Template: if homepage show this, else show this.

If that's the only difference, then you're correct.

Just posing the question: Why wouldn't one want to use this technique more extensively? What I mean is, would this take longer to process than say an [[If]]? And, if we're loading a separate template how much more time would that add that could possibly be saved by having just the one template. Just playing devil's advocate a little...

This method can take longer to process if you have a lot of similar modifiers on the page and yes If would be much faster than using a modifier.

Wouldn't the time difference only apply the first time the page is cached? assuming that we're not not caching of course.

AFAIK you can't cache TVs or page tags, Jason talks about some best practices about MODX tags and conditionals here:

http://modx.com/blog/2012/09/14/tags-as-the-result-or-how-conditionals-are-like-mosquitoes

Quote from: benmarte at Mar 22, 2013, 12:32 PM

AFAIK you can't cache TVs or page tags, Jason talks about some best practices about MODX tags and conditionals here:

http://modx.com/blog/2012/09/14/tags-as-the-result-or-how-conditionals-are-like-mosquitoes

That's quite interesting.

I've used output modifiers with conditions on containers to format dates displays differently so the editors don't have to switch templates when archiving a page to a different section of the site. Didn't notice much of a performance hit but I'll have a look tomorrow to see if I can optimise it.

That article is awesome by the way.