Some thoughts about the modx website(s)

I have been thinking about posting the items below for some time, but always forgot it, so the list got quite long. It’s mainly a list of small annoyances that I have with the modx site(s). Feel free to do with it whatever you want ;-)


The search on the main modx site does not work very good for searching something in the repository. Terms like "Jot" or "PHx" don’t return any results, it only says to use more specific terms. Others give back lots of results, like "eform" gives back 4 results for 1 resource. I think it would be better to just have the main page of the resource searchable and don’t return all versions of a resource and extra’s pages.

It is very hard to find templates in the repository. Lots of templates (25) can be found by selecting "Templates" in the tagcloud, but there are also templates that only have the tag "site-template" (29 results) (or site-templates). It would be a good idea to make sure that templates are consitently tagged. Maybe even seperate it from the other resources. Templates are mostly about how a site looks. The other resources (snippets/plugins/modules) are mainly about the behaviour of MODx.

In the repository the links at the top-right are underlined and have black bullets, which does not really fit to the menu directly below it which has blue graphc buttons and no underline.

The forums and Flyspray have tablike buttons at the top. They are not consistent between the 2 sites and the main site and wiki does not have those tabs. Same for the links in the black bar just above the tablike buttons. These links are also different on the 2 sites. On the flyspray site even the link to the documentation is a tablike button, on the forums it is a text link in the black bar. I just feels a bit messy to me.

Some of the tablike buttons on the flyspray site open in a new window (roadmap, documentation) and the forums tab does not open in a new window. I think the behaviour should be consistent. On the forums only the "Online demo" buttons opens in a new window, but this makes sense since it is an offsite link.

Feature suggestions:

Sometimes I find a great snippet/plugin/template in the repository and I am curious what that other resources that author wrote. It would be nice to be able to search for all resources by that author

It would be nice if the templates all had big previews available, some of the template preview pictures barely get bigger when you click on them.

I was wondering if the wiki will get a different look so it will fit with the rest of the sites. It looks a bit out of place now I think.

Hope this helps in improving the site a bit
Mitch

Great feedback Mitch that’s spot on (though you might be too kind in parts ) ... thanks.

Indeed, your observations are correct, and everyone is painfully aware of it.

Patience; unless, of course, you’ve got the time and skills to do this kind of thing. All the coders are flat-out working on MODx itself (not to mention their families and their day jobs). Personally I would rather see MODx improved and see nice new useful snippets and modules and plugins for it than have a prettier web site.

My main annoyance is the horrible search engine of SMF (though that’s not directly this-site specific and well known), and like you said, the consistency in de look/useracounts/behavior aren’t fully optimal yet troughout the website, which kinda makes the step towards making a bugreport/wikipage bigger than it already might be for some people.

Quote from: sottwell at Oct 21, 2006, 05:23 AM

Indeed, your observations are correct, and everyone is painfully aware of it.

Patience; unless, of course, you’ve got the time and skills to do this kind of thing. All the coders are flat-out working on MODx itself (not to mention their families and their day jobs). Personally I would rather see MODx improved and see nice new useful snippets and modules and plugins for it than have a prettier web site.

Saying you’re wrong wouldn’t be correct and I fully agree with you in most ways, but having a good-looking website is kind of the image you create towards the users; from my own experience I know that a lot of users who are looking for something such as a CMS will also judge a project on the looks of the website, even though this might not be right, or ’fair’ for that matter.
I myself don’t have the know-how nor the time to do it better than it currently is, but afterall suggestions might eventually turn into solutions, let’s hope they will