Hello all
I'm thinking about a way to build a website for a competition. I've only recently come across MODX in realtion to another project and I find MODX very interesting in its moddability.
The question that I have in my mind is "how can I create a collaborative website, where users register, login, create team pages, work on their entry and publish it". First I was thinking about TikiWiki, but it has a godawful user interface.
I was listening to Menno Pietersen's Youtube video on MODX ACL and then I started thinking if I could actually just create a MODX website and play with ACL's to create the kind of functionality I described above.
So does this sound plausible to do using MODX:
1. new users come to the competition site and register
2. a folder for each user is automatically created within the filesystem, under branch "competition entries"
3. the user is given editor access to that folder, allowing limitless new, delete, upload images etc
4. the users can then publish the pages they create and they are visible under the competition entries section on the website
Question 1: Would this be plausible in MODX or is the idea of automating ACL and file system modification more trouble than its worth ?
Question 2: if MODX is not the right framework for this kind of an idea, what would you use instead ?
The reason why I am interested in using MODX is that there will be lots of static info pages and administrative blog updating going on in connection to the compo. With MODX those pages could be served easily.
Thanks for reading, very interested in hearing your thoughts on this
Question 1: Yes, definitely plausible, but definitely not simple. ACLs get complicated pretty quickly, and because error reporting is minimal, it can be very frustrating trying to resolve problems, which can often be caused by permissions that seam completely unrelated.
Question 2: I think you're going to find this a challenge with any framework, but I would say MODX is certainly the easiest system to customize that I've run across. I think what you're proposing lives or dies by what interface and workflow you want to provide to your end users. MODX isn't a front-end friendly system, meaning there aren't a bunch of really mature and functional front-end editors, everything pretty much has to be done in the manager, and some people find that pretty daunting. If that's not a concern, than I'd say MODX is a good choice. If it's important for the editing process to be super easy/intuitive I'd say MODX probably isn't your first choice.
If you're not scared of a little development, MODX would actually allow you to create a completely customized interface for your editors, but that's a bit of work. Regardless, I don't think you'll find a more flexible system, but whether or not it's the best choice really depends on your priorities.
