Wriging

I actually just started using it this week, I installed it locally to give it a try. It was a little weird at first, but I'm getting use to it, and I actually like it a lot. The biggest hurdle for me is trying to customize the markup and such. I've been used to wordpress for so long that it's a challenge getting used to something else.

But so far, I like it.

Why are you trying to customize the markup?

To structure pages a little differently than the default setup.

Used it for years and enjoyed it for the most part. Lots of flexibility. Easier to customize without having to know PHP.

I've never even heard of it until now. I'll have to give it a look.

What do you mean by 'easier to customize without having to know PHP'?

That sounds really attractive to me ... so, is it really? Explain, please?

I had a very similar encounter with EE, coming from textpattern. I also took on a side project and decided to give EE a whirl. It's a challenge but it's coming along nicely.

@shadowsun7:

EE has much more flexibility the WP does. They do the same thing but approach things differently. For example, EE supports multiple blogs. With the multiple blogging, the ability to set up groups (and customize them) and statuses at one time my home page (index.php) had levels of content on it and I delegated who saw what. Depending on what group the person was in. The average person saw basic stuff. Next group saw the basic stuff the average person saw plus more personal stuff. The next layer up from that saw more...but I had one site, one index page. EE is an excellent tool for premium content or having layers of content, for example letting your personal friends see the more personal side of you and the stranger see your normal blog entries.

The tagging system basically allows you to control almost every aspect. For some the flexibility is a learning curve but it is nice once you get used to it. EE does not have as large of a community and designs are scarce which, when coming from WP, can be a real deterrent for many.

EE feels bloated to some. For example, related entries, contact page, entry view tracking, captcha, etc. are things that are already built in, no addon required. If these are features a writer doesn't use, it is unnecessary bloat.

Thank you, Tyme. I'm a writer at heart, so learning PHP isn't at all attractive for me (though WP has got me grappling with the basics already).

I'll think about it and give EE a try.

But how about MT? With the new MT platform ... well it's open sourced. And there are multiple blog possible, though what you said about layers with EE prob isn't possible with MT.

Would you go for MT?

Here's a pretty thorough comparison between MT 4.0 and EE 1.6.

Cool review. I didn't know MT was releasing a GPL version in Q3 2007. That's very good news. Right now I'm sticking to WP because it's free and as Tyme mentions above it has an enormous developer community, particularly with themes. But when MT goes GPL I'll definitely give it a whirl.

I used to use MT but I can't see myself going back to that. I feel like I'd be going backwards. Not because it is written in Perl but the publishing of pages. Having the HTML pages is nice if one gets an unusual traffic spike (Digg) but EE has bandwith throttling and caching built in and WP has a plugin I hear works nicely. I can't imagine going back to, when I want to change my design, republishing all those pages. Depending on the size of the files and the amount of entries it can be very resource intensive. Perhaps once it is open-source (are they still going that route?) it will evolve into the best it can be. If you install it set your FTP program to upload and walk away. I had Mike laughing because it took forever for the zillion of files MT4 has to upload (5x the amount EE and WP have...easy).

I have to re-recommend MT4. While EE is nifty, it's harder to customize.

Remember, you only install it once.

I am a hard-core programmer, so I have no problem customizing PHP away. However, I do occasionally like to be able to focus solely upon the design. While I do have a couple of prebuilt WordPress templates setup, I'm wondering if EE might be a good choice for client jobs? Any thoughts from people who have strong programming skills? How easy is it to hack EE into submission? (More importantly, how fast?)

I like Textpattern for much the same reason. A large set of tags which are easy to use and don't require PHP hacking.
Not to be a thread hijacker. ;-) EE looks very attractive too. Had I known about it when I was looking at CMSes I might have gone EE vs. TxP.

I've drunk the EE kool-aid and still love it. I like the fact that it doesn't seem to be cookie-cutter. EE works with YOUR website, not the other way around, which I find is a common problem with other CMSs like Wordpress. I think when you compare EE websites to other websites, you can't tell what it's being run with -- which is great. Let your website speak for itself. I also find that the more you work with EE the better. And I do think their developers and the community are some of the most helpful people out there.

I have to agree, I love ExpressionEngine.

I am somewhat of a moron, and have never to this day been able to successfully create a WordPress theme, whereas with ExpressionEngine, I created part of a site I'm working on (only Home, Movies, and About pages work) in under 24 hours, and it's much more complex than a standard blog.

I know that everyone on the planet loves WordPress, but there is just no reason you should have to work with PHP just to change the darn layout.