Getting Started with ModX

Hi Everyone,

I’m just getting started with Modx. Seems like just what I’ve been looking for as far as a flexible, easy to use CMS. I’ve created several sites using Joomla and WordPress. I was always bothered by how hard it was cutting my designs and getting them implemented. So far, using modx as a simple content editing app appears to be as easy as adding just a few tags to my already completed html and css. Fantastic. I do however have a few concerns.

1. I am not a programmer. I design in fireworks, build out my html and css in dreamweaver and then publish my sites. The one thing I love about both joomla and wordpress is that there are a ton of easy to install and then very easy to use modules to create just about anything I need in a site. So far, Modx seems to have a lot less addons and the ones that are available appear to be a bit more difficult to get installed. I’d love to hear from some other "designers" about how easily they adapted to Modx.

2. I usually use a lot of scripts on my sites to add some style, fun and functionality to my sites. Can I simply call these scripts as I always have? I also use formmail.php which is very easy to use. I have a few sites that rather large forms. The eform snippet seems a little bit confusing to me. Can I continue to use formmail.php? Can is use a cgi formmail that is installed from my host? I guess I just want to know if I’m locked in to using what’s available in Modx.

3. It seems like a lot of the addons are very old. 2006, 2007. Do all of the scripts in the repository still work with Evolution 1.0?

I’m sure the more I learn, the more I’ll like ModX. I really would like to settle on one main CMS to use for most of my sites. With how easy it is to build custom templates in ModX, I’m hoping this will be the one to focus on. I’ve already installed it on two sites and have been impressed with it. I just don’t want to find that I’m stuck without enough functionality or enough programming skills to get the functionality I need.

Look forward to hearing more and becoming more involved with this community!
Thanks in advance.

Quote from: mdsdesign at Aug 29, 2009, 11:33 AM

I’m just getting started with Modx. Seems like just what I’ve been looking for as far as a flexible, easy to use CMS. I’ve created several sites using Joomla and WordPress. I was always bothered by how hard it was cutting my designs and getting them implemented. So far, using modx as a simple content editing app appears to be as easy as adding just a few tags to my already completed html and css. Fantastic. I do however have a few concerns.

Welcome to MODx. There are some fantastic resources available on the following page which should help you to learn to think MODx. MODx is very different and very flexible (I’d argue it’s much more intuitive, but I’m biased), so some un-learning from other platforms may be in order.

1. I am not a programmer. I design in fireworks, build out my html and css in dreamweaver and then publish my sites. The one thing I love about both joomla and wordpress is that there are a ton of easy to install and then very easy to use modules to create just about anything I need in a site. So far, Modx seems to have a lot less addons and the ones that are available appear to be a bit more difficult to get installed. I’d love to hear from some other "designers" about how easily they adapted to Modx.

This is where the flexibility of MODx comes to mind. For example Wayfinder can be used to build split navigation, drop down navigation, sitemaps, FAQ indexes, tables of content, and more. Similarly Ditto can be used to build blogs, news archives, Press Release systems, bio listings, advertising managers, and about 100 other different things that are frequently needed in websites. In most other platforms each of those functional applications would be a dedicated add-on.

2. I usually use a lot of scripts on my sites to add some style, fun and functionality to my sites. Can I simply call these scripts as I always have? I also use formmail.php which is very easy to use. I have a few sites that rather large forms. The eform snippet seems a little bit confusing to me. Can I continue to use formmail.php? Can is use a cgi formmail that is installed from my host? I guess I just want to know if I’m locked in to using what’s available in Modx.

Pretty much any third party script can be converted into a MODx add-on.

3. It seems like a lot of the addons are very old. 2006, 2007. Do all of the scripts in the repository still work with Evolution 1.0?

I am confident the vast majority still work. In fact I don’t know of any that don’t work. Granted a few have recently been updated to accommodate the changes in the Evo manager, but that’s just for things on the back-end.

I’m sure the more I learn, the more I’ll like ModX. I really would like to settle on one main CMS to use for most of my sites. With how easy it is to build custom templates in ModX, I’m hoping this will be the one to focus on. I’ve already installed it on two sites and have been impressed with it. I just don’t want to find that I’m stuck without enough functionality or enough programming skills to get the functionality I need.

