Need reassurance that ModX is the right decision (vs Drupal, ocPortal)

Hi All,

OK, originally Drupal was strongly being pushed on me by others. A good bit of research later, I came across ModX and liked what I saw. I began to research ModX’s features but was a bit disappointed that certain features did not seem to be built in already. I thought I’d keep looking to see if the elements I needed might already be written into another CMS. Which is when I came across ocPortal.

The problem with ocPortal, as I began to learn was that while the site offered lots of built in features and a put together framework from a central source (as opposed to Drupal’s chaotic mess of nodes you have to manually install) it was not going to be possible for me to do what I wanted to do without a lot of programming - this info provided to me by the creator of ocPortal. Furthermore, the ocPortal community is much much smaller and there is not one book out there on this CMS. The final straw was when I could not find one single reference to several predefined data entry categories that were within their ’catalogues’ section. I figured if I was going to have to program a good part of my site as it is, I may as well stick with a CMS that is either well documented or that is easy to set up and work with or BOTH.

So I decided to go back to Drupal vs ModX. As you know Drupal has a much bigger community and lots of books on the market that cover nearly everything. The problem as I see it is that Drupal seems to have a very steep learning curve. A decade ago, I had created several HTML/ColdFusion web sites, coding them by hand and using databases without the benefit of a wrapper CMS. PHP and CMSs are a newer thing to me that I am just getting my head around.

Coming back to ModX, it seems to have much of what I like, the flexibility, the relative ease of use, the focus on look and feel, the fact that the core CMS is not constantly being changed and upgraded (this seems to be one of the biggest criticisms of Drupal users is the constant version changes.)

So, I am at a crossroads, I want to like ModX enough to just finally take the plunge, but my instincts keep making me wonder if Drupal, being such a big community, is not a better long term time investment.

I will thus proceed to describe some of the elements I want my site to have to see if it is relatively easily doable in ModX and if so, what are the major parameters or elements I need to learn and or work within.

Basically, I am developing a company review web site where site visitors can comment in detail. The comments are then run through a several step process of others reviewing the comments. Subsequently, the comments are aggregated automatically (or as automatically as I can make it) into a single detailed company ratings page based on various rules and other algorithms. The further thing I want is to review the actual reviewers by having them take a brief quiz. The reviewer’s score would help determine the veracity of the data the reviewer submits about the company. There would also be a separate permissions and veracity process for company spokespersons/owners to submit parallel company data. It sounds a bit complex but I have done a lot of thinking about it, even going so far as to lay out the database, the form pages, on which pages how much data can be submitted, etc.

Anther element of this site is that I am looking to create almost a hybrid of a wiki site and a traditional web page where a reviewer can comment on one specific piece of company data, a whole section of similar grouped company data, or on the company’s whole info entry. This would merely be small graphic clickable indicators that would likely bring a pop up box to add a piece of data. I am still resolving the ideal way to do this.

Of course, reviewers would be scored and eventually work their way up in trust into being administrators, just like in Wikipedia and other similar sites.

Also, I would like a robust system to have companies be able to place purchased ads onto the site. In the absence of bought ads, the system would revert to Google Adwords or some other option. I could build out this capability if I absolutely had to, but I would prefer not to have to. (this was one advantage of ocPortal was they already had this feature.)

In essence, I want a low maintenance site where I log in once a day or so and check up on a certain set of tasks which are already laid out - reviewer comments that dropped through the admin system, query emails, etc.

I still feel ModX is the best way to create this site. I also would not want to slink back to my Drupal friends to tell them I decided to go with Drupal after all.

I guess I need some reassurance that I can install the new Revolution implementation and then just program away until I get the look and functionality I want out of my site - my hope being that most everything I need is documented somewhere on the site or in the ModX book (I always have hated to pester people with too many questions and sometimes I tend to be remarkably dense when it comes to figuring out something that others sometimes see as elementary).

Thanks Much. Look forward to any useful commentary.
Robert

Hi Robert,

I’m not sure how much reassurance any of this will provide, but I’ll do my best to say what I can as straight forward as possible.

I have been huge fan of Content Management Systems since I first discovered PHPNuke. Since then, I went on a wild adventure to find the best possible CMS available. Needless to say, over the years I have at least developed one site in most every major CMS contender on the market.

After all of this time searching and developing...Have I found the perfect CMS? Well...no..............and I’m not certain that it is a possibility to create a perfect CMS for everyone, and for everything. What I have found is a CMS that has me running back, every time I try to look elsewhere. I tend to get a bit stir crazy if I’m stuck with one thing...or one CMS in this case. I’m always looking for a better more efficient way to accomplish something. I recently started work on a blog site, and my natural inclination wanted to work with wordpress since they kind of hold the blogging market...I barely made it to starting the templating and my decision was immediately made... The more I use Modx the harder it is to move away from it. I’ve used a lot of CMS’ and never have I felt that feeling before with anything else.

In my opinion, one of Modx’s biggest selling points is its versatility. I am continually amazed by the things I have managed to do with the minimal PHP knowledge I have. Being more from the design side of things, I can tell you that I never EVER want to design a theme/template/site for another CMS again. Before I discovered Modx, drupal was in-fact my primary CMS. It did the job, and made a lot of things easy that I would have never wanted to do my self. I actually enjoyed Drupal quite a bit...

