Food for thought

Quote from: virtualgadjo at Jun 25, 2011, 01:31 AM

i feel your comments a bit unfair

I do not think so.

All thoose comments are describing experiences with the docs of revo.
Experiences i can partly share.

And then there is that one tough example: The complete misunderstood of the MVC-part.

Lets face it: Dealing with Revo can be a hard task, especially with thoose documentation. Its very "academic" and you are simply lost if you dont have that "academic" background. In another thread someone described the documentation "selfreferencing" and that she did not understand anything.

IMO all of the OPs comments are valid and must be addressed.

If you can share some of those experiences, then step up and help improve it. There are over 30.000 people registered in this community, yet about a dozen or so of them are actively working on the Docs?

This is open source, and we need to do this together.

If you don’t have the knowledge or experience to write the documentation, then at least report specific things that are unclear so others can easily see what’s going on and what needs to be improved. It takes you two minutes of work to make sure others spent hours of their time improve the docs.

It is highly unfair to say the docs are bad, lacking or unclear if you’re not making an effort yourself to at the least highlight what specifically needs to be improved because it did not clear it up for you. I’d rather have twenty issues I can work on at http://bugs.modx.com/projects/docs/issues than one post like yours making me feel all effort I and other spent on it has gone to waste.

Also see this topic: http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,65699.0.html

Quote from: Mark at Jun 25, 2011, 07:18 AM

This is open source, and we need to do this together.

Shure, but:

Quote from: sottwell at Jun 25, 2011, 04:36 AM

I’ve tried to update the rtfm API pages, but I can’t make heads nor tails of the layout and how to structure the pages, so I gave it up. Most of them are documented at least somewhat on the old wiki.

http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,65699.msg371165.html#msg371165

That has nothing to do with the documentation in general. That’s just my problem dealing with the rtfm wiki interface. Evo API functions are pretty well covered in the old wiki, and I would like to move these over to the new rtfm wiki, if I could only figure out how the rtfm wiki itself works; nothing to do with MODx.

Quote from: Mark at Jun 25, 2011, 07:18 AM

It is highly unfair to say the docs are bad, lacking or unclear if you’re not making an effort yourself to at the least highlight what specifically needs to be improved because it did not clear it up for you.

Your sentence didn’t need the bold and "higly" IMO . BUT yeah you’re right, it’s easy to come and complain, thanks for pointing out the issue tracker. Here’s what I’ll do : I’ll stick with MODX for my next project and I’ll report some of my comments here and on the tracker whenever possible. I already have things to say cause I spent a couple of hours setting up some stuff and there are some strange things indeed, but I have to dig a little deeper.

Catch y’all later!

Quote from: deadcow at Jun 25, 2011, 10:05 AM

Quote from: Mark at Jun 25, 2011, 07:18 AM

It is highly unfair to say the docs are bad, lacking or unclear if you’re not making an effort yourself to at the least highlight what specifically needs to be improved because it did not clear it up for you.

Your sentence didn’t need the bold and "higly" IMO .

Was just trying to get a point across there Which seemed to work

If you (or anyone, really) is not quite sure if something has been documented wrong or that they aren’t just getting it and don’t feel like reporting it, please do anyway. Or talk to someone who may know (I’m available on email, skype and google talk) to figure it out. If documentation doesn’t get the point across, it should be improved, so all reports help.

Great topic!!!

I do not think the MODX doc’s are as bad as the OP’s remarks.

I have tried other web CMS’s did not get very far.

I have been trying to get my head around PHP, Javascript frameworks.

I been trying to read and understand extJS, YUI3, jQuery and Dojo docs.

They all claim excellent docs. Well if you know Javascript they may all be fine but to get started I find it very hard going.

I think the best presented is YUI. extJS is impressive but difficult. jQuery is plentiful but varies in quality. Dojo had some understandable beginner tutorials which helped me with getting started with YUI3 The best thing I found was http://jsfiddle.net/ it made testing js "easy"

They all have some form of tutorials but in my opinion not so easy or able to teach the basics as Mary’s Coding Pad tutorials and the other great resources out there such as Bob’s Guides and plenty of others that have helped me get started with MODX. I also have not found such good forum support out there. Things are not so green over the fence.

Just my little chip in!

Quote from: virtualgadjo at Jun 25, 2011, 01:31 AM

It’s up to us to choose the right tool for the right job and, honestly we can’t blame MODx not to do what it doesn’t claim to do, the same as if working on a full e-commerce website i used MODx just because i love it instead of prestashop (or magento if you’re crazy ) and ended in complaining because MODx is not really made for it.

Funny you should mention using Presta instead of MODx for an e-commerce website - I was just considering that option last night. At this point you’re probably right, but the statement may not be true much longer. Visioncart is improving all the time, and is already functional enough that I’m leaning toward using it for a second e-commerce site when the current one (also Visioncart) is finished. True, it’s not Presta or Magento, but it is MODx; it does things the "MODx way" and feels very native to the system.

hi,

would have to say many more things but a bit later, more and more interesting topic...

but for now, @kenquad, you could not speak to a more "i’d love to stay with modx for everything i do" (well, with Evo, that’s to say without vision cart...) but, honestly, an e-commerce website is far from being just about a shopping cart... let’s speak about interfacing it with the most common accountancy softwares when it doesn’t not the main accountancy system of your client, different bank payment systems and a lot more (delivering delays, availibility, bundle offers, collections and so on and so on and so on)

If i just need a simple shopping cart interfaced with paypal, iv’e already done this by myself (for quite complex a booking system) and could easily implement this in Evo not needing any plugin or module.

Now, when it comes to a real fully working e-commerce system, honestly, i’ll use prestashop, winning all day along about how easier many things would have been in MODx (templating just to quote one) but... knowing many other things would take me a year to develop when with an e-commerce designed cms like prestashop they may be considered as simply obvious... the right tool for the right job
don’t misunderstand me, it’s not at all a MODx weakness to my mind, MODx being the right tool for the right job in sooooo many cases it can leave a little field for others sometimes

have swing

@virtualGadjo

I’m not suggesting that Visioncart is going to have all the features of Presta anytime soon - or possibly ever - but it already does provide much more than a "simple shopping cart." Categories, taxes, custom fields and attributes, order viewing and tracking are all working, with hooks to plug into the shipping and payment modules of your choice. Admittedly, such modules are quite sparse at the moment - but since this is MODx, you’re starting out way ahead if you have to develop your own. I have no idea how difficult this would be in Presta if, for instance, your client used a specialized banking or accounting system that wasn’t already covered by a plugin.

Man, are we getting off-topic here... Oh well, I guess the OP was through with this thread anyway - we might at well recycle