Evolution vs. Revolution

Ok, so I’m taking a look at modX for the first time, and it looks like a dream compared to beat-your-head-on-the-wall inflexibiity of Joomla, OSCommerce, and even Drupal (at least inflexible for a noob designer like me).

Ultimately, my biggest gripes with CMS are the fit-into-my-box design limits on the frontend, and the OMG-not-another-question training problems when handing the administration off to clients on the backend. MODX is obviously perfect for the first problem, but what about the second? Sure, the admin isn’t too scary for me, but I have to be conscientious of the end users, who will still be freaked out by all of those options. Drupal seemed pretty good on that modify-your-admin-for-the-n00bs front, but it’s still got a nutty learning curve on the dev side.

Questions, then:

• Did I understand correctly that revolution will give me total mod-ability on the admin end (since the admin is built on modx itself), but evolution won’t?
• Just how beta is revolution? I hate to sink my XP into an older product, especially if that means missing out on cool new features that would have made my life easier all along, but I also recognize that there aren’t a ton of snippets made for Rev yet, and I could waste a lot of time learning how to work with something that could be upgraded out of the feature set in the next revision. So anyway, f I’m really going to sink my teeth into this, which version should I grind on?

Keep in mind, I’m a designer, not a dev. I pick things up more readily than most graphic designers, but PHP still looks like cuss words to me. I’d really like something that I can muddle 80-90% of the way through, then hire a real coder to add spiffy features and fix my screw-ups.

I would definitely start with Evolution. Customizing the manager is an issue in both systems atm, and you’ll have more options with Evo right now on that front. The vision is that stand-alone client management interfaces will be developed for Revo which are much less scary to the clients than the full-fledged interface for administrators/developers.

Quote from: jeremyFP at Sep 02, 2009, 04:33 PM

Did I understand correctly that revolution will give me total mod-ability on the admin end (since the admin is built on modx itself), but evolution won’t?

This depends on what you mean by "mod-ability". If you’re talking about hiding/renaming fields, both can; you can install Evolution and then install the Plugin ManagerManager, which will do that for you.

Revolution (in SVN and in beta4 to be released soon) will include ManagerManager-like functionality into the backend, allowing you to hide/show any form field on any manager page, and more.

Just how beta is revolution? I hate to sink my XP into an older product, especially if that means missing out on cool new features that would have made my life easier all along, but I also recognize that there aren’t a ton of snippets made for Rev yet, and I could waste a lot of time learning how to work with something that could be upgraded out of the feature set in the next revision. So anyway, f I’m really going to sink my teeth into this, which version should I grind on?

There will be an easy upgrade path from Evolution to Revolution; the only major changes will be that Evo snippets may not work in Revo (unless their authors release a Revo version), and the Security section is vastly different.

That said, we hope to have Revolution in RC by winter; it all depends on community investment - both time-wise and financially. Beta is fairly stable; but it does lack a lot of the community developed Extras that Evolution has.

Keep in mind, I’m a designer, not a dev. I pick things up more readily than most graphic designers, but PHP still looks like cuss words to me. I’d really like something that I can muddle 80-90% of the way through, then hire a real coder to add spiffy features and fix my screw-ups.

I would recommend Evolution for you until we get out of beta on Revolution and there are more 3PCs (3rd-Party Components) available for Revolution.

As both Jason and Shaun mentioned, ManagerManager will give you an ability to deliver a completely bespoke Management UI for your clients, including custom data entry widgets for things like Tags, Color Pickers and Image Previews. Combined with the ability to customize completely the login and main welcome/dashboard page—mind you maintaining a 100% flawless upgrade path without hacking the core—and I suspect you’ll love the end result.

Man, you folks are quick! Thanks for the response.

So, when you say that I can use ManagerManager, am I going to be able to make things drop-dead simple, or is it going to be more like Joomla where I can hide things but not really change the way the UI works?

To get to know about MODx I always recommend this tutorial:

http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/other/working-with-a-content-management-framework-modx/

And these:

http://codingpad.maryspad.com/beginner-tutorials/

Quote from: jeremyFP at Sep 02, 2009, 05:28 PM

Man, you folks are quick! Thanks for the response.

So, when you say that I can use ManagerManager, am I going to be able to make things drop-dead simple, or is it going to be more like Joomla where I can hide things but not really change the way the UI works?

Most things can be hidden just my giving the client a login with less rights than the admin role. What they don’t have rights for they won’t see, which makes it easier.

As for how much the manager can be customized, well, I guess you could do just about anything (http://wiki.modxcms.com/index.php/Customizing_the_Manager_Homepage) if you don’t mind modifying a few (core) files.

MODx 1.0 has a plugin called QM+ (Quick Manager plus) that allows regular website owners to do most of what they need right on the site itself.

I’m having a bit of a hard time wanting to fully transition from Evo to Revo. I keep coming back to Evolution—particularly with the interface speed (unless it’s a hosting issue -- it’s not FireBug cuz I don’t use it). In addition to manager interface speed ManagerManager vs. Form Customization is another factor. Though I think you can do much more with Form Customization in Revo, the learning curve got pretty steep in comparison to MM. Deep down I know I’m going to need to probably switch eventually—which I’m sort of excited about too based on the rave reviews Revo gets and what I’ve seen with it in action on the couple basic sites I’ve used it on.

I’m interested to hear what other people have experienced and what their opinions are regarding this topic.

P.S. Some one please redirect me if there’s a more current thread where this post belongs.

I just threw myself at Revolution, and I am impressed. But I’m wondering, why is Evolution still under development?

I’m not exactly a beginner at developing stuff, but after Drupal, WordPress and Joomla, it’s finally something that allows the kind of flexibility I want. It makes it easier to breathe and to weave into the magic fabric of online awesomeness.

re: Evo’s ongoing development

There’s tens of thousands (or more) existing Evo sites and it’s still the right choice for many people.