New to Modx, Is this possible?

Hi,

So I’m new to the "dynmaic" website, and have only ever created static websites before. I’m not a web designer or anything, just creating a website for my clan in my free time, however I’m not interested in using such CMS’s as php-nuke, I know the style I’m after, and it doesnt lie there. I have a few questions on how to get what I’m looking for, before I even attempt to start skinning the site and forum.

1) SimpleMachines Forum Integration.

Yeah, I’m looking to interate my forum and Modx site to use the same user accounts, it makes things so much simpler on the users side, but apparently not for me. I’ve searched for Modx and SMF integraters and only wind up finding stuff for outdated versions of either Modx and SMF or both. Both Modx and SMF recommend using their most up-to-date stable software, and I fear going back down the timeline and using old stuff, limits my usage of add-ons for Modx that I’m surely going to need. Whats the right step forward here?

2) Additional User profile fields

I’m looking for the User to sign up using the Modx site, and not being able to sign up in the forum, as there are extra fields I wish the user to fill out for a Roster and profile page. I have a limited knowledge of php, but I’m happy with pulling data, and echoing it back into a table for the roster, and a new page for profiles, but what I’m unsure about is adding in these extra fields, and storing the data in the database (This is definately my first use of a databse), and all at the same time integrating nicely with the forum. Keeping in mind, these extra data fields will only be for the website itself.

3) News

I’m pretty sure this is a fairly simple one. Any news I post on the site through Modx, I want to appear in the news board on my forum, under my username. I think I know how to do this on a "static" site, but not sure where I’d go with this in a CMS

4) News complete with images

When I input a news item, I want to be able to input an image that tags along with the news. These images will be a set size, and if the uploaded images isnt the right size, it will be resized. I’m looking to do this because there will be a javascript content slider on the homepage, showing the latest say, 10 news items in images.


Well I think thats all, 4 bullet points seems less than I’ve had wirling around my head, but on reading through it is a big task for me. I’m looking for suggestions on the way forward for this, I’ve been puzzling over it for a few weeks now, and I’ve decided its time to get my teeth firmly dug in. =D

Matt~

I while I’ve never done a forum integration with MODx and SMF the News parts of your request I can discuss.

The News is a matter of posting items and creating template variables for your images—especially if you are only placing one image. You can use the AutoResize Plugin which will automatically resize the image to a fixed dimension and you can even control the compression ratio as well.

To display your news you will likely want to use Ditto.

Thanks for reading and replying. I’ve read up on Ditto, and from what I can see, this is what would allow me to present the latest 10 news items in the javascript content scroller.

I might have a look at this Image resizer as a safe guard, but since I’m the one going to be creating these images I think we are safe on the size thing.

I’m however not sure how to change "template variables" and such to add in the part to upload the images, could you go into a little bit of depth here possibly?

There are types of Template Variables. When you create a template variable you can change the input type. You can either select image or file for images. (I use file if I am using a fixed template position for the image output and I just insert the filename into the src part of the image call in the template or chunk).

Here is a brief on Template Variables from the documentation: http://modxcms.com/creating-a-template-variable.html

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.

Cheers,

Jay

Cheers Jay, template variables seem alot less complex than i thought, I went and checked them out on the modx wiki.

I’m still looking for SMF integration though, It’s my primary task, and I know its possible. Does anyone have any resources available?

See this, it may get you in the right direction to integrating SMF with WebloginPE: http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php?topic=21588.0