Before I go insane.. MODx into Existing Site

Hey there everyone out in MODx land. Typical noob here, and probably with a typical noob question unfortunately. Anyway, lets get to it.


I’ve designed a site, for a client. They want a few pages, like 2-3, where they can manage the content and update it (with no html/css skills). The site is already built, and if you would, please take a gander at it @ nusourcetech.com to get an idea of what I’m working with here. I just installed MODx today, and have spent a solid 5 hours getting absolutely NOTHING accomplished.

Basically, with all that said - Here are my questions!:

Is making the content (center section of the site) manageable/updatable [Just simple text, and maybe an image] out of my league as a MODx noob?

Is this something that can’t really be done without a ton of work?

Is there another route I should have/be gone/going?

What would something like that cost to have done?

Or am I just a complete idiot - and failing to grasp a simple concept?


Just as background - I’ve read a lot of the help links, including Bob’s Guides, ect, ect, even about site porting. It’s just not clicking?

I’m sure this has been over a million times but of course I still have to ask it. I’m driving myself nuts and need a solution. Any help would be great ladies and gents.

Thanks a lot for your time!


-Mike

Mike, Welcome to MODx.

Do you want clients to be able to update the content in the front end of the site, or would it be ok to teach them to use the Manager?

Hey Bob, what a speedy response! Loving it already, and thanks for the welcome!


To answer your question, it would just be teaching them to use the manager.


Best,


Mike

MODx is made for this type of thing... this is completely within your capabilities.

Do you already have MODx installed and working?
Do you already have your own templates up and running?

What do you need to get started?

I’ve made several videos for using MODx:
http://www.tipsfor.us/category/software/modx/

And I know Bob has made several outstanding guides.

Hey Everett,

I DO have MODx installed and working!

The templates part confuses me, I’ve been playing around for hours, even after reading Bob’s guides. I must be brain dead or something, ugh. Even when I tried copying my code in a template, or chunk, and my images don’t show, no matter how much I worked the config file or even moved the images around, nor do my includes seem to be working, which now that I think of it are PHP includes so I’d have to use them as a snip? (either way that’s a whole’nother issue).... Oy the stress!!! Haha, please save me.

I’ll check your vids out tomorrow Everett, for sure. Thanks a ton guys.


Best,


Mike

Right.... you CAN’T put raw PHP code into a template... they’d have to go into a Snippet.

But consider using a MODx chunk -- that’s a convenient way for you to reference re-usable bits of HTML.

Sometimes the hardest things for new-comers to grasp is that ALL of a template lives inside the MODx database. It can reference files on the file system, but it doesn’t have to. Also, be really careful about your use of paths when referencing external assets e.g. images, style sheets, js files. I always put a leading slash, e.g.


I’d also recommend using the HTML base tag in your templates (in the <head>), e.g.


That comes in handy any time you’re using a CMS that relies on Apache’s mod_rewrite (as MODx does).

And you’d probably better paste your Template code in here so we can see what you’re trying to do... if you’re having this much trouble, you’re doing something wrong. MODx is the easiest CMS I know of when it comes to templates. Let us see what you’re doing so we can help.

Thanks, Ev! You guys are great here. I’ll be at work all day but can probably still post my code when I get there, stand by!


Are you looking for the whole site’s code?

Quote from: mike.sweeney at Oct 09, 2009, 06:29 AM

Are you looking for the whole site’s code?

No, definitely not. Just the code from the main template.

Let me take another shot at explaining it.

You need a template that holds all the content that will be on every page. Somewhere in that template, you put a tag like this:



That’s the part the client will edit.

When you create a new document, the Create/Edit Document screen has a "Content" field. When a site visitor looks at that page, whatever is in that field will appear in place of the [*content*] tag in your template. If you check the "Rich Text" box, the client will have a WYSIWYG editor to edit that field in the Manager.

Think of it like this. Here’s a conceptual look at a typical MODx template:



When a site visitor requests a page, MODx gets the template assigned to it, which already contains the HTML for the Banner, NavBar, SideBar and Footer. MODx replaces [*longtitle*] with the documents actual Long Title, then it replaces
[*content*] with the content from the document’s Content field. Then it sends the page off to to the visitor’s browser.

Hope this helps.