Must Have Expression Engine Add-Ons → Design Litmus

written by Chris Arnold on June 25, 2009

Although we've both built numerous ExpressionEngine websites in the past, neither of us previously had the opportunity to tinker around with various aspects of EllisLab's robust content management system. Building Design Litmus offered a new-found opportunity, giving us the chance to seek out and eventually implement a variety of modules, plugins, and extensions that now make life using EE all the more friendly.

ExpressionEngine developers favor its ease of use and deceivingly powerful core system over other similarly capable competitors. We couldn't agree more, so below we've offered insight into a few of our favorite ExpressionEngine tidbits we think you shouldn't live without. Because we know developers' needs differ depending on the project at hand, we've also offered a resource list that may lead you to a new module, plugin, or extension that your next ExpressionEngine project can't live without.

At post time, v1.8 was available for download on the Leevi Graham website.

LG Better Meta

This extension allows you to add and modify page meta data tags based on the specific entry you're working with. It's highly customizable and aids in improving SEO with custom page titles, descriptions, and more. This is particularly handy if you utilize blog posts of varying content that should be meta-tagged accordingly.

Leevi Graham's website offers a variety of highly useable EE add-ons that may improve any EE project.

LG .htaccess Generator

By using core {ee:} tags, this extension automatically generates and updates your .htaccess file everytime an Entry, Template Group or Template is created or modified. There are many ways this file can be manipulated, but we found this to be especially helpful with Design Litmus, namely in removing the pesky "index.php" from the URL.

Visit the Hivelogic website for more details and the most recent bulild.

Shrimp

Shortening URL structure has become an important part of how quickly we access and process information, so we enabled Shrimp, which offers us the ability to shorten true URL paths down to an {entry_id} for streamlined posting, copying, and pasting by our readers. See this in action in the "Sharing..." section at the end of this article.

You can download the most current version of FreeForm on the Solspace website.

FreeForm

This EE module gives you the ability to create forms, with little effort, that post to the database. In addition, your fields can be sorted, emailed, filtered, and more. This is great for customizing forms and setting up applications that may need to upload attachments, among other things.

Take a gander at the Experience Internet website to download SL Developer Info.

SL Developer Info

Simply put, this add-on collects the information you establish when developing with ExpressionEngine, and displays all Weblogs, Fields, Template Groups, and much more in one location. While it's not a game changer, it's definitely handy at times and quickly negates any question of what is where.

The File extension and documentation is available at Mark Huot's website.

File

As explained poignantly on Mark Huot's website, this extension "is intended to place an upload control within your Publish form ... you will have the ability to create a new custom field of type File and associate it with an EE upload location." It's quite flexible, and offers a visual for uploaded files.

A Few More We Enjoy

In addition to those noted above, there were a few others that really struck a cord in when in development mode. If you haven't had the chance yet, take a peek at these:

Simplify Edit Table - Not necessarily a biggie when it comes to EE integration by any means, this simply removes the Comments and Trackbacks columns from the Edit tab. Let's say it cleans things up a bit. Learn More
LG Social Bookmarks - This utility is simple to install and even modify yourself (should you dare!) to incorporate other social sites. Powerful for your blog and quick to setup. Learn More
Templates2Files - While we did not use this in the development of Design Litmus, we think we might have really enjoyed it. By creating file duplicates of your templates, it enables code editing to occur in your editor of choice, versus the EE editing screen. Learn More

Plugins, Modules, Extensions, and More

We realize this isn't the first post about EE add-ons, but we thought it would be interesting to note what we felt are some of the most meaningful and stable additions for the ExpressionEngine system. The bottom line is that many add-ons exist and you may have entirely different needs. Below you'll find a variety of resource links that will deliver many more options for you to explore. Good luck and have fun!