Questions from a newbie...

Hello all.

I’ve recently discovered Modx, and am looking into the possibility of abandoning Joomla for good. As useful as it is, Joomla is way too bloated (I’ve had a few simple websites push close to 50mb in scripts and other odd files that seemingly never get used).

My questions are as follows;

From what I gather (from reading forum posts, the documentation, and from having a play around on a local install), the template system seems to allow use of regular html / xhtml templates, with just a few minor adjustments (adding [*content*] where you want content, etc), allowing the core stuff to be managed using Modx - is this a correct assumption?

If this is the case, how easy would it be to port an existing static site (with a modest sprinkling of JS) to Modx? Am I correct in assuming that it would be relatively easy?

I know I’ve simplified it all, and it’s probably a little more complex than how I’ve put it, but I’m hoping I’ve got this all right, because I’m a designer more than anything else, and it’s not always straightforward to implement "perfect" designs in other CMS’s. It’s much easier to just build the whole site by hand!

I’d love to just be able to port my designs to Modx and not have to make compromises.

Thank you for your help!

Bob.

Welcome Bob,

Yes you are pretty much on target here. MODx is great for designers who create custom designs and templates etc. Check this out: http://codingpad.maryspad.com/beginner-tutorials/

You need to learn the few basic MODx placeholders that create the dynamic structure. You also need to create a new folder for your template that will contain your custom CSS , JS and Images folders. You then create your template from the MODx Manager and link those files into the <head> correctly. Ii Evolution templates are usually placed in the assets/templates folder.

I would start of building a very basic test site with a simple template to get you going. Doing this locally with MAMP is a good idea as you can create as many test projects as you like without needing live servers etc...

Your concept of how MODx works is correct.

There is a feature for importing existing pages, Tools -> Import HTML. Basically you copy your static HTML site into the assets/imports folder, then the import tool will extract the parts of each page between the <body>...</body> tags into the Resource Tree. It uses each page’s <title> as the page title. It will maintain any folder structure your existing site has, with each folder being a "parent" resource with no content and its page title being the folder name.

You would use the HTML from one of the existing pages as the template, as you have mentioned. From this point, you would need to start editing individual resources to adjust for moving the various part out of the resource content, such as sidebar and footer content, but at least it would be a start.

I would work with two templates, beginning with one with only the bare HTML structure for the head and ending body and html tags for displaying your imported pages as-is (in other words the entire body part of the page is taken from [*content*]), then another one with the final structure you want (sidebar, footer, etc) with the HTML in the template and not in the resource content, then begin editing the resources to clean out the part you want in the template, and assigning it the adjusted template.

Thanks for the replies.

Best news I’ve had all week! I’ll take your advice and begin with a simple structure / design while I get to grips with it, but from what I’ve seen so far, that shouldn’t take too long.

Great stuff, can’t wait to get going now. Finaly, a CMS that doesn’t require you to be a php dev to work with!

Thanks again!

There are a lot of designers who lack PHP skills who have embraced MODx. I am one of them. This winter I have decided to tackle learning PHP as its very handy.

But if you know how to create lean, valid code with XHTML and know how to build a CSS system from scratch then you will simply love MODx. My experience with other CMS platforms is that working with custom templates/designs means you have to fight/work around the existing structure. I call this "overcoming the support scaffolding".

Becoming familiar with any worthy CMS will require some time, effort and experimentation. Most of the MODx fans love the system because it lets them do all kinds of cool developer things. I love it because it supports MY sites nicely without the system getting in the way. The main concept to know from the start is that there is no "one way or the highway" method for doing things. MODx is very flexible and there are many approaches to getting things done.

The documentation is what it is: sometimes fantastic and sometimes frustrating. If you are a designer and not familiar with developer "speak" you might find some of the documentation for some of the methods, snippets or even the forum threads frustratingly obtuse at times. But here lies another advantage to MODx. The community overall and this forum are very helpful. Even with new kids. Some of the other systems have so many people, so many modules and so much chatter you can get lost and overwhelmed if you are new. Other systems are too "lite" and the forum chatter is so skimpy there is little to learn. MODx seems to be seated nicely in the middle of these two extremes.

Good luck!