Building a Site with ExpressionEngine - Introduction

In this series, we’ll move through the process of setting up a development environment, installation and configuration of ExpressionEngine, and building a new website.  In this case, I will be replacing a website that uses a custom built CMS, babyfilter.com.

A few years ago, I built this site as a community for new and expecting parents, where they could participate in intelligent discussions rather than the flame-ridden forums that exist on many popular parenting websites.  Unfortunately, once the site was launched, client work took me away from marketing the site and its been in a state of stagnation for years. 

We’ll get the site up and running with the power of ExpressionEngine, create new accounts for all the existing users, and populate the site with all the existing posts and comments.  Then we’ll duplicate the look and feel of the site and launch it!

A rough outline of the articles that will comprise this series:

1. Installation and Setup of our ExpressionEngine Development Site
2. Planning our ExpressionEngine Site and Creating a Blank Slate
3. Weblogs and Settings in our ExpressionEngine Website
4. Creating and Organizing Templates in our ExpressionEngine Site
5. Building our ExpressionEngine Website Templates with Embeds
6. Setting Up a Category List with the ExpressionEngine Weblog Categories Tag
7. Building Templates with EE Tags
8. Stand Alone Entry Forms
9. Other Forms and Pages
10. Final Touches
11. Conclusion

The topics and number of articles may change, but this should be pretty representative.  If you have any topics or specifics you’d like to see covered, please let me know in the comments.  Look for the first article by the end of this week.