Template engine & ModX underlying framework

It would be interesting to choose PHPTAL http://phptal.motion-twin.com/introduction.html as the template engine in ModX.

I write an article about PHP template engines here for those who could be interested in : http://www.wikicards.com/wikis/Computers/Software/Development_Tools/Template_View_Pattern.html

Prado http://www.xisc.com/ as the underlying framework would make of ModX the most powerful CMF in the PHP CMS family, even more powerful than Typo3 to my mind.

I think it would be really cool to see someone develop a PHPTAL plugin for MODx; that way, without changing the core, you could add support for PHPTAL templates to the MODx aresenal. That would be really darn cool.

As for Prado, I was researching template languages and such when we first forked MODx and actually was most impressed by what I saw in Prado. I was looking for something similar to what I had used in JSP with custom JSP tags and WebOGNL (Object Graph Navigation Language), and this is a similar framework and language for that kind of authoring. Again however, I think it could possibly be something integrated as a plugin (or module with various components) to extend the capabilities of the MODx framework. As we continue to simplify and trim down the core, I think you’ll see why I at least envision it this way.

BTW, while we’re on this subject, something like OGNL for PHP (or maybe even just for MODx) would be awesome, too. For more on OGNL and WebOGNL, see http://www.ognl.org/. Combine this with an API for creating user-defined objects via a graphical UI, and you’ve got a very usable and powerful object factory and template language with total separation of UI and logic.

Please keep us informed, these "only" two arguments would make Modx by far my prefered CMS/CMF around, and without a doubt drop my use of the others i identified as the best cms around(typo3, jetbox, subdreamer, joomla). Step by step, i would also be part of the contributors.

Of course, i do not ask you and your team to do all the job, i just would like to know what efforts are made in Modx in this direction to make these integrations easier and informations that contributors could use and be helped with to collaborate with you in that direction.

By the way, i really appreciate your ongoing efforts around how to "integrate" into Modx others php scripts (like forum or bug tracker for example). That’s a killing "concept" that clearly make the success of a software product.

Hi guizmo,

We’re very glad to have you here and very interested in anything that you might like to do! There’s no way that the core team has a lock on all the good ideas and we look forward to seeing anything more that you might suggest.

Thanks you Ryan,

There are (and there will be) a lot of ideas and concepts in fact, most of them are "sum up" in a whole exposition i write here http://domixway.com/kb/. Only introduction is publicly available until i finish some things.

This concerns a Lotus Domino framework i build, planning to link it with Prado, that’s the reason why i feel concerned by Prado into ModX potential interests. I would also be interested to link it with a CMS running along Prado, and Modx seems the actual good orientation for several reasons. I have some things to do before making some concrete propositions in terms of collaboration around Modx, like learning Modx first as i discovered it few days ago... along as building my different websites for the Domixway platform (company, official framework web site, community web site...). Building most of these web sites should be a good test for Modx as well as my learning curve.

See you soon (i hope:) )

Among many others subjects we will have the opportunity to discuss, i shared discussions with Prado members around SSO (single sign on) and NXD support (Native XML database and particularly Sleepycat DB XML http://www.sleepycat.com/products/bdbxml.html). That are some things among others that Prado can potentially bring to ModX.

Web services support are part of the things particulary interesting and work is under progress into Prado for that. I could give so much examples as i feel my potential future contribution into MODx would be mostly be driven by Prado additions.

One of the things that makes MODx so great is the simplicity of styling. There is no special syntax to learn, no header.tpl and her ugly sister footer.tpl. If you know HTML, you can make your MODx site look like anything you want. If you don’t know HTML, you can use any WYSIWYG editor such as nvu. With the latest release of MODx, it is even possible to use the built in RTE (FCKeditor) to create a template from within MODx. What I want to stress is, MODx’s templating system is not broken... And if it ain’t broke, well, you know the rest. The thing is, many of the folks looking for a CMS have some HTML experience. Learning a new templating engine like Smarty or PHPTAL is just one more hurdle to managing their content the way they want to. For those of us out there who understand templating engines, it would make a useful plugin, but should not even be considered as a replacement. With the 2.0 version of the web visible on the horizon, CMS must move away from Content Management Systems to (C)ontent (M)ade (S)imple.

</rant>

-sD-
scotty Delicious

Scotty D, I agree. The simplicity and NOT having to learn another layer of templating is one of the things that makes MODx nice. In the same vein, there’s quite a bit to be said about templating languages for sure as well.

From a custom application’s developer-standpoint, it would add a lot and make life much easier. However, it does belong as a plugin or module, and defintely will be something to consider for the future. If anyone wants to tackle it before then, please do so and share your work, even if it’s in progress!

Hi all,

I know this might off from the topic, but I just want to express my opinion, while everyone is in here.

I would like to see the robustness of AJAX being implemented in MODx. I still don’t have any idea of how AJAX can beneefit the user, and how it’s going to be implemented, but I believe if it’s being integrated into the API, it will helps the development of this CMS will go beyond other CMS out there.

My experience with MODx for this past 2 days has been great, and I found a lot of way where MODx can be improved from a Content Made Simple into CMF Made Simple. The underlying simplicity is really wonderful, which I beleiev that;s what the other people in here are looking for, but the key concept of making it as a full functional modular system is what makes MODx stand the most. This CMS has a really wide audience, which allow a common non-techie people to start publishing their own static page, until a pure-programmer people to start developing their own rich server side website system. So far the audience of the non-techie people is quite fulfiled yet, but as far as for programmer, I really want to see a more robust system that can drives a less-programmer type of people to be able to use the API in developing a complex system, which mostly being done in the backend of MODx.

As for my 2-cents
- Prado Discussion about one person mentioning about AJAX
http://www.xisc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2229&sid=7b50cff592f5791ec4cd353c4c9eb694
- JavaScript framework (I think somebody already mention that on the forum)
http://www.mochikit.com/

As for Mochikit, I like it, because they got their own console in running the Javascript code.

If this had been planned in the future release of TP4, please pardon me.

Btw, the cool name of my request is AJAX API
- An Asyncronize calling to PHP function, which includes calling snippets, plugins, and fetching TV/SV(Snippet Vars)
- An event trigger to Javascript function, which will be based on certain events that MODx has right now, which might add another additional events.

I wish I could help guys, but I will try to do my part here, if I found something interesting that can help us foresee the future development of AJAX, I will let you guys know, to ease the development team.


Best regards,
Wendy Novianto