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    • 9886
    • 4 Posts
    Hi, After endless banging my head against the desk with alternative CMSs, I’ve found MODx, which looks promising. But while I can probably figure it out for myself (eventually) I’m up against a deadline. So ideally I need an experienced user to create templates from my html/css and offer advice on feasibility of implementing certain functionality (eg. can a ’news’ item be set to automatically move to ’archive’ status after a pre-defined period etc? I have a number of other such items relating to incorporating subscriber management etc).

    I appreciate some of this is probably not standard functionality, so I guess really I’m looking for someone who can write the odd bit of ’custom’ code and integrate within MODx as required.

    I’d probably prefer someone UK-based although not essential, but preferable if we could communicate during ’normal’ working hours (whatever they are...).

    Site I need to convert can be seen (Photoshop comp only at this stage) on my test server at <http://www.notquiteready.co.uk/testpages/ESEP/source/esep_concept_18.html>

    Cheers meantime.
    • If you have a static XHTML/CSS template already produced, converting it for use in MODx really only should take an hour or two at most, and that’s only if you have a complex dynamic drop-down navigation you need to implement. I’ve personally done ports of complex Wordpress themes in about 3 hours, and it took that long on because I’d never picked one apart and had to figure out which bits went where.
        Ryan Thrash, MODX Co-Founder
        Follow me on Twitter at @rthrash or catch my occasional unofficial thoughts at thrash.me
        • 9886
        • 4 Posts
        Ah, well, thanks for the reply and I appreciate your confidence, given that my PHP knowledge is pretty much limited to being able to spell it. ;-)

        But no, in basic terms, you’re probably right, I’ve already got a couple of test pages up and running elsewhere (albeit with a couple of quirks I’ve yet to figure out). But as I said, some of the stuff I need for this client is not ’standard’ functionality within MODx (as far as I can tell thus far) but I know - in principle - is do-able within PHP - hence my desire to kill two birds with one stone so to speak.

        So ideally I’d look to pay someone to set up the MODx on this project and add ’bespoke’ functionality as required.

        Once the dust settles a bit I’m quite looking forward to exploring MODx in greater depth, but at the moment I just don’t have the time to really delve into the more advanced stuff, and trial and error is never a good approach when there are deadlines on the horizon.
        • It really depends on your standards when creating standards-compliant templates. Generating an XHTML/CSS template really isn’t a "MODx" thing so to speak, so you could certainly save both time and money and once you were happy with the results in your target browser, you could hand that off to the developer. That also serves to set expectations quite explicitly too, by providing example markup and CSS for your expected output.
            Ryan Thrash, MODX Co-Founder
            Follow me on Twitter at @rthrash or catch my occasional unofficial thoughts at thrash.me
            • 9886
            • 4 Posts
            Plan would be that I’d provide valid HTML/CSS, that’s not a problem. It’s the ’back-end jiggery-pokery’ (technical term) which is a mystery to me. I understand the principles of what’s possible in PHP, I just can’t implement it. By the time my brain’s coped with a daily helping of HTML, CSS, Flash & XML, the next priority is normally beer, not more code.

            And then of course there’s the indolence factor...
            • Once you’ve got the demo HTML done, the rest is pretty straightforward indeed.
                Ryan Thrash, MODX Co-Founder
                Follow me on Twitter at @rthrash or catch my occasional unofficial thoughts at thrash.me