What did you use before MODx?

I used nothing...

I sort of hit the ground running using Modx when learning html and css. I dont know any programming languages but know the concept... it wasnt that bad. Being your only requirment at work makes ya learn fast

I came from ColdFusion/Dreamweaver with a background in C++. MODx was a breath of fresh air to me.

I’d like to see a new poll with Drupal and ColdfFusion/Dreamweaver included in the choices.

I have used "group-office" as a CMS before. I used it on 2 sites, and it did suck big time.

- no friendly urls
- no easy way to find or to make plugins
- not user friendly
- it’s just to basic

So one of the sites is on the list to be replaced by modx and the other site is from a customer that I ’kicked’ away from my company because of some issues I have with the owner of that company

All the rest of my sites created after these two are in MODx. Websites before that were made by static html or WordPress. And on school I used Mambo (now joomla) for a project because the school wanted me to do :’(

Hi all,
I’d just like to mention - really thank you for MODx. I’ve tried several different products from Jomla to Textpattern and I am glad to say - I finally find what I searched for:)) I tried to build one web site last week and it is amazing to see this SW in action.

Yeah, it will take me several days to find all features (this SW offers so many...:) out but I am looking forward to it.

Thank you.

Petr

I’ve been using it for three years, and I’m still tripping over new ways to do things all the time.

I was doing mostly Wordpress and other CMS, but very recently I was working with a company that is very strict on its use of CMS, by which I mean they only use Drupal.

Drupal! Drupal! Drupal!

Everywhere I go I keep hearing about how great this CMS is, its won loads of awards, its used on lots of websites (most famousily ’the Onion’ website) and I had to use Drupal for 5 days and I thought I’d be able to pick it up very easily having used MODX for over a year.

Boy, was I wrong. I’ve never seen such a convoluted CMS/CMF in my life. I can see what they were trying to do, but why are the most basic things really difficult to do?

Things I hate about drupal,

1) No FCKEditor/WYSWYG editor installed or pre-configured for you. Even if you do manage to install it properly you still need to tell drupal which textboxes to apply it to.... I as a programmer/developer shouldn’t even involved with this. At least in MODX its installed for you, and you can switch it off, and its relatively easy to change the editor without too much fuss.

2) The whole node thing. I got what a node is. But there is no list of nodes anywhere in the CMS. So how are you supposed to know what every node is, what every node contains, or what every node does? The company I did work for used the Eclispe IDE, but if you’re not using this - you’re pretty much relegated to using print_r().

3) Some pages allow you to hide the page on specific nodes. Except that it doesn’t list them and you have to manually type them in. Without a list how are you meant to remember EVERY node? What happens if a node/page no longer exists, does the user have to delete by hand every line? That’s just stupid.

4) The templating system. I use this term very loosely. There is no relationship on the screen in the editor between a view and a template that you create. If you create a view of news reports -- how do you know what template its using? Oh thats right, you have to implicity know that view ’X’ uses template ’Y’.

Another thing I hate about drupal’s templating system is the naming convention. "views-view-something-somethingelse.tpl.php" UGH!

Even if you do get a handle of what view is used for what, it’d be much easier if this was shown ON THE SCREEN you are creating the template on.

At least in MODX you know exactly what page is using what template, you know exactly the relationship.

5) Everything is a view, except that a view is not really what you think it is.

I thought a view was the actual display, the actual HTML or the View part in a MVC framework. A view is not a "view", but a list.

6) Too many modules, the documentation is poor and the wiki is poor compared to MODX.

I can see what Drupal was trying to do, as its being an all things to all men CMS, and yes it is very powerful -- but it sometimes feels like you need a degree to use the thing!

Hi

I still use Joomla and will continue to use it (not exclusively by any means) unless something drastic happens . However in today’s dynamic Web world, rigidly sticking to one framework is a bit, shall we say, a foolish indulgence . That’s why I have been searching for and testing out other CMS’s to add to my repertoire. I only learnt of the existence of MODx yesterday and I have been highly impressed with what I have read about it so far. My initial impressions is that it is a superb platform and I will definitely be using it .

Regards

I have previously used two commercial .NET enterprise level systems:

Immediacy
Contensis

Hi roughneck,

What did you find compelling about those two systems and what was their cost?

Hi Ryan,

I was working for a local government council in the uk. I inherited contensis but was not happy with the company (not sure of the cost). We changed to immediacy and saw a huge improvement with the take up from our content authors. The editor was very useable and intuitive for non-technical users. I also liked the way the system handled multilingual sites. At template level you could create several different content areas each with their own language element. The editor then picked these up and displayed them one above the other making it easy for translation. The content approval workflow was also well thought out.

I think you guys have done a fantastic job with modx. I have been playing with 0.9.6.2 for about a week now and have just downloaded revolution alpha 6 to have a go. I love the way that you fit modx around your XHTML templates rather than the other way around, which other open source systems seem to do.

I have just started working for a further education college. The site I have inherited this time is powered by mambo . I’m going to redevelop the site from the ground up. I would love to use modx but I’m not sure if I can justify using it without a content approval workflow or multi-language capability.

Keep up the good work!

Craig