MODx Justification

Hello,

The place where I am a web developer wishes to migrate to a CMS. I really like MODx, but haven’t used it very extensively. The other developer here wants to go with Drupal. This is where you all come in... I need help justifying the use of MODx over Drupal. Any ideas are welcomed.

All I know so far is that MODx is lighter and Drupal (appears) rather difficult to theme. I am not experienced with either.

woo me

-Wes

Hi and welcome!

Probably the best way is to take the search function on this forum for a spin. There are a number of great threads that compare Drupal with MODx.

MODx might not have all the modules and goodies that Drupal does, but I found that MODx is SOOOOOOOOOOOO much nicer to design for. The migration from static XHTML and CSS test page to MODx template is a designers dream in my book.

Overall MODx is lighter and very flexible. The forum community here is great as well. Drupal is a great system but finding your way around is just so much more of a major expedition...

I use both MODx and Drupal, and my take on it is that it depends on what you want to build, your timeline, and your skills. It’s really hard to make a recommendation without knowing these things. You can read some thoughts on this here -> http://ichosemodx.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/i-love-them-equally-a-chat-about-modx-and-drupal-with-a-fan-of-both-systems/

Well,

We are a Library for the CSU System. Mostly static content with a few queries for contact type information. We will be building some searching modules and what not.

Our main needs are lightweight, flexible, easy to develop and implement modules, A need for TOTALLY different stylings for a home page and all sub pages (sub pages are all the same, but home page is vastly different, SEO friendly and some flexibility for content editor privileges.

I KNOW either system will work, but given our needs, i feel drupal will be overkill.

check out our site here: www.csufresno.edu/library

If it was for Sac State, I will definitely suggest MODx
( , I am an alumni...)

Quote from: charliez at Mar 02, 2010, 02:33 PM

If it was for Sac State, I will definitely suggest MODx
( , I am an alumni...)

Very Cool! I’m Alum for Fresno State (08)

So, I have until Tuesday night to justify moving to MODx (we need to get cranking on the site, so we need to decide a solution.)

I am playing around with it and have a few questions.

1) If I create 2 roles... can I make an editor role to where the user can edit and save content, but not publish the changes. Once the user saves changes, members of a 2nd group is created who can review and publish the content. When the editor saves the content, the changes should not be reflected until the publisher publishes the changes.

The other questions I will answer by digging around more.

Thanks,
Wes

Yes wesrock, when you create a new role you get a whole
page of "abilities" for the role and you can tick the ones
you want to give to that role.

MODx automagically hides the stuff from the manager gui according
to the permissions that each role has and also checks during actions
to see if that role has permission to do something...

If you want absolute control over the look and feel, and are comfortable with standard HTML/CSS and even JS if you want, then MODx will probably be much more straightforward to start with in this case. I’ve recommended Drupal and other systems plenty of times in the past but MODx really does sound like a good fit in this case.

I agree with Ryan. Here is some information on what it’s like to do a site in MODx. Look at the equivalent info for Drupal.

http://www.bobsguides.com/MODx.html

http://bobsguides.com/porting-your-site-to-modx.html