Portfolio Entries: Use Documents or Custom Component?

This is actually part of my project to do my site www.compeek.net in Revolution, but I decided to make a new topic so others might be able to benefit from the discussion.

Compeek.net is a site about my website design services, so one of the pages is going to be a basic portfolio of websites I have created. I have outlined for myself the fields I will most likely need for each portfolio entry. Here’s the list:

• Title
• URL
• Client
• Date (possibly just month and year of start of project
• Reference (this isn’t definite, yet, but this would be for contacting the client as a reference if the client is willing
• Description/Explanation
• Screenshot
• Thumbnail of Logo (I might skip this and just use the screenshot)

Some things might change, but that’s my basic list of fields I will need to store for each portfolio entry.

The question I am asking myself is whether it would be more beneficial to use documents for the entries, or to write a custom component that would let me manage the entries in a more specific way. I could easily creating template variables for the fields that aren’t already covered by the default TVs for documents, but to me, the word ’document’ implies more of a set of paragraphs that make a page.

I’m most likely just going to use documents so I don’t reinvent the wheel too much, but I thought I post here for suggestions and input.

Perhaps ’document’ just isn’t the best word to describe what documents in MODx are intended to be used for.

Thanks!

Hi Compeek,

is this a general question, or revo specific? for evo i would def. approach it like this:

I could easily creating template variables for the fields that aren’t already covered by the default TVs for documents

or to write a custom component that would let me manage the entries in a more specific way.

i think there is no need to write a custom component for this project

j

It’s meant to be a general discussion, but I am on Revolution. All in all, I don’t think it makes a whole lot of difference, though. I realize that the way Evolution and Revolution accomplish things is a lot different, but their basic function is to serve pages for a website, and they have a lot of similarities. I suppose that’s a different discussion, so I’ll just say I’m open to things for Evolution or Revolution. I’m more interested in people’s ideas than specifics on how to do it.

If you’re going to have a list of clients, with links to more detailed pages on each client, then I’d certainly go with documents. It’s no different than blog or news listings.

If you just wanted to organize your clients for your own use, I’d be inclined to go with a custom element (module in the case of Evo). But in such a case, I’d question having the data stored on your website; any web server is just not going to be as secure as a data store in your own office. Preferably not connected to the ’tubes at all. I keep all my clients’ stuff on a USB stick.

Again, sottwell, like in my other topic, I probably should have written this more clearly. My goal is not to organize clients. I am storing a few details about websites I’ve done so I can show an entry for each on my portfolio. There is no secure data here.