Module for company details, some questions

A client has asked me to build in a way to handle basic company details. As MODX does not currently do this kind of thing, I know that I will need to create a new module, and a new table (ie: modx_companydata) to hold all data.

The fields are very generic, ie: "Company name," "Address", "Telephone", etc) and the data is to be listed, and most probably paged (1|2|3) later on.

My questions;

1) Am I right that if I created a form within my module I can only view it via the front-end of the site, and not via the MODX backend?

2) How do I prevent web-users from adding companies via the module?

3) Is there a walkthrough or a guide to help build your own modules, especally if it interacts with the MODX database object?

Many thanks.

Using custom tables and a module is not the only way to go.

It depends on what you need to do (I am not sure I fully understand what your client needs) but you could use Template Variables (TVs) for that purpose. It’s very easy to build directories with TVs and Ditto for example.

Hi.

Thanks for your prompt reply.

A client wants to add a list of companies into MODX. This directory of companies will be publically viewable (but not editable).

The list of companies has generic data such as company name, address, etc.

quote;
"It’s very easy to build directories with TVs and Ditto for example."

Are there any live examples of using TV and Ditto to build a directory with generic data as detailed above?

I’m curious about using TV and Ditto to do this, I guess you could argue that each client is a page too -- but I don’t really want to do that as the user might forget a piece of data (IE: company address).

Can you really use TV to hold database type data, such as address, etc? Even for more than 1 row?

I’m going to explore the use of TV or template variables to resolve this.

Thanks all

* closed.

Sorry, I am busy at the moment and can’t provide a detailed answser...

Here is a quick one :

• create a template for your company pages
• create a TV for each field you need for your company directory
• associate those TVs with the template
• create a document for each company you need to fill in details. Now when you go and create a document with that template, you’ll have your fields handy. You can change the order of fields in Resources > Manage Resources > Templates >> click the template, then second tab "Assigned Template Variables", there is a link "Edit the sort order of the template variables". Edit and you’re set BTW If you need to hide the default content field, check the HideEditor plugin.
• insert a Ditto call on the page you want to list the companies (dig into Ditto countless parameters and options )

Hope it helps

If you’re brave enough, there’s also tvExplorer and tvEditor:
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,16456.0/topicseen.html
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,16455.0.html

But I’d suggest you get the basics down first with using TVs (+ Ditto for listing/retrieving the tv content).

tvExplorer and tvEditor are sugar coating helping you setting up TVs or a custom search, but firt things first start with Ditto it’s really the key MODx snippet anyway...

Sorry I’ve not done TVs before, and mixing into a "mini-database" confused the hell out of me, but I’m really impressed with the detailed answers as they were exactly what I was looking for!

Many thanks!