New to Modx

First I have to say that I am a Mac user using Rapidweaver to create my web site. I am looking for a solution that will allow me to create a web site that I can access and update etc... from anywhere. I looked at Joomla, Drupal, and Wordpress. I need something that is fairly simple to use and maintain.

My current site consists of only five pages. Two of the five pages have some code behind them, and use plugins specific to Rapidweaver. This is sample code from my In Transition Archives page:

<embed src="http://www.mcran.com/mediaplayers/mediaplayer.swf"width="375"height="475"allowscriptaccess="always"allowfullscreen="true"
flashvars="height=475&width=375&file=http://www.mcran.com/assets/xspf/itsnippetsxspf/b.xspf&backcolor=0x 9F9F9F&displaywidth=0&showstop=true"/>

All it is is an embedded MP3 player that refers to an XSPF file on the backend.

I am hoping that modx will fit my needs as I am getting pretty tired of looking at the other options that seem way too complicated for my needs. Please let me know if I will be able to do what I want in modx based on my current web site. Obviously I will not be able to use the RW plugins but I am hoping that there are alternatives.

I learn best by watching screencasts. Are there ModX screencasts that actually show you step by step how to create an actual web site. I would really appreciate it!!

Thanks so much!!!!

Randy
www.mcran.com

Welcome to MODx.

There are some excellent screencasts but someone else will have to provide the links because I don’t have them.

I wanted to point you to the site in my sig and especially this page: http://www.bobsguides.com/porting-your-site-to-modx.html, which will give you an overview of the steps you’ll need to take.

I’n not sure about your embed line but I think it will work fine in MODx, which puts no restrictions on your HTML code other than that it can’t contain PHP code. There could be conflicts with certain MODx plugins that use JavaScript but, if so, there are usually workarounds. It shouldn’t take long to find out.

Thanks Bob!

I am currently going through the link you provided, and it is very informative. Of all the CMS’s out there that I looked at, I think ModX is the only one I should be able to understand. My web site will not be very complicated at all so I am hoping to get up and running sooner.

When I look at web sites created by ModX, I was wondering how you set the background color of a site etc... Is this all control by the template, or are there controls to set these options?

Thanks.

I will try that out, Bob, are you the same Bob that has those informative ModX tutorials? I looked at them yesterday. I am basically trying to find a way to bring over my Rapidweaver project into ModX. The tutorials and screencasts I have looked at really help quite a bit and after looking at some of the other CMS’s out there, ModX seems to be the logical choice for me.

I am not a coder but it looks like the code used in ModX isn’t really all that hard to learn. I’m still working my way through it.

Does anyone know if there is a screencast out there that wals a newbie through the process of creating a ModX site? I have a second monitor on my iMac, and it would be great to have the screencast on one monitor and me following along on the other monitor. I learn so fast watching Screencasts.

Thanks again!!

Quote from: rmcellig at Oct 14, 2009, 11:18 AM

I will try that out, Bob, are you the same Bob that has those informative ModX tutorials?

I think so.

You can also put the embed-code in a chunk, and just use the chunk in your template or document: {{mp3Player}}

That is the best way to do it and my preferred way, also saves anyone with manager access breaking complicated code by accident.

paulp,

I agree and it keeps everything consistent. Now if I can just figure out how to bring my RW index file into Modx and get my data organized, I will be good to go. Like I said in a previous post, my web site is not complicated, it’s just that I am not quite sure how to organize everything in ModX. I have an idea but I would like to work through it with someone on the ModX forums so that I can make sure I am doing everything right.

What are the RW ( never heard of that )???

And just so you are aware I’ve been developing websites for years and started using Modx about 18 months ago and have not yet come across anything that can’t be done

If you give us more details about what you need to implement we can show you how

Thank you so much for the help getting started!!! RW means Rapidweaver. This is the application I use on the Mac to create my web site. I want to move away from it to ModX because this way I can update my site from anywhere as well as have specific users added who will work with me on my web site. I like this a lot. I have been spending a lot of time going throgh some tutorials and the more I learn the more I realize how flexible ModX is and how it will fit my needs.

It is important to me that the forum is a good one. I am so spoiled by the Rapidweaver forum which for me is the best forum I have ever used. In fact, it was a RW user who told me about Modx.

For now, What I am hoping to do is bring my current web site into ModX. You can check out my site and let me know what I have to do. The home page has five pictures on it. When you click on a picture, information is presented below. I’m sure that ModX has something similar I can use. Same goes for the Radio tab which is made up of custom HTML and custom CSS.

www.mcran.com

Thanks again!!