when to use modules, snippets & plugins.

hi,
i’m having trouble grasping the concept of when i should be using either a module, snippet or plugin.
i haven’t found the documentation very helpful in learning this (possibly my own fault).


In my previous post (http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,26980.0.html), i was asking about creating a basic product catalog with seo-enabled product details page (fridge-kleenmaid-details.php)

- do you use a module solely to edit the products in the backend.
- do you use a snippet to show the list of products in frontend
- a plugin to recognise the URL (fridge-kleenmaid-details.php) and show the appropriate product details page with a snippet?

i’m struggling to recognise when to use the different functions of modx for a practical application.

does that make sense?

thank you for your wisdom in advance!

A module extends the Manager with your custom functionality. No need to hack the Manager core files to add a new bit of database management, or an interface for an external mailing list script, for example.

A snippet parses PHP code for the front-end (similar to the <?php ... ?> tags in plain files).

A plugin interrupts the current processing (whether it’s the document parser generating a page, or some other manager function such as creating a user or editing a document). They are triggered by specifically coded "event traps" in the processing php code. For example, the document parser has several of these, like

So a plugin would use the OnPageNotFound event to "plug in" its own code at this point in the process.

This is a very simple way of explaining things. Should be put on the wiki and translated. Maybe it is already somewhe in the faq, i haven’t look at it for long.