Please Explain, it will only take a minute!

Hi, I’ll make this as brief as possible, here we go:

I am a designer, with a fairly quick learning aptitude for code related things if they are explained well, so I thought I’d have a look at implementing a service for my smaller clients where they can edit their website without the need for the huge expense of designing a CMS from the ground up by an outside programmer.

I have installed MODx onto a test server, and I’ve got the basic hang of the manager backend, creating templates, template variables, how the menu (Wayfinder) works, basic ideas of Snippets etc, enough to get a pretty looking site.

What I’d really like to know is this:
How do I allow an end user to update the site with the minimum of hassle, and more importantly without destroying anything? There seem to be modules people are creating which appear to allow for the client/end user to login as a web-user and then presumably choose what they want to do, for example, if it were a band website, they would go to ’Add Gig Date’ and they would be presented with a form to add a gig date and the relevant details, which would appear on the gig page, or add an image to an existing gallery etc. Is this the case or do they need to use the back-end manager like I am when setting up the templates?

If there is a facility where I can present the client with tailored forms to enter new data, pages, images etc, could someone point me in the direction of how such forms should be created and what I’d need in terms of snippets etc.

Hopefully this makes sense.

J

There are a couple of snippets that allow document creation and editing from the front-end. NewsPublisher is the old one and is included with a full demo site installation of MODx; I think NewsManager and its accompanying NewsEditor are newer versions with much the same functionality.

Like many things in MODX, there are a number of ways to do this.

Using your example of gigs, you could create a document template with Template Variables for the date, location, etc. Then, you’d create a document with those things blank and make it a a "container" document. Then users could log into the Manager, right click on the container and select "create new document here" and fill in the info. You could use permissions to restrict them from editing other pages. You’d display the gigs with the Ditto snippet. You could also have a drop-down list of band names they could select from (another Template Variable).

Another way to go would be to create a gig entry form with eForm. You can set things up so that only logged-in members could see that page in the menu. eForm2DB would save the info to the database (in which case you’d probably need a custom snippet to display it) or you could write a custom snippet that would create a page for each gig like in the example above to be displayed with Ditto.

I’m not sure, but I think you might also be able to use WebLoginPE to create a profile for each band and have an extra field for gigs that could be edited via WLPE.

I think I’d be inclined to use the first method but it depends on your specific needs.

I hope this makes some sense.

[update] Sottwell wrote her response while I was doing mine and NewsPublisher is definitely another, perhaps better, way to go if it will meet your needs. It’s also the easiest method to try out.

Thanks for the speedy replies... So is this the ’norm’ for site developers using MODx to use a front end area for updates? It sounds like a more user-friendly way for a technophobe client/user to update their site, rather than worry about what may be overwhelming for them going in via the manager...

Some pages could get quite complicated with image galleries etc, so presumably this can all be done via NewsPublisher or/with eForm2db...?

Is there a well documented/good example of eform2db anywhere.. The thread on the forum is a little all over the place....

J

I would definitely try NewsPublisher first. I’m afraid what you found on eForm2DB is all there is.

NewsPublisher accepts a &template parameter with the name of the template to use and that template can have Template Variables to do all your custom stuff.

Thanks, I shall give it a go!

J

And if you use the [*#...*] TV tag format (note the #) in your template the TVs will be available for editing when editing a page via QuickEdit (requires manager login, but doesn’t need to use the Manager)

Re image galleries, Maxigallery can give both web (front-end) users and manager (back-end) users management rights, you just put your web users into a group and specify the group in the parameters. I think v0.5.2 (http://modxcms.com/extras.html?view=package/view&package=259) is the latest "released" version (difficult to tell with the repository these days...) KP

Thanks KP, I saw that, need to upgrade to PHP 5 though to use it I think. It looks pretty good. It’s a shame so many of these snippets/plugins don’t have comprehensive demo sites or documentation for the learners like myself. Best get learning then I think!