How to write your own module?

Hello everybody,

I’ve played a bit with the 0.9.7 alpha version and am really impressed by the new UI (I’ve wanted to try extJS for a while and now there seems to be a good chance). Good work!
Now to my question: in our company we have developed a module for administration of structured data (addresses, event data, data from contact form, ...); now we see that it doesn’t work as it did in the new 0.9.7 and we are planning to port it to the new version. I’ve read the tutorials by splittingred (thanky you!) but I’m having problems to figure out on how to create a new module and how to integrate it in the MODx manager, so I’m looking for advice. Any hint is highly regarded.

Thanks in advance for your help,
Thomas

Issues with modules could just be bugs/oversights in the new version; the manager is so completely different we may not have considered all of the things needed to make modules work as they did previously.

But you now also have the choice of simply creating additional Actions and Menu items in the manager directly, unlike before.

splittingred and myself have been debating whether or not to just get rid of modules and add some parameter sharing to the Actions or Menu items, or keep both methods available in the new system. What do others think?

Nuke Modules in the traditional sense ... one less thing to learn and keep up with.

Quote from: rthrash at Jul 09, 2008, 04:23 PM

Nuke Modules in the traditional sense ... one less thing to learn and keep up with.

My problem with that is it further increases the complexity of migrations from legacy versions; i.e. no migration tool can help you convert your modules into the new manager Actions/Menus paradigm. That could further reduce adoption whereas providing both and deprecating modules would provide a cushion for adopters to convert their modules while taking advantage of the multitude of new features and improvements.

QuickEdit needs a rewrite in general. DocManager likewise needs an update and I’m fairly certain we can convince Garry to work on that. That’s the two traditionally considered core distributions.

As for the other modules, sometimes the price of progress is a bit of inconvenience, and I suspect that you wouldn’t hear much objection from the module developers. Some of them in fact may be deprecated due to the new core functionality. Here’s a list of the currently released modules, loosely organized by function, and the ones that are crossed out either deprecated due to future 097 built-in capability or abandoned/obsolete/planned-to-be-replaced in general:

Auditing/Backup/Versioning
Auditor 1.0 by shamblett
BkupMODx 1.7 by Chuck (Packaging Transports?)
Modbak 0.9.4 by stempy "

Parser Enhancement
Autolink 2.0 by garryn
Friends List 1.0 by garryn

Email Newsletters
Easy Multiple Mailing List 0.1 by vr_driver
Easy Newsletter 0.3 by flux
KoopsMailinglistX 1.6 by sottwell
TE Mailer 1.0 by TransEffect LLC
TXNewsletters 0.9 by FranckT

Galleries, Polls, Events & Calendaring (i.e., YAPS-stuffs )
Easy Events 1.0.1 by jaredc
EasyPoll 0.3.2 by banal
Polls Module 3.0 by garryn
Gallery 2 Integration 1.1.2 by muramoto

E-commerce
KiweeCommerce 1.0.0 by crrobinson (abandoned)
TreasureChest 1.0 by Dr. Scotty Delicious (tbr by TreasureChest 2)

Manager Enhancements:
Doc Finder Module 1.2.1 by Bogdan Günther
Document Template Changer 1.0 by garryn (incorporated into Doc Manager)
Error 404 Logger 0.03 by andrazk
MODx Resource Wizard 2.1.0 by Dr. Scotty Delicious, Scientist (Packaging Transport)
Page Hit Counter 2.0 by sottwell
ReplacePage 0.1 by ppaul
SiteSearch 0.0.3 by pixelchutes
SkinGraft 1.0.1 by Scotty Delicious (Packaging Transport)
SQLquerry 1.1 by xyzvisual
SuperFast 3.1 by xyzvisual (bulk content import ... could be a part of Doc Manager)
SuperPage 3 by xyzvisual (generate blank pages ... could be a part of Doc Manager)
WebusersImport 0.2 by laurentc

3rd Party Integration
SMF Forum Integration 1.0 (for SMF 1.1.4) by Iade

One other issue that may or may not apply, making it a "regular" part of the manager vs a module might give us more fine-grained access control to the various "modules" via the ABAC permissions systems coming in 097.

Looks like I’ve got a whole bunch of conversions lined up Seriously though, I’d prefer the switch to using the Actions and Items menu - I’m going need to look at the modules anyway with the switch to 0.9.7 (as will many other developers I presume), so may as well go for the whole hog.

DocManager likewise needs an update and I’m fairly certain we can convince Garry to work on that.

Already started looking at the conversion of DocManager - I’m tossing around a few experimental ideas for revising the UI at the moment. As soon as I have straightened those out in my head, I’ll be onto updating the code.

Quote from: OpenGeek at Jul 09, 2008, 05:53 PM

Quote from: rthrash at Jul 09, 2008, 04:23 PM

Nuke Modules in the traditional sense ... one less thing to learn and keep up with.

My problem with that is it further increases the complexity of migrations from legacy versions; i.e. no migration tool can help you convert your modules into the new manager Actions/Menus paradigm. That could further reduce adoption whereas providing both and deprecating modules would provide a cushion for adopters to convert their modules while taking advantage of the multitude of new features and improvements.

My experience in general suggest that if the new method (Actions/Menus) is well-documented and robust, it’s easier to do it the new way from scratch than to learn/use/debug any migration tool and fully-developed migration tools tend to be created too late in the process for use by many migrators. My two cents: The time and energy would be better spent on the Actions/Menus paradigm.

Quote from: rthrash at Jul 09, 2008, 06:24 PM

... the ones that are crossed out either deprecated due to future 097 built-in capability or abandoned/obsolete/planned-to-be-replaced in general: ...

BkupMODx 1.7 by Chuck (Packaging Transports?) ...

I’m glad I saw this. I guess I’ll focus on bug fixes only for BkupMODx. What backup features are expected in 097? What is "Packaging Transports"?

Chuck

Quote from: Chuck at Jul 10, 2008, 02:02 PM

I’m glad I saw this.  I guess I’ll focus on bug fixes only for BkupMODx.  What backup features are expected in 097?  What is "Packaging Transports"?

The Confluence article: http://svn.modxcms.com/docs/display/MODx097/Package+Management

As well as a tutorial on building 3rd party apps that shows a usage of Packaging Transports. The theory is that these could be applied to the core as well.

Hopefully soon we’ll get an article up on how to create custom manager pages, and the soon-to-be-released alpha-2 will have an example of a Remote Provisioner for transports (which allows you to remotely download and then install 3rd party plugins).