Devot:ee's AcademEE Awards for 2011

2011 Accessory of the Year

Developer

PutYourLightsOn’s Developer accessory is our best of the year, and it’s easy to see why. Developer adds a drop-down menu to the control panel that give quick access to all the most commonly accessed links used by developers. With deadlines to meet, every saved minute adds up, and Developer makes navigating the control panel faster and easier then ever.

Runners Up:
  1. Matrix Multi-Upload (Pixel & Tonic) – Batch uploading of files to a Matrix right from the publish page, it makes Matrix even better.
  2. Switchboard (Vaya Design) – Live search in the EE control panel across entries, add-ons, fields, and more – it makes everything easy to find.

2011 Extension of the Year

Better Workflow

Electric Putty’s Better Workflow is our Extension of the Year for 2011. Filling one of the biggest and most requested needs in the ExpressionEngine community, Better Workflow brings previews, drafts, and entry approval to EE. This is workflow done right – easy to use, great feature set, and killer support. Look no further if you have workflow needs.

Runners Up:
  1. Hone-ee Pot Captcha (Trevor Davis/a>) – A better captcha for EE forms of all types, keep spammers off your site.
  2. Mo’ Variables (Rob Sanchez) – With more early-parsed, global variables you’re the master of EE’s parse order.

2011 Fieldtype of the Year

Google Maps for ExpressionEngine

Objectivehtml’s Google Maps for ExpressionEngine is the Fieldtype of the Year for 2011 and does exactly what it says very well. Working with Google Maps in EE has never been easier, whether it’s using data from custom fields or just static information on a template. This add-on gets you on the right route with maps and is a must-have if you’re a bit lost with the Google Maps API.

Runners Up:
  1. Expresso (PutYourLightsOn) – WYWIWYG editing at a great price with file manager integration, that’s tough to beat.
  2. Wyvern (Brian Litzinger) – A great WYSIWYG editor that integrates well with a number of other add-ons and great developer support.

2011 Module of the Year

Assets

Pixel & Tonic’s Assets wins this year’s Module of the Year award by bringing a whole new level of functionality to file management in ExpressionEngine. Assets has all the functionality and UI excellence that we’ve come to expect from Brandon, and is a great way to handle files on any site.

Runners Up:
  1. CartThrob 2 (Barrett Newton) – The rebuilt and even better version of CartThrob for EE2, it makes commerce easy.
  2. Zenbu (Nicolas Bottari) – Allows you to customize the channel edit listings with custom fields and categories, giving information at a glance.

2011 Plugin of the Year

CE Image

Causing Effect’s CE Image is the winner of this years’s Plugin of the Year award and is, quite simply, the final word in on-site image manipulation. Cropping, resizing in one or both dimensions, caching, watermarks, effects – it doesn’t matter what you want to do with images, CE Image does it and does it well. If you’ve somehow missed this plugin in the past year, and not many have, it’s one you need to be using.

Runners Up:
  1. GWcode Categories (Leon Dijk) – Powerful and complete category handling, it puts the native loop to shame and is great to develop with.
  2. EZ Image Resize (Vim Interactive, Inc.) – Brings image sizing and manipulation to text and WYSYWIG fields, great for content image handling.

2011 Developer of the Year

  • Developer

Rob Sanchez

Since his arrival on the ExpressionEngine scene, Rob Sanchez has been rolling out add-on after awesome add-on, and we’re thrilled to see him getting the recognition he richly deserves for it. Rob brings a fresh look and great code to add-ons released both under his own name, and through his work at Barrett Newton/Mighty Big Robot. From CartThrob to Active Record to Mo’ Variables it’s hard to build a site these days without using at least a few excellent add-ons built by Rob. Check out more of his work here on devot:ee or at Mighty Big Robot and follow him on twitter here!

Runners Up:
  1. Pixel and Tonic (pixelandtonic.com) – His fourth year running in the top 3, Brandon continues to be the bar by which other developers are measured. His add-ons and support are top-notch, and Assets proved to be one of the most useful add-ons out this year.
  2. Causing Effect (causingeffect.com/) – Aaron of Causing Effect has come out of nowhere in the past few years to become one of the brightest new stars in the EE add-on world. His add-ons like CE Image and the new CE Cache always seem to exceed the needs you haven’t even thought of yet.
  •  
  •