Is MODx a good choice for small community group?

Hi All,

Very first post for me.

I am in charge of a small informal Toyota Land Cruiser club website. I am very comfortable with XHTML, CSS and image editing. Right now the club website is a straight html static page. We want to create a new dynamic site that will allow members to interact with the site dynamically.

I have a little Wordpress experience but for this project we are thinking we need a full CMS platform. I know next to nothing about PHP and MySQL but have managed to create a local test environment on my Mac. I have installed Joomla, Drupal, CMSMadeSimple, and now MODx. I was leaning towards Drupal but MODX seems a lot more streamlined. The MODx install was a snap.

So the question is: would MODx be a good choice for us?

Basic needs:

* Admin control: thats me.
* Ability for club members to sign up, log in, and be able to post their own photos into custom image galleries.
* Ability to create custom pages with fixed text blocks (static like content.)
* Ability to set up a basic easy to use bulletin board.
* Easy to use text/post entry system for users.
* Easy, easy, easy overall system for members.
* Easy access to the CSS so I can create or modify basic themes (I know CSS well.)
* Ability for members to create their own folder/identity so they add content and link the URL of the content elsewhere.
* Ability for individual identity avatars.
* Must work on all modern browsers and operating systems

I decided against Joomla and was set on using Drupal until I discovered MODx last night. I am hoping that this could be an easier and simpler solution. My lack of PHP and MySQL knowledge is a concern, but I do plan on learning the basics.

Thanks in advance for any input here...

Max

I think MODx will do everything you’ve mentioned fairly smoothly and easily although none of it is plug-and-play. MODx’s great power and flexibility mean that you have to set things up manually and there can be frustrating moments as you are getting over the little bumps in the learning process. OTOH, the community here is amazingly helpful at those moments.

The one possible exception to the above is the the bulletin board. I’ve never done one in MODx so someone else will have to comment on the options there.

We do seem to get quite a lot of former Drupal users and most of them seem quite happy to have made the move.

Bob

Thanks for that.

I wish I could make up my mind. While I have pretty good HTML and CSS skills I find all the CMS dynamic site platforms complicated and bewildering. I think bouncing from one CSS system to another is only adding to the confusion as they all have their own components and terminology. I need to focus on one and get busy but I can’t make up my mind. I can install them fine but getting them to function and having the pages look like I want them to do is frustrating to say the least. I have spent days on this quest and have not connected with anything yet.

A friend suggested not using a CMS at all and learn Ruby on Rails instead. After taking a peak at some Ruby books I realize that is not for me. I am a photographer and designer, not a programmer or developer.

I did try the "beginner’s guide to MODx" Wiki and my result was different from the result I was expecting to match in the tutorial. If activating the bulletin board is going to be an issue maybe I should go back to figuring out Drupal? I think I may be in the "plug and play" camp and am beginning to think MODx might not be for me...

As BobRay said the only issue would be the forum integration. I think it can be done but with some level of effort, however, I have not tried this myself either so I can’t say for sure.

These are the only items that I found to be a bit more challenging:
* Ability to set up a basic easy to use bulletin board.
* Ability for members to create their own folder/identity so they add content and link the URL of the content elsewhere.
-> for the second one there are a few options, it will depend on the specifics.

As for the rest, they will be easy to accomplish with existing snippets (php functions) or with MODx base itself.

I think I may be in the "plug and play" camp and am beginning to think MODx might not be for me...

MODx, IMO, is a great CMS for designers. You can have a site up and functioning in no time and have complete control over the look and feel of the site. As a coder you will love the flexibility of being able to easily create just about anything you may need with standard PHP code. There are many plug-n-play resources available for MODx to do all sorts of things and as the community grows the number of available resources grows along with it.

The issue with the forums is integrating the two user management systems, other than that there is no problem

Wow,

Just spent a couple of hours reading some stuff and doing some tinkering...

I managed to create a test page with custom CSS using a test template that will call the content. I am still a blind man in the dark here, but I am beginning to see the power of this system. Very intriguing!

The documentation is very sub par IMHO. The Template Basics description in the Designers Guide did a lousy job of explaining how the html code and the CSS "will make a page that looks like this:"; there was no explanation of where the CSS goes. This I had to find in the Wiki. When I did this found the default intro text covered the layout and went below the footer. I noticed the sample CSS had a fixed height. I then tried again: removed all the default "welcome to Modx" content and created some ipsum content and my own CSS with a centered fixed design. Bingo, it worked!

I think I see the coolness of Modx: no having to strip down "themes" like you have to do in other CSM systems. I can see this being designer friendly once you get your head around all the custom Modx template, chunks and snippets etc.

Sad about the forum implementation, I think this might be a deal breaker for this particular project. However, I am excited with the prospect of digging deeper into the Modx userface!

But the documentation here is not that great. A well written user guide that walks you through the management control system and explains where the html and CSS files goes in a newby friendly hand - holding manner would go a long way to gaining increased popularity for Modx. Keep in mind this is just my opinion. I have worked with Modx for less than a day, so take my comments with that in mind. But all the CMS systems seem to suffer similar new user shock: once you get it installed how do go about creating a very basic test website so you can get used to the system? They all have this barrier; from total confusion to initial rewards (basic understanding.) So far the best system(for me) for ease of new user understanding and support has been with Wordpress.

Thanks,

Max

I designed and hosted an Acura club site on e107 CMS. I can tell you it was easy to get started but then came the modifications and tweaks. Themes, forums galleries were all a compromise either of look and feel, functionality or ease of use. I do think that if you are accomplished with XHTML & CSS you’ll be much happier with MODx. The MySQL and PHP will come with practice.

I hope so. I think I need to find a good book on coding: PHP, databases etc.

I started off slowly with html as well, but I can now create pages with Strict, valid XHTML and CSS pretty easily. What once took me weeks I can now do in 30 minutes with basic text editor tools. Getting into PHP and CMS systems is the next step.

The club site I mentioned seemed like it would be a great test project. The guys want to be able to load their own content, posts, reports and images etc. ( The existing static site is at http://seattlecruiserheads.com/ )

If you got MODx installed, you probably know as much about the database part as you need to.

As for PHP, you can do most of what you want with MODx without doing any PHP at all. Mind you, PHP is handy for extending the platform to do things it can’t do out of the box. Other than the BBS, though, your needs are pretty standard.

I know it looks kind of daunting at first, I was there not that long ago. It reminds me of when I used to teach windsurfing. Students would repeatedly pull up the sail and promptly fall in. This would go on anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes, during which the students felt they were making no progress and would never get it. Then, they’d suddenly get it and sail off across the lake.

Here’s a post I did on creating user photo galleries:
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,18403.msg115330.html#msg115330

It’s a little sketchy but should give you some food for thought.

Bob

Nice site. You should do just fine with MODx. The folks around here will help you through the technical stuff but the rest you have down already.

I hear that there is some great work going into documenting the upcoming new release.