front end editor for Revolution

Sorry Chaliez... My bad.

JNet, I look forward to hearing more about the front-end editing solution your working on.

It’s interesting to hear Ryan say that front end editing isn’t a focus of the core development team. It just goes to show how different the mindset is of the programmers and the users. The front end editing was one of the first things that drew me to Modx and it has been the biggest sell in using it with my clients over Joomla and Wordpress. I can’t imagine why that wouldn’t have been core right from the beginning. But again, I’m a designer looking for the easiest way for myself and for my clients to update and maintain a site. That still is ModX, but Revo needs a few things before I can truly use it for my client sites.

I’m not a developer and I’ve sold tons of sites. The front end editor is a killer selling tool, but I’ve honestly never once used it in production believe it or not. It’s like shared calendars in Exchange, everybody *has* to have them, but very few actually use them when it gets down to it. I find customized manager UIs far more productive and helpful for sites that have any degree of content creation going on.

Interesting point Ryan. I guess it just depends on how you present it to your client upfront. And, as SplittingRed pointed out in this post: http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php?topic=54297.new;topicseen#new - it is important for plugins and snippets to come from the community while the development team focuses on the core. It makes sense. I guess I just got very used to doing things a certain way and now I’ll have to change my approach a bit and wait for new add-ons to be completed.

Thanks for the response.

I too understand the fact that this is a community based endeavor in terms of developing add-ons and the core is what the modx team is working on intensively.
I am not a developer, so I personally cannot contribute to any programming etc.

I am a web designer and photographer. I also know many people who need web sites built, mostly from an arts background.

What I CAN contribute back to modx is feedback from my own experience with my site, and feedback from a greater community of users.

What I have found in general, is that people who need to update their websites themselves, need it to be a no-brainer, or atleast an almost no-brainer. They have become savy with facebook, twitter, blogs and the like... the success of these platforms that are used heavily by the general public is that they are easy to use. They can focus on their content and don’t have to work on learning too much about learning how to use the vehicle for that content.

I don’t agree that it is just another "required" tool that no one really uses. If they could do it easier and faster without learning a new computer skill, of course they will.

I know how to use html and css software, I know how to use the manager in modx (evolution for now), and I still prefer to use my front-end interface to handle content because it is simpler and effective.

So... that’s my argument for front-end editing.

I would like to contribute more to modx, in terms of showing how I made my site and break it down to how it works. Is there a semi-standard format and/or area of the forums that could be created to share in that way with the community?

Has someone more information about the current status of the development for the frontend editor?