Is MODx Evolution Dead ?

Let me preface this post by repeating my utmost appreciation for the MODx team and your fantastic work on my favorite CMS

Now I’m going to do some moaning.

There is one - and only one - area in which Evo beats Revo for me, and it has already been touched on here and elsewhere. That area is the manager speed.

I know there are good reasons for the sluggish-feeling manager in Revo (or bad reasons, depending on your views about ext2js ).

I know the quick edit feature has at least partially compensated for the loss of Evo’s speedy interface.

The fact remains that I feel like I spend a large part of my day waiting for the Revo Manager. I feel like I am constantly forced to take 3-second microbreaks in the middle of working. I find myself unconsciously plotting how I can trim down the number of times I must expand the document tree or use full edit mode rather than quick edit. After awhile I almost get used to it - then I work on one of my Evo sites and find myself saying "Wow, I miss the Revo features, but this is fast!"

It is perhaps the ultimate tribute from me to Revo that the sluggishness of its manager has not sent me back to the previous release.

I am sort of with Susan on this one. I have tried Revo a few times and so far have not fallen in love. Call me lazy as well, maybe. Things are different for sure. I invested a lot of time with Evo and it works for me.

The other thing is images and image gallery management. I can make MaxiGallery and jQuery work in Evo. I could not get Gallery in Revo to function well for me. I also did not like the overall look of the image presentation with Gallery. Maybe there are new changes? I also got dismayed with the documentation on implementing Gallery. So far I have not seen a live Revo Gallery system that makes me want to switch yet.

I could be way off base but my limited experience sort of felt like Revo was not quite ready for prime time? But I am aware that the tide will turn (maybe has already turned) in favor of Revo. What happens to Evo then? I have a bunch of sites running on Evo and am quite happy.

I know Revo is the future and there will always be progress. But its also a little unsettling that MODx has split into two flavors. Clients ask me if using Evo is like living with yesterdays snow? I also find the two flavors of the MODx project confusing when it comes to the forums: it muddies the waters.

Can the two flavors coexist? Will Evo survive? Really? Look at Apple. Apple is known to kill off older systems. That has annoyed some users, but doing so clarifies the overall mission in the long run. My inner voice questions the merits of having two side by side MODx systems?

So, to be totally frank: I do find this state of affairs unsettling. Part of this feeling is that the MODx project is passing me by? I am not a programmer or developer. I do not build huge sites that require heavy lifting. My primary profession is photography with custom web design on the side. I use Strict XHTML, CSS, custom design, MODx Evo, jQuery, MaxiGallery and Template Variables to get the job done. I sort of feel like a hermit crab that is being forced to shuck its old shell in favor of a new one. Maybe I just need to face facts and don the new shell? But I also sort of hope that there are many who feel like Susan and that Evo still has a place and a future...

3 pages and 2000+ views on a topic like "Is Evo dead" ??
I can’t see what the fuss is about here. Evo rocks. It will only die when it stops being used yeah? And if it stop being used then obviously no-one cars so what’s the big deal?
It seems to me Evo is stable enough to live on without "support" (if support were to cease) or new versions. There’s nothing stopping anyone continuing to build sites with Evo even if everyone else has moved to Revo.
I think the only issues here are imagined. Evo is still alive (and long may it live), but perhaps this topic should die
That said, I had a good play with Revo last week and I do like.... the Devs have again done some wicked magic creating the shiny new MODx....

Does anyone mind, if I toss in my "old Buffalo Nickel" aka ’ 2 cents worth ’ ??

Please respond, if TRU+TH needed.

MaxiGallery seems to be a sticking point for many people. It’s possible that it could be translated for Revo, but it appears to depend on mootools and scriptaculous and I’m not sure how well they would get along with ext js.

but it appears to depend on mootools and scriptaculous and I’m not sure how well they would get along with ext js.

afaik, only for drag & drop sorting in the frontend, so no interference with extjs

Like many others here, I’ve been attracted to ModX thanks to Evolution, but since Revolution appeared I seem to spend too much time 1- in the interface and 2- trying to learn new languages/markups/tricks to get (what used to be) simple things done :’(
As ModX Revolution didn’t give me satisfaction, and as I consider Evolution "dead" (as mush as Windows XP against Windows 7: WinXP does about everything as good as Win7, but is faster and easier; yet everybody is slowly migrating to Win7 because that’s the OS that gets full updates and attentions)... so as I consider Evo dead, I’ve been looking for alternatives. And I think I’ve found something similar in some ways (so I can still use the logic I used with ModX), and yet is way lighter and easier (for example it can easily manage multiple dynamic "TVs" equivalents, allows adding/removing several images to a document for example)...

Am I allowed to mention an alternative here ?

Am I allowed to mention an alternative here ?

sure

Quote from: sharkbait at Dec 11, 2010, 02:42 AM

Am I allowed to mention an alternative here ?

sure

I don’t want to bring trouble to that CMS programmer by posting about it on another forum, I hope you, ModX developers and him won’t be mad at me :-p
So, that CMS is ProcessWire 2, you can get it and have info about it here: http://processwire.com/
Tell me what you think. Personally I’ve switched my current project from ModX to PW2 (but that’s only a learning project, something I’m playing with for my own usage and education).

@GoustiFruit

I utterly disagree with your statements (minus processwire - quite interesting!).
Windows 7 is way better than Windows xp and MODx Evolution is not dead. :p

While i understand the concerns on the interface from the new backend brought by Revolution, i don’t really see where you have to learn new tricks with Revo.

The tags are quite similar to Evolution’s and used the exact same way.
Even Phx in directly integrated natively "if needed".
Maybe you’re referring to the POO paradygm ?

Again MODx Evolution is not dead. Take a look at the git repository, it’s quite alive.