Detailed review pages ... is this possible using MODx ?

Hi,

I’m very new to using MODx, but already very impressed about how clean this CMS is! Really great!

I would like to know if and how it is possible to create detailed review pages with various key points appearing on each article of a given subject, using MODx.

Here’s my current situation :
I’ve got a friend who has an existing music information and review website (reviewing cds, bands, concerts, festivals, interviews, etc.) ... all kinds of articles.
There are about 15 editors, writing these articles... and once these articles are accepted by the chef editor, they are published online for all to see.
At this time, the site has a backend which was specifically developped by the webmaster, for the editors to write about the various topics.

Now Let’s say an editor wants to give all the info and write an article about an upcoming music festival. He will log into the backend and go to the "add a festival page". At that point, he’ll be presented with a detailed form where he’ll enter all the related info. (ex : summary, good points, bad points, price, parking, camping, nearby bars/restaurants, and loads more...)
Once he submits this, all is stored in a MySQL database.

Then, using a template to call all the info up from the database and display it, the final output page that is visible to the visitor is well structured, item by item.


Is it possible to use MODx for creating such detailed pages (many items)?
I’m not really sure how to approach this.

My thoughts up to now have been (with my limited understanding of MODx):

1) In the MODx backend, there are only certain parameters that I can call up in the templates, (ex : title of the page, longTitle), but I can’t create my own personalised parameters for stocking all different kinds of info (for festival :camping, parking, price, etc.) ? => If I did want to use the MODx backend and set up the editors as backend users so they could write their articles and fill in the key information points about the festival, I would have to modify the MODx backend pages for my needs and add some colums to the corresponding modx database table to take in all that info..... is this right or is there anoter solution ? This seems quite complicated.

2)My second option would be to take all the present’s site backend pages and php scripts that are already in use for the website, copy them into MODx, and make them only accessible to the editors as "web Users" from the FrontEnd. They could fill in the forms as they always have and all that info would be stocked inside a non MODx table or database. From there I could create my MODx templates and call the info from that table and arrange it as I’d like...

So am I complicating all of this, is there a really simple solution that I’m not aware of? I would really appreciate any advice for how to deal with this in the best way possible

Thanks!

You could modify the NewsPublisher snippet. It uses a template to generate the form, and you could manipulate it to produce anything you wanted as part of the content. It wouldn’t take much, you can set it to save the document in any folder you like, so it could save to a folder that isn’t displayed in the menu where the editor would check them, and all he needs to do on approval is move them to the appropriate folder for display.

Why not simply create a TV for every information you want to show, say a TV for good points, one for bad points... They work the same as the content-field and can be placed anywhere in your template...

What you’re talking about is relatively easy to do with MODx. My site is very similar. TVs are the "user defined variables" you’re talking about (under resources, modify resources, template variables). They can be fill-in, check box, pull down, and other formats. The catch is, it’s best to create templates first. That’s because when you create a TV, you have to select which templates it applies to. If you create templates after TVs, you have to open each TV and select the new template you create. If you have 5 TVs, it’s no big deal. But if you have 20, 30, or 50 it’s a hassle. So, create 1 template and duplicate it several times and assign different names that make sense to you. When creating a TV, select all templates so you don’t have to manually add them 1 at a time later.

As for organization, I created a folder for each major category. When creating an article, place it in the appropriate folder. Then you can use either the DropMenu or NewsListing snippets to automatically build your index content and navigation. I recently figured a lot of this out. See the following for specifics:

http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,2620.msg23752.html#msg23752
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,3241.msg23812.html#msg23812

Here is a quick summary of the things that all the previous posts had been suggesting. You need TV, Template, DropMenu, and Newslisting.

Resarch further about those 4 things, you will get your whole site up and running with no hassle with MODx. Remember, the design is all up to you, the power of MODx