MODX Staff
Let’s drop teh "tiers" of users, as I find it confusing.
Advanced users and Developers are our end target right now. End users will be there soon enough.
Let’s drop teh "tiers" of users, as I find it confusing.
Advanced users and Developers are our end target right now. End users will be there soon enough.
MODX Staff
...the sooner the management interface can be entirely skinned and customized-subsetted, the better. In other words, one would hope to hide ModX from end-users, not teach them how to use ’it’. ModX should disappear...Precisely! We’re taking our first major step in that direction with 0.9.2 by having the manager be entirely able to be skinned via one css file (+ images of course). That’s a matter of days away (maybe a week or so). In addition, the new self-registering modules menu makes accessing modules that much simpler. I have a feeling the menu might get a bit of a reorganization in general, too.
could market that for a few years.Please, be my guest.
Nice description, too. We’re working hard on the "internationalization" part too.
MODX Staff
Thank you Russ, you have very concisely described what my vision of MODx has been since the project began, and continues to be to this day.
ModX is, in no way, for end users, imho. Nor is TextPattern, Expression Engine or Drupal. I think this is a fairly regular fallacy that only leads to end-user frustration and resource misapplication. This is especially so for ModX, given the framework architecture.
Blogger or Typepad are for end-users; and then only barely so. Mom still finds them almost totally confusing. Anyway, they are not .... CMS. Compare with Movable Type. Note also the implication about evolving blogging or other applications from ModX ....
ModX serves end-users as the ultimate target audience for finished sites.
(In that precise sense, the needs of end-users are paramount, but not as a ’tier’ - direct - user of ModX).
Again, bingo! My goal is to evolve MODx into the de facto standard in Web 2.0 rapid-application development frameworks and complete life-cycle management solutions. And, as Ryan said, manager styles will be much easier to customize in the coming 0.9.2 release, followed in the not too distant future by a 1.0 release, which will introduce the ability to completely customize the manager using the same framework as the front-end web-site. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by the 1.0 road map, which I am preparing to post, hopefully later today.
The single caveat will be those points (manager) at which the end-user must ’touch’ ModX. Ideally, from my point-of-view, the sooner the management interface can be entirely skinned and customized-subsetted, the better. I include admins as end-users. They will use an admin interface but, hopefully, not the geeky, hacker-centric ones so beloved by all. Think the genius of 37 Signals. Users don’t want to know from ’wiki’, ’blog’ or ’control panels’, let alone ’CMS’. They just want to do their stuff. They hate what we love. In other words, one would hope to hide ModX from end-users, not teach them how to use ’it’. ModX should disappear, in principle (never in reality, duh) into a given CMS application of the framework or into a finished site.
Agreed again Russ -- Designers and Developers are equally important to MODx, unlike most other CMF solutions or MVC frameworks that are already available or are emerging as we speak (including Ruby on Rails), which IMO are still totally aimed at the developer, who must then enable the designer to do his job. Armed with this, and the simplification of the MVC pattern based on legacy MODx architecture and our 1.0 roadmap (which will include some great new i18n and l10n features, among other surprises), MODx has the potential to become the de facto Web 2.0 RAD Framework and Complete Life-Cycle Management Platform.
The customer-USERS of a CMS itself are developers and designers; not just at the beginning of its trajectory, but always.
Certainly, end-users (as conventionally defined) who have dreams of design and development will find ModX and receive due encouragement; but the encouragement will be geared to eliminating their end-userness; not reinforcing or (I mean this kindly) excusing or enabling it; training them away from end-userdom. They will weed themselves out as that proves less fun than anticipated, if it does.
If one wants to use tier language, which is swell enough, then:
1. Developers
2. Designers
The defect with this is that it implies a hierarchy of value (designers could be 1) when both are entirely inter-dependent in creating finished sites and should be equal first-class citizens.
(Note: I also feel the term ’advanced users’ adds noise without bringing light to the subject. From a marketing point-of-view, I feel Advanced users always excludes ’me’; note how many comments to CMS forums begin with abject groveling by the poster who does not consider themselves advanced even when they are. Developers. Designers. Simple, well-recognized audiences that people self-identify with; though some move between them.)
"ModX: a flexible CMS framework enabling developers and designers to build Web 2.0-aware, internationalized applications and websites."
I could ’unpack’ and market that for a few years. By that time, we’ll all be using the next greatest thing anyway. Ouch.
Anyway, there is no relationship between core users and end users, only advanced users are the right bridge to impartate sppoerts and solution to this end users.
ModX is, in no way, for end users, imho. Nor is TextPattern, Expression Engine or Drupal. I think this is a fairly regular fallacy that only leads to end-user frustration and resource misapplication. This is especially so for ModX, given the framework architecture.
Certainly, end-users (as conventionally defined) who have dreams of design and development will find ModX and receive due encouragement; but the encouragement will be geared to eliminating their end-userness; not reinforcing or (I mean this kindly) excusing or enabling it; training them away from end-userdom. They will weed themselves out as that proves less fun than anticipated, if it does.
For now I would definetely say that we are on the right track. Sorry to all the end users. I’m as one of the second tier users will try as much as I could to help y’all, but the fact is, I got my own life as well that I need to support. Hope with my little time that I have for this community, will be valuable to some of y’all. I’m saying this because if there is a will, there will always be a way. Even though they are the end users who knows nothing about web technology, but if they are eager and loyal, I would totally love to have them around in here. First, they can be a good assets in providing a really valuable feedback that we the end users sometimes won’t be able to see it, and second, they will grow more into advanced users level, which I would like to be able to invest my little bit of time for them.
MODX Staff
This discussion is closed to further replies. Keep calm and carry on.