Buy My Book!

Update July 2008: If you like these tutorials and would like to read more like these, except updated for ExpressionEngine 1.6 and with tons more information, tips, tricks and recommendations, check out my new book, Building Websites with ExpressionEngine 1.6. Available either directly from Packtpub.com or from your local online bookstore (such as Amazon), this book uses the same clear, step-by-step approach found in these tutorials and walks you from the basics of installing ExpressionEngine to everything you need to know to have an ExpressionEngine website you can be proud of. (No prior knowledge of ExpressionEngine assumed).

Hello. I'm Leonard and these were my Expression Engine tutorials.

Starting out with a new blogging and content management system can be quite daunting. Everyone has different needs. It was my hope that this compilation of tutorials will help you, whether you want to build a business website from scratch, or just play around a little.

I originally started writing these tutorials in 2004, when Expression Engine was new and there few resources available for beginners. Now, Expression Engine has grown and there is a wide range of resources on the Expression Engine website, making these tutorials somewhat obsolete. I've therefore decided to discontinue maintaining them. Hopefully, people will still find the information contained here useful but for the most up-to-date information and support, I recommend you visit www.expressionengine.com.

Expression Engine is excellent for small businesses looking for a simple and easy way to handle their website

The Tutorials

Complete Beginners

If you're new to Expression Engine, whoever you are and whatever your intentions I hope you'll find my Expression Engine tour useful. I describe some of the basic concepts of Expression Engine to help get you fluent in the terminology you'll likely encounter over the next few weeks as you climb the Expression Engine learning curve.

  1. The Expression Engine Tour (easy) (see result)

Starting From Scratch

If you're new to HTML, never heard of CSS, and would like to build your website from the ground up, then these tutorials will give you the grounding you need. I'll show you how to write a website about toast from scratch - although you can write about a business, a hobby, or just something that interests you.

  1. Writing your first page in Expression Engine using HTML (easy) (see result)
  2. Styling your first page in Expression Engine using CSS (tricky) (see result a, b, and c)
  3. Writing your 2nd page in Expression Engine using CSS (easy) (see result a, b, and c)
  4. Writing a menu for your Expression Engine website (average) (see result a, b, and c)
  5. Writing an events calendar for your Expression Engine website (tricky in places)

External Resources

This site is specifically a tutorial site - not a support site. If you've got a very specific question that needs answering, such as a tag you want to understand or an installation problem, these are the places to visit.

  1. The Expression Engine manual for the most comprehensive documentation available
  2. The Expression Engine knowledge blog for the answers to commonly asked questions
  3. The Expression Engine plugin library for additional functionality
  4. The Expression Engine support forums for when you need a personal answer
  5. The Expression Engine howTo site to find out how to do something

Got something to add? Add your comment to the 21 already made

Written by Leonard on Friday 28th May 2004