExpressionEngine as our go-to CMS for several years, when it was the best in the business, I felt it needed much more than iteration. I've been told that updating from ExpressionEngine 2 to ExpressionEngine 3 shouldn't require any template work - if that's correct, I'm disappointed. While that makes my life easier for older projects we've already built with ExpressionEngine, I wanted templating to improve significantly and I don't think that's the case.
Fast iteration. We’ve previously thought of major versions as monolithic releases that need to completely change the software. The result is a product that is too long in the tooth by the time the next version is released, and too many new bugs because so much code has changed. Our mantra for ExpressionEngine’s future is iterate, iterate, iterate. Releases for 3 will come steadily, and it will not have a six year life cycle like version 2. We will go to 4, 5, and beyond at a much faster pace as we ship and deliver our ideas for what makes a great content management system.
I think a ground-up rebuild, followed by iteration, would've been a much better strategy if they want to attract new clients or pull back clients who've left for greener pastures. Instead, I feel they've played it safe, and by doing that I suspect it's not going to stop their decline to irrelevance in the CMS space, at least in my eyes.