Packaging Revo as a ready-to-go CMS

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since MODxpo. I became more aware at the conference of how Revo is (by design) more of a CMF than a direct CMS. This provides for virtually infinite power and flexibility... but I’m concerned that if the only option for end users continues to be "download & install Revolution, then start downloading add-ons and developing your custom CMS solution", this may severely limit MODx from "blowing up" in the CMS world the way it deserves to.

At the conference, my brother, who has used Evo quite a bit, installed Revo for the first time. He was a bit miffed that he couldn’t find Wayfinder. I explained that this was intentional, that Revolution had a concept of not being in the decision-making business about what people wanted/needed in a CMS. He understood, but felt that menu-creation functionality was pretty basic and ought to always be there.

Then on the way to the airport we were talking about the potential to create custom/niche CMSes based on Revolution - an out-of-the-box solution for, say, coffee shops, or hair salons, or resale shops. This kind of thing seems quite possible and useful: once you’ve customized Revo for one business, it would be great to just be able to repackage that install for other businesses with similar needs.

So on the one end of the spectrum you have the basic core CMF; a powerful swiss-army knife for developers, and brilliantly easy for novices to create basic templates... but if they want to add functionality beyond basic templates, it starts to get a little heady and intimidating.

On the other end of the spectrum you have customized, pimped-out installations of Revolution, with all the needed tools for business-type-X already built in by a hard-working MODx developer.

I think a huge key to MODx Revolution expanding its stature and market share in the CMS world would be to focus on the middle of the spectrum - by offering the basic build plus some of the typically most desired CMS features - menuing, blogging, etc. I’m thinking of a build where these things are built in and perhaps enhanced with Wizard-type interfaces within Manager. Or if not a separate build, then installation options to install these CMS "basic extras".

I realize I’m probably pretty late to this discussion. Just thought I’d give my two cents, and see if this generates any discussion or clarification of the product strategy moving forward.

Good thoughts, as always, James.

This is all planned once we get past GA. We’ve been planning this for years now (since the original 0.9.7 beginnings) - we’ll have "distributions", which have pre-packaged components ready and installed. For example, you want a "Blog" distribution for Revo - it will come pre-packaged with Quip, Wayfinder, getResources/getPage, and more.

I can assure you we’ve thought a lot about this and have a plan in place for the future. Just got to get to GA first.

Cool. Consider me assured

http://svn.modxcms.com/docs/display/revolution/Roadmap

is a helpful resource to see where MODx Revolution is headed.

funny. I looked at evo a coupla years back but didnt really like it because it had all the ’extras’ attached that I would never use at any point -- wayfarer + others. Plus the ’eval’ thing made it hard to dev in a true IDE. So I never downloaded evo, or attempted to use it-- and instead coded my own cms from scratch.

When the good modx folks announced revo and it was free of 3pcs and the eval function, I was very happy to abandon my own cms project and switch over to it. It’s an amazing chunk of architect-ed code with the api. xpdo 2.x also rocks my world. (still waiting for the sqlite provider for xpdo to land in svn though, so I can develop MS access & MS Sql providers based on Jason’s refactoring of the OM folder)

Components I will never use almost always turn me off, and are the reason I won’t touch dupral, joomla, etc. I do love the spartan install on revo + the simplicity to install the 3pc’s as needed thru the installer.

I dare say if revo came with all the 3pc’s installed, I would never have made the switch over to modx, and would still be using my own cms....

....which just goes to show that one man’s treasure (the 3pcs), is another man’s junk.

Thanks for the link - I know I’ve seen that roadmap before, but I forgot what/where it was.

@wowzow I know what you are saying, and I largely personally agree. I think MODx should stay away from offering versions with lots of 3rd party bells and whistles, for the reasons you state. But I like the "core plus a little bit more" distributions concept that Shaun describes. I think it will help reach a much wider base, but not in a way that will dumb-down the overall potency and direction.

FWIW I love the term "spartan install" and I vote for that being the official name for the barebones distibution.

Quote from: jrotering at Jun 08, 2010, 11:28 AM

Thanks for the link - I know I’ve seen that roadmap before, but I forgot what/where it was.

@wowzow I know what you are saying, and I largely personally agree. I think MODx should stay away from offering versions with lots of 3rd party bells and whistles, for the reasons you state. But I like the "core plus a little bit more" distributions concept that Shaun describes. I think it will help reach a much wider base, but not in a way that will dumb-down the overall potency and direction.

FWIW I love the term "spartan install" and I vote for that being the official name for the barebones distibution.

Keep in mind that Package Manager will let you install Packages in a few clicks and that a single package can contain as many components as you like; can create resources, elements, plugins, TVs, and templates; and can make any changes you want to MODx itself.

The kinds of things you’re thinking of would involve no changes at all to the "spartan" core, which is one reaon it’s the way it is.