The Help! in Revolution is no help.

It’s true that there are no easy answers to many of these questions. Bob is right on the money - AND he’s great at making very technical things understandable - this is rare. I think the term "Resource" is funny, vague, and jargon-y, but I can’t think of a better term, given what it is being used for here - many things.

After figuring out Revo for a couple months, it seems to me that Revo tilts a bit towards being friendlier to programmers than designers. And I’m sure many people wouldn’t have it any other way - that’s certainly one valid approach. That being the case, when I ask question (and complain) about the Revo interface, I am putting myself in the position of a newbie or designer, what would they think, and how would they find stuff? When somebody makes a killer new Manager theme, this might be alleviated.

Yet, I would still say it’s very friendly towards designers. I have never, ever found a CMS type system that is easier to template, and I’ve tested a lot of systems. I usually prefer doing the visual aspects of a site to messing around with databases and the API (although I can do that to an extent). It seems to me that any designer with the wherewithal to carve up a PSD into HTML/CSS templates could readily learn MODx, either version.

I use Wordpress just as much as MODx, and I’d make the same comment about MODx as I would about that: if a designer isn’t willing to touch a little code once in awhile, they will not be happy or very successful using the system. And there’s even less of that required in MODx. But I think a lot of people are hoping that a CMS will replicate Dreamweaver, and it certainly won’t do that, and I would vote against it.

I would agree that the documentation is often written in programmer-speak, because they’re writing it, of course. Yet I think it’s better than Evo documentation in many ways - and it will improve with time.

Quote from: rthrash at Jan 25, 2011, 09:17 AM

As an aside, I’d also be interested in your thoughts on http://dev.modx.com/learn/quickstart/ Would that have helped your initial learning curve?

I’ll toss in my $.02.

I think it’s really good overall. It certainly would have helped me when I was starting out.

My one nit is that I think it’s a serious mistake to use the term "Settings Resource Fields." People are confused enough about System Settings, Context Settings, and User Settings, without tossing in another "settings" term that’s not really related to them and isn’t available with the same tags.

The distinction seems fairly arbitrary anyway and I don’t see how they would help anyone other than keeping them from seeing a scary long list.
The parent field is no more general than the createdon field and they’re both "settings" really.

I understand the desire not to present one big list. How about this:

Text Fields
Boolean (Yes/No) Fields
Date Fields
Integer Fields

Those distinctions would actually be pretty useful in day-to-day use of the fields, IMO.

I’d like to carry on the discussion about the use of the word Resources:

Firstly, Bruno17: you point me to http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Resource+(Web) in reply to my post, ’If a client asks, "Why are they called Resources?"’.

Are you seriously suggesting that it would be helpful for me to get a client to read eleven paragraphs of technical jargon, or for me to try to explain it to them? I challenge you to give me a couple of jargon-free sentences that will explain to someone who is not a programmer or web freak why the left hand tab, which shows the page structure of their website, is titled Resources, instead of Web Pages, or Website, or Site Map, or Documents.

Here is a direct quote from the second paragraph of the Resources(Web) article which for me says it all: "The very definition of the concept has been the subject of long and still open debate involving difficult, and often arcane, technical, social, linguistic and philosophical issues." This difficulty is because it’s a really bad word to use for a web page. As I explained in my last post, in normal use (i.e. in a social, linguistic and philosophical sense) the word, resource, is understood as something completely different.

To carry on in the same vein, I also think the expression Uniform Resource Locator is a really horrible term. I, like most people, never use it or its short form. We all call it a web address, internet address, or just address.

rthrash: I think I have already partly answered your question as to what I would use instead of the word Resources: on the tab for the ’Resource’ tree, I would instead put Web Pages, Website, Site Map, Documents or something similar and appropriate. Then you have a clear website tree, or document tree, which is what every website designer wants, and there’s no confusing terminology. If you want to have other objects which you at present call resources but which are not web pages or documents, then put them in another category.

As regards your Quickstart tutorial, I think it is excellent, apart from all the references to resources, which, as I have said before, are just terribly confusing. You seem to think that it is somehow beneficial to lump all these extra things which are not web pages or documents all into one category, but it most definitely is not. Where you use the word "amazingly", I would use the word "unfortunately". So, just say, "A Resource is the MODx word for a page or document of your website" and nothing more, then it will be a great tutorial.

Are you seriously suggesting that it would be helpful for me to get a client to read eleven paragraphs of technical jargon, or for me to try to explain it to them? I challenge you to give me a couple of jargon-free sentences that will explain to someone who is not a programmer or web freak why the left hand tab, which shows the page structure of their website, is titled Resources, instead of Web Pages, or Website, or Site Map, or Documents.

I just want to say that if your client buys a car and doesn’t know how to drive, it’s the same thing. He still needs to learn how to drive it, learn new words etc.
If he doesn’t invest some time in learning how the car works he won’t be able to drive it. This applies to almost everything including a microwave.

