Artist site structure, help a newbie!

Hi guys!

I’ll start by stating my knowledge level then i’ll explain what i need to do.

I’m new to MODx, and my last web design experience was during the days when tables and javascript used to support a page. This being said, the project i work on is rather simple so i should survive. I can handle the graphics/layout part and some generic programming too, however i have never faced php (i can learn if needed).

I have to do a painter’s website: biography, gallery, store (will implement a bit later), links, contact. It will not be updated very often but i’d like to make it as elegant as possible from the start.

The problem i have is with the gallery.. i want each painting to have it’s own page (obviously) with some info (name, dimensions, technique, price), comments and an ’add to cart’ option at a later date.

THE QUESTION IS : Do i have to create a different resource for every painting (there are about 120 at the moment) and apply a template and a template variable to generate the links or is there some other solution that still allows different comments on each page (Jot snippet) and info for each painting?

Photo gallery snippets/apps don’t quite cut it. I tried Maxigallery and even Zen photo before finding MODx.

Thank you for the patience and i hope i posted in the right location.

ps.. here’s the gallery in 90’s technology http://dsemartian.ro/gallery_old/gallery_hi/html/index_01.html

There are probably several ways of doing this.

After reading your post my hunch is that Ditto and TV’s will be your fiend here. 120 paintings is a lot but its still doable if you had to create a fresh page for each painting. Do the paintings have names? This could impact friendly URLs and links to individual pages which might be a nice feature.

You could create a nice Ditto aggregation system that would present a nice grid layout of thumbnails, painting sizes, names and summary. All of this Ditto aggregation could be taken care of nicely with the placeholders already present in MODx and some added TV’s. The full size painting scould be uploaded when each page is created. You could then assign a specific CSS style for vertical and horizontal paintings. The work would be tedious but all this data has to be entered into the system one way or another, especially if you want text blocks, sizes, prices and future "buy it now" links.

There is really no right or wrong way to to get things done with MODx. But MODx allows all kinds of freedom when it comes to working with a custom design layout. The more heavily you lean on good CSS techniques the better.

Still, there is something to be said for the javascript image gallery slide presentation format. Its fast and easy for the user, which should always be the objective for any site. There is nothing to say you could not use both systems. But the system that viewers like is the one that minimizes mouse clicks and hand movements to find the next forward arrow button link etc.