Back in Blighty

Well, back on British soil after an eventful few days in Leiden. It seems the first ever EECI conference was a resounding success, with a good mix of learning, networking and erm… drinking. The cream of the EE community descended on Leiden for 3 days and it was good to finally meet some folks in the flesh, as well as make new contacts.

The big highlight for me was getting a good look at EE 2.0, which is definitely a move in the right direction, without being a total departure form EE 1.x. Enough enhancements to keep developers and site owners happy without being bewildering. Particularly impressive was the File Management feature in EE 2.0. This gives site owners much more control over images through a desktop-like interface. The tools were developed by Derek Allard and he took us for the full tour. He also described the internal EE development process, which highlighted just how precious the core team are when it comes to rolling out new versions. It’s this intense scrutiny and attention to detail that delayed the 2.0 release, but which will no doubt make it so robust.

Simon Collison from event sponsors Erskine gave us a lively talk on his history with EE, and why it is an essential part of their offering. It mirrored a lot of my own experiences, and it’s good to hear a fellow Brit so enthused about EE.

Veerle Pieters spoke about the design process for the new 2.0 control panel, and whilst I’m mostly impressed, quite a few of us are still not fully sold on the use of hot pink. We’re still in beta though, so maybe they’ll take another look at this.

EE add-on gurus Leevi Graham and Brandon Kelly gave us an introduction on developing and marketing add-ons. Both stressed the importance of starting to sell add-ons more; rather than give away for free. This allows add-on developers to devote more time to support existing add-ons, and develop new ones.

I felt excited to be in such auspicious company, surrounded by some of the World’s top developers and designers—all of whom are buzzing about EE as their CMS of choice. The future looks bright (or even hot pink), and hopefully this will be one of many such European get-togethers in the future. Thanks to everyone involved in organising and running the event.

See you next time!

UPDATE—Watch the Keynote by Leslie Camacho at Vimeo.