MOdx 0.97 and extJS

So I finally got a bit of free time to test out the 0.97 Alpha and the first impression is GREAT!

There were threads mentioning about learning extJS, I am curious, is this one of the fundamental  needs to have site develop in 0.97? Or is it just concerning templating the Manager?

I’d been slowly learning jQuery in the past few months, the progress, though slow, but I am getting better each time I try something new,  therefor I prefer not to have my focus switch to extJS for now. Meanwhile, I also don’t have need to skin/customize or create template for the manager.

Thanks!

MODx has never forced you into a js framework and never will, that’s not the philosophy. Mootools was in the bundled template, but personnally I exclusively use jQuery.

Unless I am mistaken, extJS is not a fundamental but it’s used in the default manager template. I guess it would be perfectly possible to build a manager using no js or using jQuery, mootools... whatever you like ! Same goes for Smarty, which is the template engine for the default manager : you’re not forced to used it and the beauty of 0.9.7 is that you have total freedom here

I’m exactly in the same position as you, and I can’t wait to start using 097 and creating snippets with the new api.

I’m also learning jQuery, it’s fun! I’ve looked at extJs and that one I’m not as interested learing at this time.

From what I understand extJs is only for backend, for the public part you can use what ever you want. Same goes for Smarty, also used in backend but you don’t have to use it front end.

I had a look at Smarty though and it seems like o good option for front end too. I just have to find out if it is "built in" for front end or what I have to do to enable it for front end too.

097 looks fantastic. I can’t say I have great knowlage about all other cms, but I can’t believe there is any better than new MODx.

Also, new MODx feels more like an extension to PHP, I know some (not much) PHP and I can see the beauti of MODx 097.

Of course you don’t have to know any PHP at all for building with MODx.

The manager is just an application built on top of the new MODx API that just so happens to allow you to build public-facing websites and applications. It’s a separate context from the normal web context and has no bearing on the implementation of what you use for those types of sites.

As I understand it, that is the greatest beauty of 097. It is completely modular; each part is an independent "context", very much like any good object-oriented design. You can completely change any of the parts and they can still be used by the others without any trouble. Don’t like the extjs/Smarty-based Manager context? Make up your own, and the front end (web) context will still faithfully display the output produced by your new Manager. Actually I don’t think that’s quite right, but I can’t put my finger on what’s wrong with it... there should be a middle layer in there somewhere, actually generating the product; the web context displays and the Manager context manages, so where does the actual production take place?

Anyway, my original thought holds true; it’s all totally separated and each part is a discreet unit that can be modified or replaced as desired.

Thank you all for the clarification. I am relief as I am not a very smart person, can only learn one thing at a time

Do you think there might be a tutorial/documentation as to how you can remove smarty and extjs from the new manager and replace it with just plain html and css?

Quote from: Moondawgy at May 18, 2008, 09:36 AM

Do you think there might be a tutorial/documentation as to how you can remove smarty and extjs from the new manager and replace it with just plain html and css?

I highly doubt it. You can author your own manager context though, and a 100% accessible manager project has already been suggested, and will likely begin taking shape once we get the 0.9.7 release completed.

Cool - thanks Jason, just thought there might be somewhere hanging around a ’vanilla’ version before you actually added the smarty/extjs to the 0.97 manager.

The reason I ask is that looking at the manager ’templates’ and all the js - it looks like formatting is contained in the actual js itself.

Designers such as myself who have been coding in standards/css since year dot come to modx as it is so bloody easy to build sites in without much of an idea of the code behind it. We are not held back in any way at present and this is a huge USP for modx and the reason I have turned so many of my peers to it.

Most of us here are not developers, we all have our roles in life and skill sets. Sure, we know enough to hack snippets to perhaps get a certain result a project requires, but looking how this incarnation of the manager is constructed it is very heavy for non experienced js people.

Would it not of been easier for the end user to have those js functions presented in a similar format as the current chunk or TV calls and let the designer then style those via css. What are the benefits of going this way? The main user base of modx use it because of its ease of use. One of the things we are/were looking for was a improved manager which is accessible, with the ability to be treated like the frontend templating methods and using a bit of js for some ajax operations.

I am now stuck and confused.