Youve heard us talk about it, and its still bumpy in parts, but were eager to hear your feedback as you tinker around with Express in version 8 of concrete5.

Some more details to go with the quick video above:

  1. When you make a form block in version 8, its actually creating an Express object for you behind the scenes. You still get at its data from Dashboard > Reports.
  2. To make more objects, goto Dashboard > Settings > Express Data Types
  3. Objects are a collection of attributes (just like you might have at the page level.) They also can have Associations - which will be familiar if youve ever done anything with relational databases. Any custom attribute that you can install into concrete5 is available for use with Express.
  4. The Express List and and Express Details blocks make it easy to embed a searchable, sortable list of Express entities and/or detail information into your front-end pages.
  5. A default form is made for every new object, but youll have to build out some attributes into it before it makes any sense.
  6. Express object entries are stored in Express folders, which can permissions attached to them; its easy to control who can view, add, edit or delete express entries on a per-object basis.
  7. Developers can create custom dashboard pages that extend the built-in Express dashboard pages, creating custom CRUD interfaces for their Express objects with just a few lines of code.