Converting WordPress Theme to MODx Template

Still new - be gentle.

I was having trouble starting from scratch with MODx. I would like to create my site as a blog with some static content on the main page only - chunk for Welcome, chunk for What’s New. I have plans for other items, but this should keep me busy for now.

So, I re-installed the demo site with MODx. I am doing much better "tweaking" the demo than building from nothing.

I would like to give the demo site the look of a WordPress theme.

Is there a good way to go about this?

I don’t want to lose any of the demo pages or features yet, but want to apply the "look" of the WordPress theme.

I started by copying the MODxHost with Comments template and then tweaking the HTML and CSS. But this is mind numbing!

It’s difficult to figure out what ".topMenu" on my theme relates to in the MODxHost template. And there are basically 4 MODx CSS files and a .tpl file.

Am I attempting the impossible?

Is there a better way to do this than tweaking the MODx to match my theme?

Thanks!

It shouldn’t be that hard.
Of course at first you’ll be challenged because you’re switching from WordPress, but you’ll be OK.

I understand the demo site is a great learning tool, but starting from there in your case might not be the best course of action, as it will force you to do a lot of edits and changes to achieve what you want. The way I’d go about it if I were you (taking into account that you’re new to MODx, I would have started from scratch) is have a demo site handy for reference and make a clean install where you’ll start building your website.

Keep in mind MODx is pretty good at separating content and presentation. It means you can work with the demo site content as an example and take your WordPress theme and quickly turn it into a MODx one.

If I were you, I’d start with presentation : this will be fast and gratifying
Have your WordPress theme handy. Strip it of all WordPress tags. Then copy/paste the html into MODx templates. And copy the CSS files into assets/templates/your-template/ (adjust path for your css in the template accordingly). You’ll quickly get the desired look.

Then and only then, worry about content. Have a look at the tags in your original WordPress theme : where are they placed ? what’s their function ? For each element, compare to the MODx demo site and start to dig into the logic. You’ll quickly manage to understand what is what, and insert the MODx tags into your MODx template. At the end of the process, you’ll have the same website that you had to begin with, plus of course MODx goodness

Now the last step is, sugar coating
This is where you’ll add what’s not in WordPress but only in MODx. Look again at the demo site : what’s in there that you’re not familiar with ? Chunks, as in re-usable bit of contents. Plugins : they are different from WordPress plugins, essentially get familiar with System Events hooks and how you can enjoy it. Modules : hmmm, now you’ll see how you can add features to your manager Last but not least, Template Variables ! Here is the mind boggling part... illimited custom content fields of any type which you can assign to templates. On top of that, bind them to data sources (be it database, file or whatever...), but that’s for much later when you’re at ease with the rest.

And of course : you have the forums along the process, to help you figure out the hard parts

Thanks so much!

That is exactly the advice I was looking for.

I think it would be more worth while to spend time figuring out how to use MODx to build the features I want than comparing the .css files to see how to change the look of the Search box.

I’m sure I’ll be back!

I’m still very new, but I’m loving what I have the potential to do with MODx!

Well, glad I could help !

Don’t hesitate coming back with questions along the way

I have so far been unsuccessful in transfering footnotes that are made in a Word document onto Modx. The footnote shortcuts are transfered but I end up with a dead link.

when you say "footnote shortcuts" are you referring to the hyperlinks <a href=... ? If so, have you also included the necessary tags for the target? <span id=... or something along that line?

joe

Quote from: JoeP at Dec 23, 2006, 08:45 AM

when you say "footnote shortcuts" are you referring to the hyperlinks <a href=... ? If so, have you also included the necessary tags for the target? <span id=... or something along that line?

joe

nothing of the sort. I’ve just paste the doc from word. the links appear in the text, they are active but take you to a blank

Is this a word doc that has been published to html? If not, you might try that and review/edit the html code that results.
At any rate, I would definitely take a look at the source code that you are pasting (don’t use Word to do it, use a text editor) and check to make sure that the hyperlinks have somewhere to go in the document. If you have a link that looks like <a href="myfootnote1id">1</a> (for footnote #1), then somewhere in your document you should have an element with an id of myfootnote1id.
Also, I would recommend avoiding using word generated content if you can avoid it. Even if you publish to HTML, the code it generates can be ugly and may include dependencies that are not supported by all of your user environments.

good luck!
joe

Copy and paste from Word does not work, word produces garbage code which is worthless... you’ll have to add anchor links to your footnotes I am afraid...

Quote from: davidm at Dec 23, 2006, 10:49 AM

Copy and paste from Word does not work, word produces garbage code which is worthless... you’ll have to add anchor links to your footnotes I am afraid...

right, i was afraid of the same thing. is there not a writing programme that allows me to transfer with the footnotes? i do not fancy fiddling for every footnote.