The Wait Is Over!

ExpressionEngine 4 hits the streets today, and is available for immediate purchase and upgrade. ExpressionEngine 4 is packed to the gills!

Here are some of our favorite features of the new version:

One-click Updater

Keeping your CMS up-to-date is critical for security and performance, but many of us don’t make the time for it. ExpressionEngine 4 brings you simple, reliable, and secure in-app updates that makes staying up-to-date a cinch.

Fluid

ExpressionEngine 4 has a brand new fieldtype: Fluid. This fieldtype allows content authors to create rich, long-form content using components made from any custom field you configure it to use. The content creator can publish the content they want, in the order that they want, without compromise. And the site builder retains full control over the markup and presentation as you’ve come to expect from ExpressionEngine.

Channel Fields, Unleashed

Channel Fields are now assigned à la carte for maximum reusability across Channels and even Sites. Create smart, re-usable components and assign them as needed. Three Channels all need some SEO-related fields? No problem, create the fields once, and assign them to all of the Channels you want. You can even optionally group them as an organizational convenience to assign them all at once with a single click.

Along with this change, the Channel Manager has been completely overhauled to simplify the creation of Channels and Fields. You can now intuitively create your information architecture all from one screen, creating and assigning fields and statuses in one spot. You can even quickly design new Channels that need many fields thanks to “Save & New” functionality on creation.

Layout Lists

Layouts are the ultimate tool to decrease the costs and time associated with building and maintaining dynamic sites. Now a new world of staying DRY has opened up with Layout Lists. You can {exp:layout:append} and {exp:layout:prepend} your Layout Variables, unlocking an intuitive way to make your layout templates smarter and dynamic.

For example, create a Layout List from Channel entry titles:

{exp:channel:entries channel='news'}
  {layout:set:append name='titles'}{title}{/layout:set:append}
{/exp:channel:entries}

Then loop through your list in your layout with the {value} variable:

{layout:titles}
  {value}<br>
{/layout:titles}

Fewer Plugins Required

ExpressionEngine 4 delivers a host of new global variable modifiers to perform common formatting tasks directly on the variable, reducing the number of plugins required. Character and word limiting, string replacement, numeric formatting, making content safe for use in HTML attributes and form inputs, common encoding/decoding needs, and even encryption.

For example, to make sure the content author’s {seo_descrip} field doesn’t garble the HTML and that the meta description tag only outputs 150 characters:

<meta name="description" content="{seo_descrip:attr_safe limit='150'}">

Emoji Support ????

Emoji storage is now fully supported in ExpressionEngine. Further, all the popular emoji short codes that you’ve come to know and love are parsed in typography (:rocket: becomes ?).

So much more

There’s too much to fit into a single post! Dozens and dozens of other improvements and refinements await you. It’s a brand new experience and more capable than ever before. You can read the changelog for more details, but you really just have to experience it yourself!

Upgrade Pricing

Upgrades from ExpressionEngine 3 are only $99, plus $49/site for multi-site licenses. But we have two specials going right now:

1. Now through the end of the year, additional sites on multi-site licenses are free to upgrade.
2. If you purchased or upgraded to ExpressionEngine 3 on or after October 24th, 2017 (and before 12/6/2017), you can upgrade right now absolutely free.

Take me to my upgrades!