MODx Revolution 2.0.0 (formerly MODx 0.9.7)

It’s really more than a fork, it’s a whole rewrite using totally different technology. One of the things that is taking so long to release is working to make updating snippets and such as painless as possible, but it will have to be done.

There does come a day when you can’t stuff your kid’s foot in his old shoes any more, and have to bite the bullet and go get him new ones!

Quote from: rthrash at Jul 15, 2008, 11:07 AM

Vive le Revolution!

Vive lA révolution.

Quote from: silentio at Jul 20, 2008, 04:43 PM

Revolutions are great - at least image-wise. On the other hand they usually cause a lot of confusion
I have the impression of a fork that has been generated here and I am feeling a bit clueless on how to handle modx tech in the near future, sounds a bit like two versions of modx: <1 and >2. What will happen to all the user-codes and additions? (snippets/modules etc.)

I can assure you that image has nothing to do with it, if that will help.

MODx 0.9.6 is very mature and robust and will be around for quite a while. Revolution is fairly solid for an Alpha release but isn’t ready for prime time. The modules and add-ons are being rewritten for Revolution and most of the major ones should be there by the time it is officially released (many are already). At that point, it won’t be that difficult to port an 0.9.6 site to Revolution and there will be migration tools to help.

People new to MODx can build sites in 0.9.6 now and almost everything they learn about MODx will transfer directly to Revolution. For the average MODx user, all it will mean is some minor changes to the syntax of calls to snippets, chunks, etc. and a different look to the MODx manager (with some more functionality -- e.g. drag-and-drop), although working sites can certainly be left in 0.9.6. Not everyone will need the extra power of Revolution (e.g. the ability to run multiple sites off a singe MODx core install).

For the advanced user, though, Revolution will be immensely more powerful, flexible, and scalable.

Quote from: silentio at Jul 20, 2008, 04:43 PM

Revolutions are great - at least image-wise. On the other hand they usually cause a lot of confusion
I have the impression of a fork that has been generated here and I am feeling a bit clueless on how to handle modx tech in the near future, sounds a bit like two versions of modx: <1 and >2. What will happen to all the user-codes and additions? (snippets/modules etc.)

silentio, The naming and versioning will become more clear this week (possibly today) but the bottom line is that MODx Revolution will have an complete migration upgrade script that once tested fully should work an all but a few edge cases for people to migrate from 0.9.6x to Revolution 2.0.0.

There is no fork. While there is a fork in MODx’s legacy, the Revolution build of MODx is a realization of the Foundation’s (especially OpenGeek’s) vision of making MODx truly Object Oriented, discreet core/db layer. The manager interface, easy extension and syntax will be almost entirely the same. It’s still MODx and has the beating heart of what makes MODx such an incredible app. In addition it loses the clumsy and non-scalable stuff such as caching, parsing, content limits, system events tied into the core.

Will you be able to easily upgrade to the Revolution? Yes.
Will your plugins, snippets, modules work? Some will require adjustment and syntax changes (snippets are no longer using eval()) and the upgrader should address placeholders.
Will the current version become obsolete? Not for the forseeable future. There are currently more that 200, 000 downloads of the pre-Revolution system and support, development and optimization will continue. Resources will be developed for it and support will certainly be available for it well into the next year and likely beyond.

We do understand that change can be confusing but in the next weeks you will be witness to more changes that aim to clear some of the confusion, improve the learning curve and help you in your experience with MODx no matter which version you choose as yours/

All the best,

Jay

OK jay, thanx. I think I best wait for some weeks, since being an early-adopter is not my business.
My experience tells me though, that systems tend to become more and more complex, creating "abstraction" layers and so on - and as soon as I have figured out their internal workings and basics (the PHP used, in this case) and feeling comfortable and in control - a "revolution" happens, forcing me to do it all over again, but with much more stuff to handle...
but maybe I’m just too conservative. But, nevertheless, I think that increasing complexity always lowers performance and increases the demand of ressources (Just read a post from Geek recommending to set the PHP-RAM setting up to 32MB - from 8MB which were sufficient in the good old days...

regards, ppaul

I still have lots of plans for improving and developing for the 096 branch. It’s not going away any time soon.

@silentio/Paul

While I can’t comment on the complexity of Revolution other than to say that OpenGeek and the Team have been working on this for a long time and that while it is a new code-base much of it is optimiziation and simplification. Many of the things we currently do with 0.9.6x are overrides and workarounds that will no longer be necessary in the Revolution branch.

Regarding efficiency and slim apps, while MODx is not bloated by any stretch of the imagination one could argue that using a CMS of anykind will lend to overhead, as will an application framework like CodeIgniter or Ruby on Rails. If one is looking for the ultimate efficiency I’d assume a full custom build and likely with optimized procedural code and if one is looking to really imrove performance it would likely not be built in PHP.

Tangent aside, I know that the MODx team strives to find the best balance for performance (one of the key reasons for the rebuild) and exsensability. With the xPDO (DB Layer) and the MODx core now entirely separate MODX will more nimbly be able to connect, integrate and work with all sorts or apps, frameworks, and custom builds. I don’t think that MODx will ever be bloated. In fact there will likely be less in the installs for both branches of MODx in the near future.

I would also underline @sottwell’s mention that 0.9.6x will be around for time to come. I’d posit up to 2 years from now. I personally will continue to use it even after Revolution comes into GA.

Stay with us. Play with the Alpha when you have time and see how it works, file bugs and suggest improvements.

Cheers and all the best,

Jay

Congrats guys. I have dozens of MODx sites which I have had to "bend the rules" to do certain things, as far as the backend goes.

I am really stoked with the concept of MODx .9x was so far ahead of any other CMS / CMF I have used and now you tease me with the smell of a flame broiled steak on the grill in the next room which has to be even farther ahead of anything else out there.

I will grab it and set it up on a local server to start testing it and toss you guys the T-Bones.....


Not the meat mind you...

I shall add my congrats! Sounds like a lot of hard work on gone one for this. I am still very new with modx but I will see if I can help test at all.

Thanks for all the hard work.

OK. Very cool. I’m new to MODx and have just started to get under the hood. So, now I’m confused. Should I uninstall MODx 0.9.7 and install Revolution 2.0.0, or no. I’m lost in a world of code and don’t know where to go next. I was just looking for some help and I came across this bit of information.