Is MODx for me?

Hi, I was recently given a task to make a website for my friend’s father’s wood-sculpture hobby/company. I am an amateur web designer, with a firm understanding of HTML and an average understand of Javascript and PHP. I find creating a content management system is quite difficult, but I have created one for a personal website. It was a simple gallery system with user registration/login etc. Basic stuff to most of you, I’m sure.

For this new sculpture website, he requests to have the ability to "easily edit the existing pages, and upload images". He doesn’t need a full-fledged blog or anything. It’s basically a portfolio, with a gallery, contact page, and a few other pages which would have simple content that he can edit.

I have created a template for this website, and am searching for a content management system to utilize the layout. I tried to use Joomla, because it seems to be popular among freelance web designers - but it was far too complicated for his needs, and my own.

I’ve installed Revolution, and the template system looks very easy for me to use, as a developer. But the backend would be far too complicated for the site owner (Friend’s dad), who is not very computer savvy. I was expecting a simple front-end to manage content, but I see nothing related to that.


From what I’ve seen so far, MODx doesn’t seem like the CMS I need. I would probably use it for my own site because I am fine with a complicated backend, but I need easy to use content editors, like a WYSIWYG text editor, etc. So, from what I’ve described to you, is MODx the CMS I’m looking for? If not, does anyone have any suggestions?

If I can’t find a CMS easy to implement with an easy to use content editor, I will end up building one myself. But I would rather not reinvent the wheel if I don’t have to.

Try Evolution 1.0.4, available on the downloads page.
It’s the original branch of MODx, simpler, has front end editing built in.
It’s what we all used before Revolution, and what quite a few of us are still using

I will try out Evolution. Front-end building is the main thing I am looking for.

I’d second Bob’s recommendation: try out Evo. It’s a sensibly organized system. I tried a bunch of CMS’s when I was first learning how they worked (back when I was like you: with a solid understanding of HTML and some knowledge of PHP)... the only one that made any sense to me was MODx. I spent hours trying to wrap my head around Drupal, Joomla, and a half-dozen others, but when I arrived at MODx Evo, I finally got a breath of fresh air. Finally, there as a CMS that made sense. I hope your experience will be somewhat similar to mine.