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##EE Zen Garden

ExpressionEngine is famously flexible. This can be both a blessing and a curse; sometimes it’s hard to know where to start and we are left guessing at what might be the most optimal approach. Embeds or layouts? Categories or relationships? Long-form or discrete custom fields? Should we rely on third-party addons? What about caching?

This is a growing collection of template design patterns that explore different approaches to the same problem, with the aim of allowing fair comparisons to be made. I am hopeful that a common set of principles - 'best practice' - might emerge, but at the least it will allow us to share our favoured solutions to some typical problems faced by ExpressionEngine developers.

The challenge

Our task is to build the templates for a simple blog, adapted from the open-source 'Clean blog' bootstrap theme by startbootstrap.com. Your challenge is to find a solution that is as efficient, maintainable and scaleable as possible, while allowing editors to edit content in a logical fashion.

Check it out here: http://croxton.github.io/ee_zen_garden

Getting started

  1. Fork croxton/ee_zen_garden on Github

  2. Make a local clone of your fork:

     git clone [email protected]:my-account/ee_zen_garden.git
 cd ee_zen_garden

  3. Add croxton/ee_zen_garden as a git remote:

     git remote add upstream https://github.com/croxton/ee_zen_garden.git

  4. Create and checkout a new branch in your clone, prefixed with your vendor name and a name for your solution (e.g. 'croxton-stash_template_partials'), and create your branch from the develop branch of the upstream repo:

     git fetch upstream
 git checkout -b vendor_name-solution_name upstream/develop

  5. Download and install a fresh copy of ExpressionEngine 3 in the root directory of your local clone, following the insallation instructions.

  6. Create the following files/directories inside the vendors directory of your local clone:

     vendors
 └─ your_vendor_name
    └─ your_solution_name
 	  └─ README.md
 	  └─ config
 	  └─ templates

  7. Edit /system/user/config/config.php and add this rule:

    $config['save_tmpl_files'] = "y";

  8. Optional: delete the existing templates folder at EE's default template location /system/user/templates and create a symlink to the templates folder in your vendor directory, e.g:

     ln -s ~/Sites/ee_zen_garden/vendors/[your vendor name]/[your solution name]/templates ~/Sites/ee_zen_garden/system/user/templates

    If you need to change the symlink:

     ln -nfs ~/path/to/the/new/location ~/Sites/ee_zen_garden/system/user/templates

    If you don't want to do this, you'll need to put your templates directly in the /system/user/templates folder and copy them to your vendor template folder when you make changes.

  9. Now it's time to create your solution: in the assets directory you will find the project that you are going to build: a simple blog adapted from the open-source 'Cool Blog' bootstrap theme by startbootstrap.com.

    The HTML files can be found in the assets/html directory:

    • index.html - blog post listing
    • post.html - blog post detail
    • category.html - blog listing filtered by category/tag
    • about.html - a one-off "static" page
    • contact.html - a contact form
    • headlines.html - an alternative newspaper-style homepage
    • profile.html - an author profile
    • archive.html - a list of entries organised by category

    Your task is to configure channels and custom fields, populate with sample data, and write the templates to generate the HTML markup and interaction states represented in the html files above. These are some points you might want to consider, although please don't feel obliged to cover everything:

    • Field & variable naming schemes (nomenclature)
    • URL design & routing
    • Template organisation, code re-use and global variables
    • What, aside from content, would you make manageable by editors?
    • Third-party add-ons - which would you use, if any, and why?
    • Filtering / sorting / paginating lists of entries
    • Managing relationships between content
    • Long form content, where images, video, pullout quotes and other elements may be included within a single blog post
    • Managing one-off entries/content
    • Entry / draft previews
    • Static file and image management, image transforms and CDNs
    • Caching strategies and surviving high traffic
    • How would your solution scale, if new content types are required later?
    • Security
    • SEO

    Make a note of the steps you take to complete your solution in the README.md file, list any third-party dependencies you choose to install and anthing else you think might be relevant to your solution.

  10. Edit and commit changes to your branch.

    git add .
git commit -m 'What you did'

    (Don't worry, the .gitignore will mean ExpressionEngine core files are excluded when you add . new/modified files)

Sharing your solution

  1. Push your local commits to your GitHub fork. You might want to rebase first:

     git fetch upstream
 git rebase upstream/develop vendor_name-solution_name
 git push --set-upstream origin vendor_name-solution_name

  2. Find the branch on your GitHub ee_zen_garden fork. E.g. https://github.com/my-account/ee_zen_garden/branches/vendor_name-solution_name

  3. Open a new pull request:

    • Click on Pull Request on the right near the top of the page.
    • Choose develop as the base branch.
    • Write a descriptive comment briefly describing your solution.
    • Click Create pull request.

  4. We will review your solution for inclusion in the repo. If we ask you to make changes:

    • Make the new changes in your local clone on the same local branch.
    • Push the branch to GitHub again using the same commands as before.
    • New and updated commits will be added to the pull request automatically.
    • Add any comments to the discussion you like.

Image credits

Page headers:

Headlines:

Post content images: