question about developing snippets

Hi,

Coming from a Joomla environment I was used to having all php code for customisation outside the database, just sitting as plain files in the file system.

Modx has a different approach, at least for snippets. As far as I know, snippets are stored in the database and evaluated when called upon.

After about a month working with modx, I find that developing more complex snippets is very cumbersome process. The modx editor is not really equipped for this.

What I do now, is develop complex snippets as classes outside modx and use the snippet as a mere wrapper. This allows me to develop the class using a decent development environment.

Would that be an advisable approach?

Yes, many people do that. If you’re using MODx Revolution, you could also check out the CodeMirror plugin which provides rudimentary code editing for snippets.

As BobRay as said, many people do that.

Take a look at the many available snippets. For Revo, most of the big snippets are used to instantiate the appropriate class which is not stocked in the database.

There is also an helper to load class files: http://rtfm.modx.com//display/XPDO10/xPDO.loadClass

Indeed, any snippet more than a few lines should be developed this way. Basic initialization (checking for parameter settings, for example) and then include the main file for the snippet. The Jot snippet is a good example for Evo.

To clarify my original post, you can not only put the class in a file, but the snippet as well so the snippet in the DB can be a single line:

Quote from: BobRay at Sep 01, 2010, 12:01 AM

To clarify my original post, you can not only put the class in a file, but the snippet as well so the snippet in the DB can be a single line:

return include 'path/to/snippet/code';

Excellent! Thanks