Comment plug in

I was recently turned on to MODx. I am a candidate for president. Last month my web site had moere than 1000 unique visitors and 24,500 hits. My web site ios lden with information but the site is a total mess. http://www.michaelslevinson.com

This month I am at 117 Unique viitors and 7000 hits!!

The person who set up the basic MODx template on my server did this in exchange for my rewriting his resume. His work giving me a hand was less than satifactory so I’m on my own. I write code trial and error. I am not a programmer by any stretch and I recoil from words like element and TV, snippets and so forth.

I’m a poet. Here is a copy of my recent prose, "New World Hors D’oeuvres" <www.michaelslevinson.com/newworld.pdf> Beyond political satire, an exposition of The Television Scripture, The Book ov Lev It A Kiss, the "Recipe for World Peace" which is the Vehicle for World Peace, the whole 224 pages of prose can be pretty much, with minimal changes, be retype set as a poem.

I want to introduce myself to this community. The resume person also set up a Word Press template and claims I cannot have an interactice comments page with MODx where someone could read an article, for example, "Exit Strategy Out Of Iraq," and register and leave a comment so he says I should do my site with word press. (He was suoposed to be doing every thing - what a con!)

Does that feature require a plug in? Is that ability available. I like the idea of people registering and being able to post a message /comment. It seems you mut be able to do that because that is what i am doing right now. Yes?

The person who set up MODx claimed there weren’t any three column templates in MODx (an untruth) and used the first template in the MODx tutorial so I am haphazardly trying to build something interactive, organized and good looking! Here is the address. suffice to say I am hosting with host monster but I am thinking I could host with MODx.

I do NOT want to do Word Press just because I am stubborn! Here is my work in progress: http://michaelslevinson.com/main

I am trying to change the color in the bannr across the top and i am only beginning to improve the column on the right and I need to widen the two columns and make the outer margin area smaller . . . I need help customising the template . . . I have to prepare FORMAL COMPLAINT against all the Television networks with FCC (who will freeze and bury my complaint) - then attach that to a petition for Federal District Court against PBS and all the rest and either I give a nationwide speech before we go to the Supreme Court, or after, but i have to get this web site presentable in a big state of the art way.

in good faith

Michael Stephen Levinson

[email protected]

Michael, the background for your banner is actually an image file defined in your css file as:

(in the #header H1 section)
background transparent url(images/top_h1.gif) no-repeat scroll left bottom

(your CSS file is at: /main/assets/templates/default/site.css)

The image is in the /images directory of the site. If you put a different image there (either by replacing the top_h1.gif file or adding another image file and changing the file name in the line above) the banner background will use the new image.

Here’s the best tip I have for making changes to the site. Use FireFox and install the FireBug plugin (that’s how I got the information above). Click on the little bug at the bottom right of the screen while looking at your site.

Click on the little rectangle with the arrow at the upper left of the firebug window and then click on some part of your site. The panel at the right will show the CSS that controls that element. You can make changes to the CSS in the panel and see what they do. If you like what you see, edit your CSS file to match.

The forum you’re reading now is not really part of MODx, it is the SMF forum. If you Google that, you can see how to install and use it. In the case of the MODx forum, it is simply styled with CSS to look like the MODx site. You could do the same.

I think your site actually looks pretty good as it is. It’s a nice clean design.

If you want to do a simple blog with comments on the site with MODx, take a look here: http://wiki.modxcms.com/index.php/Basic_Blog. Some of the directions may not quite match the new version of the MODx Manager but you should be able to figure it out.

BTW, I found your poetry excellent. Good luck with the campaign.

Welcome to MODx.