Guidlines for a template archive

This may be an overachieving goal to implement and this may apply to site design guildlines as much as template design. But...

I would like to see some general design guildlines suggested from professional designers, maybe in the documentation section, about what we should name things in a new template to make it easily portable between other designs. Something that us new designers can go by when we create a new template to make it portable so to speak. Something that could give suggestions on how to design a super flexible template for MODx.

At the start of the section you could of course give a disclaimer that CSS and HTML can be configured however you want in MODx, but designing with these tags and calls will make it more portable across otehr MODx sites.

Example:

• Suggest a way to format the template and CSS so they are simlar enough that installing a new template would automaticly fit the new site.
• Suggest some common chunk names for maximum site flexibility.
• Suggest some common TV names for maxium flexibility.

Is all that as clear as mud? Maybe a little clearer?

The idea for this suggestion came after reading a thread here.

I think most of the orginal post’s suggestions would likely be resolved if there was an official Template archive on the MODx site that hosted some "Officialy Approved" templates ... a best of the best selection (so to speak). And then have a general archive for all the other submissions that were just plain-jane. As it stands now any search for templates brings back all the crapy along with the good and a user has to manually search through hundreds to find just a few great looking designs.

Before I came across MODx, there were about three things I always looked at to decide if I wanted to invest time into learning their system.

• Professional sites running on the CMS (comparing variety between designs)
• The backend’s interface (prettiness, cleaness, logical layout)
• Template archives to know if the system is drawing good designers

And it is helpful to have a few really high end, drasticly different, designs to play with when learning a new system to see how things change around between templates.

Quote from: jbjones at Apr 16, 2006, 03:56 PM

The idea for this suggestion came after reading a thread here.

I think most of the orginal post’s suggestions would likely be resolved if there was an official Template archive on the MODx site that hosted some "Officialy Approved" templates ... a best of the best selection (so to speak). And then have a general archive for all the other submissions that were just plain-jane. As it stands now any search for templates brings back all the crapy along with the good and a user has to manually search through hundreds to find just a few great looking designs.

Thats an interesting idea, and they would be ’officially’ approved by who ?

What if people think all the templates seen so far were plain as Jane ? Does anyone want to volunteer the job of hurting peoples feelings ? And actually, some of these plain-Jane templates are good for understanding the ’inner-workings’ of MODx - so at this point I’d thank ’everyone’ for their templates regardless of how others happen to see them.

Fact is, there aren’t enough templates to start ’Officially Approving’ them - why? Well, MODx doesn’t need templates because its whole ’thing’ is that it works in with any old css design - once people get their heads around that, perhaps the handful of templates available will be better appreciated for their ’technical’ accomplishment

Of course more ’variety’ of templates showcasing MODx’s many applications would be great, and people should be encouraged to make them regardless of how others think they look

I would say they would be approved by the same people who decide to release new versions. Basicly I’m talking about a top 20 list of high end templates. But like you said, there’s not that many good ones out there, yet.

I realize that any design can be built onto MODx, but it took me probably two weeks to figure that out. After that, I jumped in with both feet. So to speak.

Quote from: jbjones at Apr 17, 2006, 01:17 AM

I would say they would be approved by the same people who decide to release new versions. Basicly I’m talking about a top 20 list of high end templates. But like you said, there’s not that many good ones out there, yet.

I realize that any design can be built onto MODx, but it took me probably two weeks to figure that out. After that, I jumped in with both feet. So to speak.

I didn’t say there’s not that many goods ones out there - I said there weren’t "many" templates period. I also said ’some people might’ think all of the available templates are what you’d call ’crapy’ - I ’might not’ think that, since I happen to believe it isn’t polite to challenge someone elses idea of beauty and whenever possible I keep my opinions to myself.

I also said the templates were all good for technical reference... which they are.

Perhaps a greater emphasis on how MODx works with ’any old’ css design could be communicated ’better’ - how, I’m really not sure.

Anyway, I don’t think serves any purpose to ’measure’ "free" contributed material when there isn’t a great deal of it. Perhaps when there’s thousands of contributions and they need to be ’ordered’ for one reason or another, people might have the choice to vote on their favourites... and a list ordered by popularity?

MODx templating is so easy
Go to any mayor template site grab one and place your tags.
then tnker with the css for menu styling and your done.

I like to create template from scratch thats as easy mabe even more easy than "converting a design"
Templates are nice but MODx is not that limited! any design is posible take a look in the site showcase to get ideas and create. ore use any internet site as your inspiration.

I belive that having some MODx templates is great for starters but most people and clients like there "own" design.


Dimmy

Starbuck,

What template have you used for your Modxhost site...?
...and can you have a calapsable menu down the left "as it looks like" you can on the right...?

or is it based on another template that is available...?

Regards,

maybee a good sugestion is to get the templates listed in a way people can browse and look t them on a easy way. Forums like IPB, PHPBB and SMF do this. I use IPB and Invisionize.com (http://skins.invisionize.com/db/index.php/c/184) does an excelent job in displaying a template and then connect a support thread with it.

Kinda nice if a new rookie user tries and tests a theme. I mean, no kidding I am slowly starting to understand more and more of the power of MODx myself. Things you run into and figure out.

Now is the major question if we could organize it and setup some structure to make it quick and easy for even more savvy users to learn from other designer and MODx gurus in how to manipulate MODx in their advantage.

For that matter we can improve snippets and the core of our beloved MODx much easier when people start to understand the incredible power and want new feature or ask for updates.

Just a brain dump...

I’m for using a name convention. I tried this with the port that I just posted. I tried to prefix TV, template, chunks, snippets (errr, I better double check). But, I did try to use something to give the end user an idea of what is what.

I guess this comes from having db prefixes.

As for the templates, I guess this should go for snippets and what not too. Having a main download area is going to be nifty however, I imagine that this is going to come along around after the 1.0 release, at which, time I’m sure many other services will extablish themselves.

As it been said here many times -- this will all come in due time.

However, I am a strong supporter of pre-discussing all of this to get a group consensus.

When you look at templates just from a design-esthetical view, there isn’t much to tell about MODx: The design is just as it is without MODx. period. The more interesting stuff here seems to be how a template works, I’m talking about the functional side of templates, in MODx this means using Dropmenu, TVs, Ditto, sub-templating etc.
The problem here is that the functionality of a template is dependant on individual settings, just "copy & paste a template" would not work.
This is, because - compared to other CMS - MODx does not require a specific structure or logic. That’s one of its major strengths, I think. On the other hand, it’s not possible to create a "universal" template archive like for J!/Mambo and other similar types of "monster-CMS"...
Those templates are just visual variations of the fixed logical structure of the CMS itself. MODx does not have this type of limitation.
I guess a "template archive" should be mainly a linklist of good working sites done with MODx and some helpful documentation of the template’s developer how he has implemented it using MODx Widgets, Plugins etc.