ExpressionEngine 2.0: First Impressions

At long last, ExpressionEngine 2.0 Public Beta has been released. I’ve just installed a copy and played around with it.

Things to note:

First, if you have a current 1.6.8 license, you can purchase an upgrade for US$50. This allows you to have both the existing 1.6.8 install and the new 2.0 Public Beta install running at the same time. However, only one can be a public site. I installed 2.0 Public Beta at a development URL so I could play around with it. Of course, you can also install it on your local machine with something like WAMP.

Second, most of my favorite ExpressionEngine add-ons I’ve used with the 1.6 version are not available yet. A few have been rolled in to the base installation, like Brandon Kelly’s FieldFrame, but stuff like LG Tiny MCE, LG Better Meta, Playa, etc., are not ready yet.

The UI

Everything from version 1.6.8 has been duplicated in 2.0, it’s just presented more neatly.
It’s easier to find things with less clicking.
There is a sidebar you can show or hide which contains your quick links and other info. This is especially nice for wide screen resolutions.

The Publish/Edit screen

This is an area where you’ll see the most radical changes.

You can show or hide fields based on user group, and save these settings as ‘layouts’.
You can create your own tabs with whatever fields you want, including date, options, etc.
Text fields have a ‘write’ mode which expand the field in to an overlay window, making long entries much easier.
Image management is better, with a simple built-in file manager and thumbnailing.
Still no WYSIWYG built in. You’ll have to wait until TinyMCE, Wygwam or another one is offered as an extension.

Config

There is a config editor which allows you to update various config variables like $config[cp_url], and you can add your own, which is really nice. This beats working in text fiels!
There’s not a lot else new in config, everything is again, simply better organized.

New features

The file manager is all new. While it’s certainly better than the old one, I find it very underwhelming. Using a third-party tool like MoxieCode FileManager is preferred, but you’ll have to wait until there is an add-on for it.
There is contextual help for whatever area of the control panel you’re in. The links points you to the relevant documentation.
New field types. Since FieldFrame has been incorporated in to ExpressionEngine 2.0, you now have checkboxes, date, file, multi-select, radio buttons, and select dropdown field types in addition to the usual relationship, textarea, and text input. This is really nice.
Accessories in the footer bar can be written with some PHP knowledge. Accessories can hold all kinds of data—video, flash, RSS Feeds, whatever. I’m going to wait until some are made available, and then dig through them to see how they work.

Overall thoughts

Frankly, 2.0 does not have a whole lot of new features to it, and that is disappointing. However, since it is built on the CodeIgniter framework, we should see a ton of of new add-ons for it that extend its capabilities enormously. For my part, I don’t plan to do any development in 2.0 until my core ‘must have’ add-ons become available: