Why oh why did you !@#$% up the old repository?

Trying to find plugins and snippets and basic documentation on the new site just drives me mental.

When I want to look for an add on I type in the name in the search field and it always comes back with no result.

Even when I know it’s there.

Why doesn’t the search function work?

The old repository was far superior to this totally dysfunctional system you’ve got at the moment.

You could search by alphabet, tag cloud, title, even order, but not anymore. I just don’t understand why you got rid of a very good system for one that never works.

Also, the other day I was looking for info on installation, and was there anything under Installation? Noooo.

I did manage to find it eventually hidden somewhere, but not where anyone would think of looking for it.

IE Why wouldn’t you put Installation instructions under the Installation heading? It just doesn’t make sense.

Failing any sort of decent repository anytime soon, can we at least have a site map so we can find what we know is there, somewhere?

It would relieve the temptation of wanting to put our fists thru the screen and throttle whoever is responsible for the current labyrinthine nightmare.

>:(

PS I love Modx, and I like the new site design, it’s just the search and navigation functionality that just drives me up the wall.

I had a similar complaint. Looks like they’re onto it already, so we’ll just have to be patient.

markg,

Okay. The repo needs work. The search and search results are not great. We are aware of the improvements required. That being said lets keep the comments free of violent references.

The old repo was broken worse than you could imagine (but you didn’t see it because at least it worked when it worked). The old repo search was frequently responsible for killing the server.

We hope to have the issues resolved soon. We need to improve the search engine and results and this may require additional development time.

Actually, the secret is that we were just trying to see if you were paying attention Markg. Now that we know you were, we can put it back the way it was.

Kidding aside and in all fairness, there’s lots of room for improvement. It would be quite nice though if you’d let us know what’s not showing up in the search. The new system is actually considerably more scalable and allows for much better administrations, not to mention will play a huge role in the coming Revo release by making items installable directly from within the manager. But I guess that won’t help if you can’t find what you’re looking for!

Quote from: rthrash at May 19, 2009, 06:46 AM

It would be quite nice though if you’d let us know what’s not showing up in the search.

One thing that I couldn’t find in the repository/extras last week was PHx. I ended up going to the support forum, finding the right thread and using a link from that.

Right now 3-character searches do not show up which is a problem indeed for things like PHx and Jot.

The search has been modified to allow for less than 4 char searches. It’s not as nice (no relevance sorting) for the < 4 char search, but it works. phX and Jot now show up fine.

Searches for Ditto and Wayfinder still turn up the 1.0 and beta versions at the top of the list.

The link to the example for EZfaq is dead and I can’t seem to fix it.

A search in the upper search box for EZfaq just turns up my name, with no link to the add-on.

A search in the upper search box for Wayfinder gives amazingly unhelpful results.

That being said lets keep the comments free of violent references.

Jay,

sorry if I let the frustrations get the better of me. It’s just a figure of speech, but you know how things get when you’re trying to find something you know is there and all the obvious means of finding it lead to a dead end.

In any event, this situation has been going on for several months now.

I do appreciate that you are trying to improve the site, but at the moment it does seem highly dysfunctional.

Surely we could have something like a tag cloud or site map to help us navigate. Even an alphabetical listing.

The other issue is that people new to Modx will probably never find or know about any of the really useful plugins that the rest of us know about.

They may also find it infuriating trying to find information.

I go back to my original example: There is a page called Installation http://modxcms.com/services/installation.html but there’s nothing on it. Nor are there any install instructions on the download page or links to such info, another obvious place to put them. It’s such a basic thing. If people can’t find out how to install it, how are they ever going to evaluate and use modx?

The Search features are also infuriating. It seems to depend on which one you use that determines if you’ll get a result or not.

EG The main search function won’t find any plugins or references to them.

You have to be in the right section and use the right search box to get a result.

I don’t understand why the main search function doesn’t search the entire site. It’s the most obvious function most users would go to. Or failing that just have a search page that tells everybody which search box to use, but that might get even more confusing.

These are just two examples, but they are highly symptomatic of what just isn’t working about the new site.

I would like to see the old A - Z listing back. At least I knew where I was. Also, why can’t there be a page set up like a site map for the repository?