Library book catalog and management system

Because sometimes it’s a pain in the behind to create 3000 or more documents and 15 TV’s just to enter data. Have you tried scrolling through that many documents in the tree? It’s not my idea of fun or efficiency. Use the tools that are most suited to the job. Mostly that’s modx, sometimes that’s building a CRUD module and massaging Ditto, AjaxSearch and build some custom snippets. There’s no reason these snippets and modx won’t work nicely with external data with a bit of imagination and plucking away on the keyboard for a few hours.

Quote from: ChuckTrukk at Feb 04, 2009, 05:11 AM

I agree with BobRay. If you’re going to be doing your own CRUD (create, read, update, delete) in the database, what’s the point of using modx?

Well, I thought it was for content management or the ability of non-developers to collaborate in the life-cycle development and administration of a web site. I don’t see how this is even an issue since MODx only does CRUD for the data involved in developing your views, not your business data models.

xPDO is CRUD for any relational data tables, and is used to provide an extensible CRUD model for both the CMS (or view-related) logic in MODx Revolution, and can then be used again to do the same for your custom tables in any PHP application, MODx or not. Thus, I can create a single data model with xPDO and reuse that in any system for delivering web site pages, even if it’s hand-crafted PHP, Smarty templates, or a full-blown content management system like MODx.

Managing our transactional business data should IMO, always be separated from our presentational views, which are there to make the mundane, yet business critical data management tasks a little less painful and a little more visually pleasing to our vulnerable users.

Toby - you win. good point.

Jason,

I agree with you. You’ve described the best way to do stuff. BUT I also think most people who use modx dont make models for their external tables. I would assume most people who use eform2db just use the modx api to do their CRUD either inline or with some functions.

The huge PLUS is modx (and xpdo) let’s you create models for your custom tables.

I think we’re missing a marketing opportunity- modx + tvs/ditto can be used for
: Rapid Development
: scaffolding
: letting non-programmers create websites that collect lots of info with views, editing, search, and user roles

Is that the optimal role for real applications? no. But it is an awesome opportunity if either budget is short, time is short, or you dont know how to or have the time to learn active record / ORM / ORB (aka designers, hobbysits, entrepreneurs, devs in a time bind).

So I agree with you, modx + an ORM like xpdo is amazing and a cinch. The fact modx can allow for that and/or quick setups via TVs is what makes me love modx (and you too man)

Quote from: ChuckTrukk at Feb 04, 2009, 01:55 PM

I think we’re missing a marketing opportunity- modx + tvs/ditto can be used for
: Rapid Development
: scaffolding
: letting non-programmers create websites that collect lots of info with views, editing, search, and user roles

Is that the optimal role for real applications? no. But it is an awesome opportunity if either budget is short, time is short, or you dont know how to or have the time to learn active record / ORM / ORB (aka designers, hobbysits, entrepreneurs, devs in a time bind).

Great point, and I think that market is very underserved in the web world because most of the people who could develop it would never use such a tool.

I remember seeing a web-based CRUD tool with a goofy name where they kept your data for you. It looked promising but I can’t remember the name.

I don’t suppose there are any HOW-TOs that demonstrate how to use xPDO as suggested? Frankly, I am too ignorant to pursue one of these options without some direction. Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks.

Quote from: kc64 at Feb 09, 2009, 07:58 PM

I don’t suppose there are any HOW-TOs that demonstrate how to use xPDO as suggested? Frankly, I am too ignorant to pursue one of these options without some direction. Any help will be appreciated.

I’m working on an introductory guide to using xPDO as we speak, but there is a lot to cover in the 2+ years it has existed without documentation. Hopefully, I can at least get a draft out with Revolution 2.0.0-beta, but for now, your best bet is to follow examples and ask questions in the xPDO forum.