@aspen

The main point of the term Resources in the MODx tree instead of "Document" is because a Resource is not forcefully a Web document with HTML inside it. It can be a PDF, a RSS feed, a JSON object, a Stylesheet, an excel sheet, etc...

MODx is (too) verbose, but the flexibility require some of those terms (Chunks, Snippets, Plugins...).

The complexity should be hidden, and as a matter can be, with form customisation. With this tool your client will never have to ask you about a resource since you can rename as you like it.
The developper can then work knowing what he does with the correct term and the customer stays with its "Customer friendly name".

Not the best possible solution, but it’s a start no ?

@aspen - It’s a fairly trivial job to do any of the following in MODx.

* Change the caption of the Resources tree for clients.

* Add a Help option to the top menu and point it to your own page.

* Change the URL for any page’s help button to point to your own page (or any page anywhere on the web).

It really wouldn’t be much work to copy any of the help page content to your own site, rewrite it, and point the Manager’s help button at it.
It would be great if you would do that and publish the URL of your improved help site so others can point to it as well.


FWIW, It really doesn’t do to call resources web pages. A web page is often (though not always) the end product, but the MODx resource itself isn’t one.

For example . . .

Here’s a web page: http://www.bobsguides.com/modx-installation-faq.html

Here’s the entire content section of the related MODx resource:



Note that resource 59 is also involved here. It contains the question and answer text and is parsed by the EZfaq snippet. There is only one web page, so what do we call the two objects that both appear in the Resource tree? Calling them web pages would muddy the waters more than they already are, IMO. Nor are they documents in any usual sense of the word. The web history of the word aside, I’ve never come up with a better alternative for them than "resources." It certainly beats calling them "nodes."

All that said, your idea of moving weblinks, symlinks, and static resources a little further into the background is definitely worth considering.

May I ask you what difficulties you have had when you installed Modx? this will be very helpful to any one who think to build a tutorials and guides for beginners..

Quote from: cipa at Jan 26, 2011, 10:22 AM

I just want to say that if your client buys a car and doesn’t know how to drive, it’s the same thing. He still needs to learn how to drive it, learn new words etc.
If he doesn’t invest some time in learning how the car works he won’t be able to drive it. This applies to almost everything including a microwave.

Bang on!

Quote from: rthrash at Jan 25, 2011, 09:17 AM

A Resource is the "R" in URL (Universal Resource Location)—as in anything you can put in your browser address bar and to which you can navigate. In MODX Revolution, it can be a web page, a file, a RSS feed, a RESTful web service or... it’s much more than just web pages.

Quote from: aspen at Jan 26, 2011, 10:08 AM

Are you seriously suggesting that it would be helpful for me to get a client to read eleven paragraphs of technical jargon, or for me to try to explain it to them? I challenge you to give me a couple of jargon-free sentences that will explain to someone who is not a programmer or web freak why the left hand tab, which shows the page structure of their website, is titled Resources, instead of Web Pages, or Website, or Site Map, or Documents.

Ok, Ill take that challenge.

----------------------------------------------------
(As Ryan already suggested above):

Client: What’s a resource?

Aspen: Same thing as a web ’page’ as far as you as you are concerned.

Client: how am I supposed to remember that?

Aspen: Have you ever heard of a ’web link’ being called a URL? That’s the proper name for a web link. The ’R’ in URL stands for ’Resource’. URL stands for ’Uniform Resource Locator’.

Client: So why not just call it a page?

Aspen: You can do that if you want to. Modx just uses the official name, ’resource’ instead of the common name, ’page’. You know, some people say ’automobile’ instead of ’car’ --- same thing, using the vernacular over the proper name.

cipa and skndn60: in the analogy about buying a car, you don’t seem to understand what a CMS is for. A CMS is a Content Management System. That means that it’s primary function is to manage content. A client hires me to design a website in which he/she can easily and quickly add or change their own content when they need to. In the case of a CMS, it’s not the client who chooses the car, but me, and I have to persuade the client that it’s a good car for the purpose of them quickly and comfortably getting from A to B each day, or whenever, to add or make a change to some content. If the car has seven peddles, two gear sticks and a dashboard with strange names and symbols on it, they’re not going to be very happy. They will be reluctant to pay me when I present the bill, and they won’t recommend me to any one else.

I’ve spent a huge amount of effort and time in learning how this strange car works and getting proficient at using it. But, if I’m going to stay in business, I have to either ditch it and buy a new one, or else pursuade the manufacturers to install more user-friendly controls and to put familiar names and symbols on the dashboard.


BobRay: when I’ve understood your post, I’ll get back to you.

sidahmed: unfortunately, I can’t remember the specifics of the difficulties I had in the install. All I remember is that, for the final difficulty, I found, from the forums, that I needed to change some code deep in some files somewhere. I had to comment out, or un-comment something. Sorry, but that’s the best I can do. When I’ve got more time I may try another install. (Yes, if only I’d written it all down...!)