Hello,
After many years away from web dev (essentially having returned to noob status), after much research and reading through your (and others’) forums, I have pretty much decided on modx as a means to develop a modest blog site for myself -- albeit a one free of the cookie-cutter design endemic to other CMS’s, a faculty modx seems to uniquely afford. I would rather invest in learning modx and MooTools or jQuery, than pushing out another WP/MT/etc type site that all look distractingly the same to me.
I have a simple but specific design concept in mind and I was hoping to ask simply whether in your professional opinion(s) it could be accomplished either through or in conjunction with modx, in whole or part, rather than asking for a ’how-to’ per se (though that’d be great, of course!). If I know it can be done, I will figure it out. But if it’s not possible, I’d rather not spend a lot of time trying. Thus I’d really, really appreciate your collective expert opinions.
Essentially I am hoping to create a simple site to host a blog (mostly about philosophy and mass culture), photo gallery and my C.V., using ModX and probably jQuery (as it seems easier than MooTools), but one with the following design imperatives:
First, as a background to a modx-managed blog, I would like the site to have a resizable, edge-to-edge hi-res non-tiled picture background.
The resizable background function, a javascript/css of some sort, is illustrated in these sites:
A. Eirik’s ’Go To China’ travelogue:
http://www.ringvemedia.com/ (best -- apparently leveraging MooTools and RSS somehow), or:
B.
http://css-tricks.com/examples/ImageToBackgroundImage/index.html (almost as good, but try resizing vertically and you’ll see why it’s not)
Second, I would like the blog’s archive/calendar and the site’s different navigation links (e.g. ’blog’, ’photo gallery’, ’C.V.’ etc) to be able to stay in place in a sidebar, and have the blog/gallery content scroll in its own column/pane atop a section of the picture background, but with its own opaque background (partially translucent perhaps?) so the text is readable. It seems silly that on so many sites, as you scroll down the blog, the nav links and archive and so on stay up at the top, only to scroll out of view as one reads.
Third and lastly, if possible I would like each navigation link, collectively positioned on the side of the blog, to be a distinct ’button’/image hovering over the background picture, not a single ’block’ with links, if possible, though this is less important than having the nav links stay in place as one reads the blog.
Is such a design feasable, using ModX to manage the blog and so on? A simple yes or no is fine, but of course any and all extra information to point me in the right direction, e.g. about what modules or tools (for Modx/Mootools/jQuery), specific snippets or bits of js etc., would be necessary to accomplish this would be greatly appreciated.
Much thanks from one just starting out,
David
ps. Lest one worry, I am not looking to copy the exact design of the example sites I listed, I am only curious about what technologies were used. Also, re: the css-tricks.com site, I realize he explains his method (
http://css-tricks.com/how-to-resizeable-background-image/ ) -- I am just not sure if it is a procedure that could work with modx in the manner I described.
