Dear Modxers (and especially Jesse Showalter if you are out there - you explain things so well!), could you help me on some areas of MODX which I am finding completely baffling.
1) Is the workflow of MODX like wordpress and other CMS - develop locally and migrate copy to live server, as I cannot find any explanation of something which I presume is so simple.
2) If local to live is also the best workflow - could someone please simply tell me how to do it - can't seem to find a simple explanation anywhere that doesnt involve lots of manual steps and something called Vapour.
3) Can anyone recommend good MODX hosts. I have previously used MODX cloud but this is a bit expensive, however brilliant it is - ie. you seem to be paying both for the space and then having a site in it.
Thanks Missusdoubleyou.
I can help with the last one:
http://bobsguides.com/modx-friendly-hosts.html
I'm afraid MODX doesn't really have a good model for developing locally and moving content to the live site.
People use various methods. I usually cut-and-paste from the local to the remote.
Vapor does a nice job of moving he whole site (if it's not too big), but it's not really practical for updating on a daily basis.
Thanks Bob, I will contact Bluehost (it is a shame there dont appear to be many UK or EU hosts that work with MODX - I have looked at Siteground but their instructions make installations sound horrendous. The fact that MODX doesnt "have a good model for developing locally and moving content to the live site" seems a huge flaw in an otherwise wonderful produce. Perhaps this is why it doesnt compete with the the big CMS.
For info Bob, I have just contacted Bluehost and chatted to an operator who said that he and his colleagues hadn't heard of MODX!
I'd argue that almost any serious web hosts out there works fine with MODX. As long as they have support for some common PHP extensions, like cURL, ZIP and a few more, as well as htaccess, it should work fine. In theory, there is no reason to belive that a web host that supports WordPress would not work with MODX.
I can also give you the names of 20 frameworks and CMSs that I almost can guarantee that most customer service operators have never heard of. Does not mean that those frameworks and CMSs are not good, they are just not one of the few that "everyone" knows, such as WordPress or perhaps Drupal.
The company I work for has shipped over 100 sites created with MODX since I started. There are a few tools, like Gitify, that can help you sync between dev, staging and production environments. We usually develop a version of the site on our local development server, and once we're finished and the customer has added all of their content, we move the entire site to a production server. Because of how MODX is structured, it would be more time consuming continuing to developing on our local version after that, because MODX stores code in the database, along with resource data (site content). This means that a simple database dump can not be used, as it would overwrite the site content from the development environments. What we usually do is "smart development" on the production environment where we copy code that is used and rewrite/test on the copied code. We test this on a section of the site that is not accessible for anyone but us. This means that we can test and crash as much as we'd like, and it should not affect real visitors. Once we have finished our adjustments, we just swap the old code with out new one. This works pretty well but can become confusing once you do big changes, because you'd need copied of several pieces of code at the same time. If we do radical change to the system we usually clone the production version, set it up on our development server, do the changes and swap the production with our development version. The workflow is not perfect, and MODX is trying to fix some of these things in the upcoming major versions of the CMS. Despite all this, I'd without a doubt recommend MODX over any similar tools out there. The only exception would be if you just need a pure application without the need of a manager system where the "site owners" can edit content/write blogs/whatever. In this case you could just use Laravel, Slim or other microframeworks, because you really don't need what MODX has to offer.
HI OptimusCrime - thank you for your very clear and thorough explanation. As a new developer, I haven't yet learned Git. It is on my list! I am sure the instructions on the Gitify website would mean something to me once I have done so. Whilst being a new developer, I have worked in the IT and e-learning sector for decades, and I do think that MODX could really benefit from some good tutorials for beginners. Thanks again.
I agree with using Gitify it works wonders. Another option is Teleport which is what powers MODX Cloud.
Good point. I should have mentioned Gitify.
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Just to add to this discussion, the main difference between Vapor/Teleport and Gitify is the way they handle the content. With Vapor/Teleport, you get a MODX Transport Package you can either inject with teleport, or install through the package manager.
Gitify however writes the content in the database to individual files, allowing you do be smarter about how things get merged and updated. For example if a client edited the content on the live site, and you wrote some new snippets on a local development site, it will be a lot easier to get both of those changed merged with Gitify than it will be with Vapor/Teleport because you're dealing with a single binary file. To a certain extent, Gitify will even help you resolve ID conflicts if you added a new resource on both sites, and want to keep both.
That said, Vapor/Teleport are better at taking full snapshots of a site. Gitify needs more configuration and other tools (mostly just git) to contain an entire site.
If you just need a one-off deployment, Vapor/Teleport or simply copying over all files and the database is probably best. If you're working on the site for a longer period of time, and you're constantly deploying changes, Gitify would probably be more appropriate.
Hosting wise I can personally recommend SkyToaster. MODX Cloud is also useful as it has the migrations built in (Teleport-based) so you can just click buttons and sit back. I'll echo what OptimusCrime said though; any self-respecting host will be able of running MODX sites.
