MODx 2.0 Web Development on PacktPub

Well although the first edition of the book was somewhat helpful it did seem to have a bizarre take on Modx. I had hoped for a definitive book on Modx Evolution by somebody else but might have to get it if the book is significantly different.

The bizarre take is because the author is not a MODx user; he’s very good at general web development but doesn’t know MODx well at all. As far as I can tell all he did was install the demo content (which is really pretty much obsolete and is only good for a very basic overview of how things work) and go through that. The new book isn’t much different, and has the added disadvantage that its technical editors also don’t know MODx, so there are some major errors and misconceptions (like consistently referring to QuickManager as the DocManager module). I was asked to review it and post a review on my site, but I’ve only read through it once and prefer to read through it at least once more before I decide whether or not to put up anything on my site. Of course, the fact that it’s based on 1.0.4 also handicaps it, but then that’s going to be the case in any tech book that has to spend months going through a publishing process.

In the meantime, you might want to check out my MODx From the Inside articles; they aren’t complete yet, but do a pretty good job of digging into what they do cover. I hope to get back to serious writing this summer.

Quote from: rthrash at Apr 08, 2011, 11:59 PM

Bob’s book is going to be incredible.

While it’s certainly Revo oriented, it also covers Evo topics as well. We liked it so much we spent months trying to figure out how to make it THE official MODX reference and I’m happy to report that it will be published under MODX Press imprint and available in digital and treeware forms, and we’re already working on a German translation. We have a long-standing MODXer starting with us in a few days with a ton of print production experience (and I owned a prepress shop for a dozen years) and a 1500-plus-page Word doc to smash down into <700 pages of properly typeset readable text, but it should be done very soon. We couldn’t be happier about getting this to the community soon.

Well you can put me down as a definite purchaser. When is is going to be available?

It certainly sounds like it is the thing I’m looking for. One of the things I did last year was to set up my system so it is capable of storing a tonne of chess information, at the moment my website doesn’t display anywhere near as much as I’d like because I fear that any more calls to the database might bring the whole system crashing down.

People like me who have specialist websites don’t have budgets and have to do everything themselves. Which makes life very hard. Good instruction books are close to priceless.

We’ve just received what looks to be the latest round of tweaks to correspond to the upcoming 2.1 release so it looks like production will start next week on Bob’s book!

Quote from: rthrash at Apr 17, 2011, 10:47 AM

We’ve just received what looks to be the latest round of tweaks to correspond to the upcoming 2.1 release so it looks like production will start next week on Bob’s book!

Great news,

Put me down for a couple of printed and a digital version

We need order information.

:P

... which begs the question : is there an order form posted somewhere?
MattC

coming soon ...

Quote from: rthrash at Apr 20, 2011, 12:31 PM

coming soon ...

Define ’soon’

I’m assuming 2.1 was the line in the sand, so please pretty please can we have our treeware/pdf/kindle/html/injection/smorgasbord of knowledge in one inconveniently huge 1000+ page form.

If it could have a section made out of silly putty, that when you throw it at the screen it magically transmogrifies into an HTML5 client-proof all-singing all-dancing website that purrs like a kitten, HELL let’s make the whole thing out of kittens, why not, then the better....

Great, we were just about to put the finishing touches on the book and release it.

Now we have to start over and I have to learn kitten technology. Sigh.

I’m new to MODx and was hoping this book would teach me the basics. It is helping. But I got to Chapter 4 on creating a new template and he has a pile of HTML to insert into the template. I really don’t feel like typing that all in and assumed the text would be in the downloadable files from the book’s site. So far these files have not been mentioned at all and I could not find the template text (or the template for that matter) in the downloaded files. Sort of annoying to waste time typing. Perhaps I should bite the bullet and get the e-book and then I could cut and paste. Sigh!