A little help needed - revolution not as intuitive as evolution

Greetings!

I have been a lover, evangelist and avid user of MODx since it discovered me back in 2006 and I was excited waiting for the elusive release of Revolution. On being unleashed on the world I immediately downloaded a copy of Revolution, installed it and just went "huh?". With every new release I’ve updated my local install had a quick play but my reaction has still been the same.

So, I’ve finally had to admit it to myself, I just don’t get it. It hasn’t clicked. I haven’t had that Eureka moment that comes with understanding some systems, so much so that I’m sad to report that I’ve had to use WP, EE and CodeIgniter for some of my last few projects.

I really do want to get back into the loving arms of MODx but I just don’t find it as intuitive as Evolution and it frustrates the heck out of me. I know it’s probably just me. I’m sure there are countless users out there who have simply picked it up and run with it but this whole new approach to MODx is a new trick and I’m an old dog.

Understanding comes one step at a time so here’s my first step. One thing I’m trying to figure out is how to restrict access to certain admin areas to different users. With the old flavour of MODx this was dead simple but I just can’t figure it out now.

Can anyone throw this old dog a bone?

I am stumbling through... hopefully I too will have the eureka moment.
Here is a post by splittingred about MODx security. I have watched that thing...I can’t even tell you how many times. It’s slowly starting to sink in. He covers how to set up some restrictions like you are looking for.

Hope this helps!

Thanks dude. Good to know that I’m not the only one hurting.

I remember attempting to watch that video a while back. It just made my head spin! Will sit down and give it another go.

Cheers and happy eureka hunting!

I sort of feel the same...

I think I have tried downloading and trying Revo like three times now. Afterwords I keep coming back to Evo - its like putting on your old slippers after wearing new shoes that don’t fit right.

I really like it. I just don’t quite "get it" yet. I mean, I understand how to put a site together and how I can write snippets etc. But to fully use the framework/api/plugins. You know, the real part of it. The part that you show your friends and brag about it.

It all comes with time. I like Revo. I had just started working with Evo when Revo came out, so maybe that is to my benefit. The main battle I fight (with myself) is that I can’t pick things up/learn them fast enough. I’ll search through the forum for something, find something else, bookmark it... (repeat daily) then I find myself overwhelmed.

I try to force myself to learn new development methods with each site/piece I work on. I figure it’s the only way I’ll get an understanding of MODx. Painful now, but I am excited for the payoff down the road.

Well I’m not familiar with evo, when I saw that revo was gonna be the next version I decided to go straight for Revo. It’s been great trying to figure out how it works and it’s pretty powerful but it’s also a bit above my head. I mean I’m totally dependent on plugins to get basic stuff done and when the plugins aren’t there I’m lost.

I can kinda of make simple plugins myself which I did already but I still find it hard. Now most of the work here in Belgium is done with Drupal and if I would learn that I would get more work coming my way so I’m considering learning Drupal. I tried it once installed it but didn’t understand a thing it felt so counterintuitive anyway I’m starting to think that contentmanagement and me don’t go together well.

For the simpler sites I would still consider modx but for more complex things I would consider Drupal simply because it has more plugins, support and it gets you more work.

I’ve generally found Revo fairly easy to pick up, but this is one area I’ve struggled with too. The security model is powerful but hard to understand.

What exactly do you mean by "certain admin areas?"

The basic procedure (as I understand it, and my understanding may be flawed) is to create an access policy and give it the permissions you want. Then create a user group, and set it to have your access policy for the relevant context (mgr by default). Then add your users to the user group.

The role that roles play in this is still somewhat unclear to me, but I think it basically sets a threshold for the minimum access level required to do something.

You can also create resource groups and element categories, and give your user group access to those.

Quote from: esnyder at Jan 11, 2011, 11:56 AM

What exactly do you mean by "certain admin areas?"

In Evo it’s easy to restrict access with a list of checkboxes for all the various areas of the admin side of things (User management, Resources, File Management, etc). Nice and obvious. For Revo I would need to be able to do something similar, to stop editors from accessing core admin areas.

My understanding of how Revo’s security works is pretty much as yours is, I’m just having a hard time getting my head round it.

Some sort of walkthrough example for setting up a user, group, permissions, roles etc would be really helpful to those like me struggling to understand this powerful new system.

Yes the security thing in Revo is also something I completely do not understand.

Quote from: stofke72 at Jan 11, 2011, 11:17 AM

It’s been great trying to figure out how it works and it’s pretty powerful but it’s also a bit above my head. I mean I’m totally dependent on plugins to get basic stuff done and when the plugins aren’t there I’m lost.

I can completely relate to that. I am able to figure out how to do what I want to do, but I am positive that 9 out of 10 times there is an easier way to do what I’m doing...than the way that I am doing it.