News
Wiki Article Discussions Added
We have added a new feature to the CodeIgniter Wiki: discussions, tied to the CodeIgniter forums. Threads will be automatically created and linked for you via the discussion links found at the bottom of wiki articles. More details about this integration can be found at a blog post made in the ExpressionEngine blog, as well as a free ExpressionEngine extension to implement this on your own sites that utilize the ExpressionEngine wiki and discussion forum. Enjoy!
Posted by Derek Jones on June 04, 2008
CodeIgniter v1.6.2 Released
We’re pleased to announce that CodeIgniter version 1.6.2 has been officially released. This release includes more than 29 bug fixes and 34 feature additions and enhancements. Among these are some improvements to Active Record and transactional database interaction, the introduction of a constants file, improvements to the Zip library, a Compatibility Helper, new features to the File Helper, the removal of closing PHP tags from the framework files, and many other goodies. Checkout the Change log for the full details!
Paired with this release is the introduction of Tags in the Subversion server for version snapshots. CLI geeks, starting with version 1.6.1, you can checkout/export full release versions directly from Subversion. Details can be found on the downloads page. As always, check the simple upgrade instructions if you are running a previous version of CodeIgniter. We are also now on Twitter.
Posted by Derek Jones on May 13, 2008
EllisLab Hiring, Two Positions Available
We’re pleased to announce two openings at EllisLab.
The first is for Code Mechanic, a new development team position:
The Code Mechanic will be responsible for escalated support issues and bug investigation, and will be actively engaged with the community of third party developers. The Code Mechanic will become responsible for maintaining the current code base for ExpressionEngine and all of its First Party Add-Ons. The Code Mechanic will also be required to help keep the User Guide and Add-on documentation up to date.
Code Mechanic is a full time salaried position with benefits.
The second opening is for the Senior Technical Support Specialist position:
The Senior Technical Support Specialist (STSS) is the link between the support staff, the development team, and customer service. The STSS is responsible for ensuring that all support requests are resolved in a timely and expedient manner, and that no issues are missed or left unresolved. This includes properly categorizing issues, following up on open issues, and escalating issues to the development team or customer service as necessary. The STSS will also help manage support related materials (such as the Knowledge Base and wiki), and help identify and create ways to improve our support and customer interactions.
The STSS is a part-time position.
Full job descriptions and qualifications are available on the EllisLab Jobs page.
To apply email . Your email will include a formal resume, examples of previous work, and be a showcase of your use of email as a primary communication tool.
Posted by Derek Jones on March 19, 2008
ExpressionEngine 2.0: fully CodeIgnited!
At South by Southwest during our “ExpressionEngine 2.0 sneak peek” I got a chance to reveal some big news about the future of ExpressionEngine that I wanted to explore in some more detail here for anyone who wasn’t able to attend.
ExpressionEngine 2 is built on CodeIgniter.
CodeIgniter (http://www.codeigniter.com) is our Open Source PHP based framework. You can learn more at CodeIgniter.com, but in a nutshell it’s the toolkit that many powerful applications are built on, and now we can add ExpressionEngine to that list.
This is great news if you’re an ExpressionEngine user, a CodeIgniter user, or both. As an ExpressionEngine developer you will have a greatly expanded community of talented developers working with you, and for you. I said during my talk, “The nerds are excited, and you should be excited that the nerds are excited”. As a dyed in the wool nerd, I stand by this!
If you’re a CodeIgniter developer, this means you can drop a full-fledged content-management system right on top of your existing code base, and have it work. You want a forum installed? One click. You want need member management, a wiki, end-user tools, mailing lists, mobile blogging capabilities, permissions… all there. One click. Proven, simple, powerful.
And not only are the code bases merging, but I see the communities merging. CodeIgniter authors are nearly instantly qualified to write ExpressionEngine modules, extensions and plugins. The EE community will benefit from the energy and ideas of CodeIgniter-ers, and as a CodeIgniter author you’ve suddenly added thousands of new “potential customers” to your list.
Technically, there are tremendous advantages as well. For example, running an application as flexible and powerful as ExpressionEngine meant that we needed more flexibility. And since the base of ExpresisonEngine is now CodeIgniter, if EE needs it, CI gets it. We’re going to share when we can abstract ExpressionEngine code into CodeIgniter, and we’re going to share Open Source. So CodeIgniter is benefiting from more developer attention, and growing functionalities.
It’s a good time to be a nerd!
If you’re a CodeIgniter user and you’re worried that adding capability based on the needs of ExpressionEngine will create code-bloat and degrade performance, don’t be. We’re obsessive about real-world performance and code elegance, and our software depends on it.
Let me give you a few specific examples of how CodeIgniter and ExpressionEngine are sharing with each other. In order to get ExpressionEngine running, we’ve expanded current libraries, and created new libraries. Immediate examples of this include the greatly expanded Active Record class for CodeIgniter, which is used to talk to your database. A series of added functions where put in there, including aggregate functions, expanded use of like(), a handy count_all_results() function, and many others. Additionally, an entire database manipulation tool was created (DBForge) which lets you create, manipulate and drop tables, fields, and other aspects of your database. In ExpressionEngine these get used in the installer, but being abstracted in CodeIgniter means you’re only limited by your imagination.
And many other libraries will be expanded. Already there have been expansions to sessions, table generation, html generation libraries, form generation, image processing, email and many others. As well, there’s been significant behavioural changes to sessions (introduction of flash vars), helpers (ability to over-ride on an application level basis) and models (introduction of auto-loading). In fact, there’s been over 140 additional changes, additions and bugfixes that have already worked their way into CodeIgniter.
There are also exciting things in the works for CodeIgniter that aren’t yet in the public repository (because they aren’t done yet, not because we won’t share). The most exciting of which is probably the brand new javascript and jQuery libraries, which will provide simple, programatic ways to write complex javascript code. It means you’ll have a simple, CodeIgniter way of creating rich javascript functions. You don’t need to be a javascript guru, but you can be.
Here’s a preview (please keep in mind that this may slightly change as it gets developed)
// Effect: fade a div into view
$this->javascript->fade_in(“div”);
// Event: set up a click to show a submenu
$this->javascript->click(“#button”,
$this->javascript->hide(“.submenu”);
);
// Plugin: using a jQuery plugin
$this->jquery->tablesorter();
You can already see the both the libraries in full-force on the new Control Panel.
Oh, and we understand that some people may have their own preferred javascript libraries. The new JavaScript library in CodeIgniter allows you to extend it to use your own. Its all abstracted. You like Scriptaculous, there’s room for a scriptaculous driver. You like Mootools? You can build a driver. Think of it like the database library. You say “hey CodeIgniter, do this… here’s what I’m using - you figure it out”, and CodeIgniter does. It’s smart like that.
This is an exciting time for ExpressionEngine and CodeIgniter, as we begin to really push what is possible with our technology, and explore ways to make your life as easy as possible.
CodeIgniter expands ExpressionEngine’s capabilities; and ExpressionEngine expands CodeIgniter’s reach… and we all get to reap the rewards.
Like I said, its a great time to be a nerd.
Posted by Derek Allard on March 14, 2008
CodeIgniter 1.6.1 Released
Version 1.6.1 is primarily a maintenance release, but does bring a handful of nice feature additions and enhancements. After a very successful 1.6.0 release, a series of bugs have been squashed and enhancements have been made that we wanted to roll out as a formal release. Updating from 1.6.0 is as easy as simply replacing a few files in your system directory. For a list of all changes please see the Change Log. If you are currently running CodeIgniter please read the update instructions.
Posted by Derek Allard on February 12, 2008