Although it’s been a long while since I’ve been out of the Drupal game....I would be extremely impressed if they had anything pre-built that would immediately take care of the complexity of your needs. No matter what option you choose...you are probably going to have to do a bit of programming.

As far as community is concerned, I think that Quality as opposed to Quantity is very applicable to this situation. For example...look at my post count (For all you slow folk...that meant the quality of my posts are good) <--

A large community has it’s benefits, but doesn’t necessarily project quality. In a strange way...I almost feel like I know everyone on this board personally. No one would probably even recognize my handle, since I’m not overly active in posting to the forums (do a TON of reading)..but I still kind of feel like I’m part of the family. That is something that I don’t think you will get out of a large community.

I probably don’t need to convince you of all this, but I thought I’d at least share my experience.

Based upon the things you are wanting to accomplish...I’m guessing that you’ll probably need to do a bit of custom coding. Again...I don’t see you getting around this with any CMS, unless you happen to find someone doing the exact same thing as you.

On the positive side of this, there are numerous "extras" that will work as excellent starting points to the things you want to accomplish. I have came up with ways to use various addons for things they were probably never intended for quite successfully and have done so with only a tiny bit of knowledge and a LOT of research.

So in conclusion... Is Modx right for your project? ...well yes... Is it the best option for your project? ...I think so.. as long as you are looking to build a solid project that does exactly what you want..not just an out-out-the-box quick fix.

Hope this has been somewhat helpful....
-Jared

Actually, your post helps quite a bit. I think it confirms what I already suspect about ModX, my having come from a design background myself. And, as you say, to accomplish what I want to, I would have to do some programming no matter what CMS I would ultimately choose.

You do say you liked and appreciated Drupal for what it had, so I am guessing you are able to get around most CMSs nimbly if you have mastered or at least worked competently in Drupal. But I don’t use this against you (LOL), conversely I feel you, having been in most of the trenches, do see the good things I suspected ModX of actually having (as opposed to a CMS CLAIMING to have them).

So it sounds like I just have to do a lot of tutorials and research and really get into understanding ModX. As such, I might first build out another simpler site I also had in mind, to kind of test out the concepts and where things are located on the server, how things work and interact, etc.

Thanks for your comment!

Anyone else?

Oh, back to my initial post... Is there an ad serving app already available in ModX or would I have to write this?

Thanks,
Robert

http://modxcms.com/extras/package/678
http://modxcms.com/extras/package/6

I came to MODx from a ColdFusion background as well.

For a pure blog, WordPress is hard to beat, but I would never use it for a site that wasn’t a pure blog -- trying to bend it to meet your needs can make you seriously nuts.

I tried Drupal, briefly, and found it extremely unpleasant. I felt that it was forcing me to learn things that had nothing to do with what I wanted and everything to do with how Drupal wanted me to work.

After that, MODx was a breath of fresh air. A MODx template contains nothing but HTML code (with absolutely no restrictions) interspersed with MODx tags. Once you know what each tag is for (and it doesn’t take very long) you’re most of the way there. You still have to build your site, but you’ll have to do that with any CMS. If you can specify what you want the site to do, you can do it in MODx in a fairly straightforward way. The MODx parser goes through the template, parses the tags (including nested tags) without trying to second-guess what you want, and delivers the web page. So if you’ve done things in a logical way, you can be fairly confident that the result will be what you want.

The community here is the best part of MODx. It’s one of the most generous, patient, and helpful groups I’ve ever seen on the web. If you run into trouble, you’ll get help here.

The issue you raise about what a CMS claims compared with what it delivers is a really interesting one. I have never seen the claim that MODx offers a lot of turnkey solutions to common site needs. I can honestly say, though, that all the other claims you’ll see about MODx are, as far as I can tell, 100% true. In my experience, the MODx community is amazingly honest. Other CMS products are often recommended here to people for whom MODx isn’t right. I don’t think you’re one of them.

YAY!

Thanks Susan and BobRay. I’m installing Revolution tonight and beginning the tutorials.

Robert

Quote from: rf1234 at Jun 12, 2010, 07:16 PM

YAY!

Thanks Susan and BobRay. I’m installing Revolution tonight and beginning the tutorials.

Robert

Welcome to MODx.

A couple of things I would recommend. Take a few minutes to examine the menu in the Manager, although of course Revolution is different than Evolution there. Nevertheless, the more familiar you become with the menus and the configuration options the more quickly and easily you’ll be able to do what you want. I’ve spent hours writing snippet and plugin code, only to find that there was a simple configuration option that did exactly what I was trying to do.

Browse through the "extras" section of the main MODx site from time to time. Nine times out of ten somebody else has had your "itch" before, and there’s no point in reinventing the wheel.

When searching for something, try using Google with the site:modxcms.com directive. There’s years worth of good stuff in the forums; unfortunately the native SMF search function leaves much to be desired.

Welcome aboard rf1234. We look forward to seeing what you create and helping you in your journey. Like Bob said, I don’t think anything exists to do exactly what you want in any platform, so it’s gonna take some coding. Every day I use Revo I’m amazed at the flexibility and the speed at which you can innovate on our new content management platform.

And if you ever make it to Dallas be sure to look me up. Would love to visit a local watering hole and see how your site is progressing no matter which platform you ultimately settle upon.