And in this area is where MODx REALLY shines. Our community is incredibly helpful and continues to amaze me even to this day. I don’t think you’ll find a more helpful, non-elitist, encouraging and kind group of folks on any other project.

Thanks for the quick response! I’m working on converting a fairly simple site right now as my first "live" run through. I will let everyone know how it goes.

I’m excited by the possibilities of ModX. It’s the first CMS that seems to allow you to use the html and css right out of the box so to speak.

Back to my site....

If I had a dollar for every happy MODx user that left a similar post, I could retire to Monaco. Nine times out of ten, in a few months they’re asking questions about how to customize a snippet.

Well, I’m even happier now. I just spent about 2 hours converting a site that I’m working on and I can’t believe how easy it was. I had some of the page content already created, but I had my home page and my master page created with css ready to go so it was just a matter of adding some simple tags and changing a few directory paths. I’m just scratching the surface here, but with this site my client really only needs to be able to edit the pages and add some occasional news. I do however have a few questions that maybe someone can help me with.

First, here is the site: http://pomfret.mdsdesign.com

1. At the top you’ll see a link button for members. This is nothing fancy, just a single page that my client will be able to post information strictly for club members. So, it needs a username and password. Just one that members will share. Nothing really top secret here. I have no idea how to do this. Did a quick search of the forums and didn’t find this exact situation.

2. My contact and directions page... I used google maps code for the map which uses an iframe. The code is there, but no iframe? Can I do iframe’s with ModX? If so, any hints? I have two more sites that I need to get going on and I really want to focus on ModX for them but both require some iframe content due to subscriptions to third part web apps.

3. On the news page I guess it would make sense for my client to post a news article and have the latest news appear on top. I can certainly just have them add this to a basic page using the text editor, but I’m guessing I should use Ditto for this somehow? Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Again, I’m very new to this so I apologize if I’m asking dumb questions. I just found ModX a week ago and I’ve read through some tutorials, installed a few versions of it to play with and that’s about it so far. The next few sites I need to do have a bit more functionality so the more I can figure out now the better.

Thanks again everyone.

Not dumb at all. I’m not sure about the iFrames, but:

1. The most efficient way to do this is with a snippet at the top of the member only page that checks for the user being logged in and, if not, redirects them with $modx->sendRedirect() to a login page with the WebLogin snippet on it (or WebLoginPE).

3. Ditto is definitely the way to go. Create a container document for the news articles and put each news item in a separate page below it.

Then, on the page where you want to display the news, put this:



Replace the first ## with the document ID of the container document and the second ## with the number of news items you want to show.

You can create a tpl chunk and add it to the Ditto tag to format the output and include or exclude any fields if the default one doesn’t work for you.

Thanks so much for the response. I have to admit, I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about for some of it. I know that I need to dig in a bit more to figure these things out.
I’ll give it a try tonight or tomorrow and post if I still need help.

I do still need some help with the iFrame issue though. I’m sure there is a solution and I’ll take a harder look around to figure it out.

Thanks again.

Hi Again!

Just put the iframe code into a chunk and its working great. Searched the forum and found a reply by Susan Ottwell sharing that advice with another user.

These forums are great. I think I really just need to acquaint myself with a little more of the structure and it should start coming together. I’m very impressed with how easy it was to get this site converted to ModX.

I really need to look into the assigning users permission to see what they get on the backend. I want them to pretty much be able to just edit text and nothing else.

I guess we’ll see how it goes.

Thanks.

Quote from: BobRay at Aug 29, 2009, 04:36 PM

You can create a tpl chunk and add it to the Ditto tag to format the output and include or exclude any fields if the default one doesn’t work for you.

This is where I’m getting lost. A tpl chunk? Include, exclude fields? I guess I need to read up on Ditto.

Create a chunk to use as a template (we tend to call these tpl instead of template so they won’t be confused with your main site templates) for Ditto’s output. This will be used for the layout of each item that gets listed.

Then in the Ditto snippet tags, add


The best way to do this is to first paste the default Ditto tpl into the chunk’s content area. Then modify as you like. Keep in mind this mini-template will be applied to each document as Ditto processes them one at a time. You need to use [+...+] placeholder tags for the document variables you want, instead of [*...*] the usual document variable tags. The same goes for TVs. If you use [*...*] tags, it will be the value for the document the Ditto snippet is on, not for the document being added to the listing!

Here’s one I’m using: