CMS Rants from a ModX Newbie

HI All,

First post here and I’d like to share some info about myself and first impressions of ModX..

ABOUT ME

I am a freelance designer and musician who is proficient in standards compliant xhtml/css. I can usually wing it with some basic javascript and my adventures with CMS’ have forced me to keep php.net on my top shelf of bookmarks..

For the last year and a half I have been searching for a CMS to suit my needs.. needless to say, it has not been easy!

THE QUEST BEGINS

I started with Wordpress because many of my favorite sites used it. After monkeying around for a couple of weeks I got frustrated with the amount of hacking required just to modify the look of my site. The lack of multiple sections was also a big let-down so ... Next!

I downloaded Drupal because it was supposed to be versatile and powerful. After spending 40 minutes trying to install the damn thing, I realized that it’s only a flexible tool for developers who can code PHP in their sleep. Next!

Rails had begun to generate a lot of buzz. Ruby was the sexy girl next door that everyone wanted to get with, and the infamous "Blog in 20 minutes" was successful in seducing me. So I decided to teach myself some basics and ended up with a copy of Typo. All I can say is "ugh!" the app felt like it was haphazardly slapped together in one afternoon by someone who had not eaten their breakfast. The community support was non-existent and the app was lacking many features I needed... Next!

One day I stumbled across Veerle’s blog and was like "Wow!" Expression Engine seemed to pack quite the punch indeed. I still have it installed on my server and though the admin is a little difficult to get your head around (along with the Smarty-inspired tagging system) I haven’t totally given up on EE and recognize its value for future projects. At the same time I realized that to get the most out of it I should buy a copy which is out of the question, so Next! (for now anyway)

I suppose I suffer from a common symptom of many designers. We mostly want a quick fix that gels with our workflow and doesn’t force us to get a degree in a new language. I had pretty much given up hope for my search and resolved myself to the possibility of coding static pages for the rest of my life, but my luck turned around...

HOME SWEET HOME

Thanks to talented designers like Jon Hicks and Nathan Smith, I finally discovered Textpattern and what a huge difference! The install was a breeze and the admin was a breath of fresh air. Though it was a challenge to absorb the logic of TXPs workflow I found it was relatively painless thanks to it’s html-like syntax and structure. (not to mention their great documentation) I was sold! Since then I have created two sites and have 3 more in production.

Other things I love about TXP:

- Lean, mean code output that actually validates
- Complete separation of content from presentation
- Template driven site structure (use of forms to call up frequently used chunks of code)
- Conditional tags (Amazing how much coding you save yourself)
- A wealth of plugins and extensions that is constantly growing
- An incredible community of talented developers and overall good folks.You can feel the love!
- Tiny footprint and blazing speed
- Clean URLs working out the box

But like any system, TXP is not meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution and does have its limitations

- limited custom fields (10)
- No way to assign custom fields (though a plugin is being developed for this)
- No sub-sections at all, not quite suitable for larger applications
- No e-commerce support (still in development)
- No forum integration
- Admin is a beast to customize
- Community and workload seems to have outgrown the core team a bit

As they say, when you can’t get all your milk at home, you start looking at other cows

ENTER MODX

I found out about this software thanks to david m (big surprise right?) and I admit I was instantly turned off by the poorly designed admin. Sure there has been talk of a revamp for many months now, but whoever designed the current admin could not be forgiven and as the deadline kept being pushed up without so much as a screenshot of things to come, I was quick to dismiss it.

Months went by and I kept pushing the limits of TXP on my projects until I hit a wall. I started looking at other CMS again just to get a feel for what was out there. tried Joomla and felt like vomiting, tried new version of Drupal but still could not install it, Tried Radiant CMS but I find TXP to be more capable, finally I ended giving Mod X a second chance.

Some things that are impressing me right now

- Flexibility of custom fields (TVs) and zero limitations
- Sub-sections
- AJAX integration
- Dynamic style sheets
- Solid team of core developers who seem to have every angle covered
- Ridiculous pace you guys maintain at updating the code
- Lovely design you have on your site - clean, modern and attractive!

Things I find lacking

- No conditional tags (ouch! thats a big one)
- No e-commerce solution (paypal doesnt count in my book)
- No forum integration (yet)

Suggestions for admin interface

- Rollover effect is terrible, whatever option you last left your mouse on top of stays highlighted and leaves the impression that you are still in that section.
- When you click on the top menu bar, it should take you to a default submenu instead of just sitting there, waiting for you to select from the submenu.
- lose frames, go with totally semantic css/html
- provide easy way to brand admin for clients
- Allow us to fully customize admin content (move elements around, change order of fields, place upload buttons, etc)
- Speed up admin..feels very sluggish
- Allow us to put frequently accessed tabs on that side menu for quick browsing (think of OS X’s finder toolbar)

I am sure that yall are already working on most of these things but hopefully I have covered some stuff you haven’t thought of. Next month I will begin production on my first site in ModX so you will definitely be hearing more from me.

In the meantime keep up the good work,

and for the love of God release version 1 already! (sorry..couldnt resist)

[*] Forum integration: SMF Module
[*] Ecommerce: ShopX (I use a custom gateway provider with it myself)
[*] Conditional Tags (or the equivalent) will come after the next release (post-0.9.5 in public beta now)

The current manager isn’t a design-winning showcase, but it’s entirely functional. The next release will contain improvements but likely won’t loose the frames. People report its manager is a lot faster, and there’s lots of fixes, usability improvements and tweaks in there as well. Public beta is even better than a screenshot don’t you think? An even better idea: why don’t you make some mockups of what you’d like to see; we’re very open to incorporating ideas here, and do so all the time from "non-team members".

(On the subject of loosing the frames in the manager it drives me crazy too. But then again search engines will never visit that part of my site, so other than it not being the en vogue way to do things... bah, never mind. Frames suck!)

Finally, since our current 0.9.x series is definitely more capable, arguably more stable, and definitely robust than many, many other CMSes out there, why the insistence on 1.0?

But most importantly, welcome aboard!

SideNote : About Textpattern’s team being outgrown, I do think it’s a workload problem but a lack of vision and leadership ever since Dean left, that lead to a slowdown, but that’s only my opinion

Quote from: Ace at Sep 13, 2006, 07:53 AM

I found out about this software thanks to davidm (big surprise right?)

Did I hear my name ?

I think Ryan answered your Qs already, not much to add there, just I thought I’d drop by to welcome you there

Great content by the way (Edit : I’ll add that to the testimony’s collection Done),

Thanks for the warm welcome guys. Looking forward to buggin you with my questions

Quote from: rthrash at Sep 13, 2006, 08:32 AM

[*] Forum integration: SMF Module
[*] Ecommerce: ShopX (I use a custom gateway provider with it myself)

This looks very promising.. although SMF does not leave me very thrilled with their table-based layout. Till I find a better solution I tend to favor PunBB

Quote from: rthrash at Sep 13, 2006, 08:32 AM

[*] Conditional Tags (or the equivalent) will come after the next release (post-0.9.5 in public beta now)

That’s probably the main thing that’s keeping me from using this as my workhorse as I depend heavily on conditional tags. Glad to hear you have it planned for future release though. If I may make a request, one thing I find lacking in TXP conditionals are elseif statements ... if/and conditionals would be sweet too!

Another thought just occurred to me..I remember reading somewhere that you can parse modX tags within tags (using them as attributes) is this something already in place or planned for future release?

Quote from: rthrash at Sep 13, 2006, 08:32 AM

An even better idea: why don’t you make some mockups of what you’d like to see

Funny you mention this..I am well known on TXP Forums for admin comps. You can see my ridiculously long thread here
I also comped up some functionality that seems to come with ModX core here

Having said that, I stumbled across an admin mod on this forum that I found much easier on the eyes and frankly does not need much improvement. Still I wouldnt mind seeing some reorganization and added functionality to help developers get around quicker so dont be surprised if I take you up on your offer

Quote from: rthrash at Sep 13, 2006, 08:32 AM

On the subject of loosing the frames in the manager it drives me crazy too. But then again search engines will never visit that part of my site, so other than it not being the en vogue way to do things... bah, never mind. Frames suck!

Yup...frames and table-based layouts need to be banished forever!

Quote from: rthrash at Sep 13, 2006, 08:32 AM

Finally, since our current 0.9.x series is definitely more capable, arguably more stable, and definitely robust than many, many other CMSes out there, why the insistence on 1.0?

It’s really all david’s fault for getting us to drool over new features!
But seriously, is it really too much to ask you guys to make a perfect product for zero profit and delivery it yesterday?

Speaking of the devil..

Quote from: davidm at Sep 13, 2006, 10:00 AM

About Textpattern’s team being outgrown, I do think it’s a workload problem but a lack of vision and leadership ever since Dean left, that lead to a slowdown, but that’s only my opinion

I can definitely see that...its totally understandable too. However, in defense of my txp comrades I will say that they are definitely picking up momentum and cranking out revisions to the code faster than ever. I think they are doing a fantastic job for such a small group and the future looks very exciting (especially with what they have in store for 4.1) I just think they could use more hands to distribute the workload. No one should have to bust their hump that hard for free.

That’s probably the main thing that’s keeping me from using this as my workhorse as I depend heavily on conditional tags. Glad to hear you have it planned for future release though. If I may make a request, one thing I find lacking in TXP conditionals are elseif statements ... if/and conditionals would be sweet too!

Another thought just occurred to me..I remember reading somewhere that you can parse modX tags within tags (using them as attributes) is this something already in place or planned for future release?

That and a heck of a lot more.

I suspect with a slight "re-education" period you’d find the lack of conditionals workable (I didn’t say optimal, mind you) via clever use of nested snippets and chunks for templates. Take a look at how the latest Ditto beta or Wayfinder snippets work for inspiration.

First of all, thanks for sharing your thoughts on MODx Ace of Dubs (is that shot at Ace of Base?). It’s nice to see your experienced evaluations of MODx in comparison to these other very popular and capable systems, and I look forward to more of your contributions.

Quote from: Ace at Sep 13, 2006, 10:58 AM

This looks very promising.. although SMF does not leave me very thrilled with their table-based layout. Till I find a better solution I tend to favor PunBB

I too prefer PunBB over SMF; just haven’t landed that motivating project to integrate them in any meaningful way yet, plus, I tend not to like bi-directional user synchronization solutions like the current SMF Bridge uses, so I am also working on a way to aggregate user data (credentials, profiles, and/or permissions) from various data sources and then expose that data as a set of services that can be used internally by MODx via PHP API as well as externally via services (SAML? Ajax? Vanilla XML?) and/or PHP API, by just about any other application.

Quote from: Ace at Sep 13, 2006, 10:58 AM

Quote from: rthrash at Sep 13, 2006, 08:32 AM

Finally, since our current 0.9.x series is definitely more capable, arguably more stable, and definitely robust than many, many other CMSes out there, why the insistence on 1.0?

It’s really all david’s fault for getting us to drool over new features!
But seriously, is it really too much to ask you guys to make a perfect product for zero profit and delivery it yesterday?

Partially my fault too, for making David aware of the upcoming features...but then again, I like giving people that feeling of anticipation bordering on impatience.

And BTW, the motivation for me to continue trying to produce that perfect product, and deliver yesterday, is my own ability to make better profits with the product as a web developer. Why not do that on my own you ask, without making it available to the open source community? Well, that’s simple: so that everyone here can help me test it until I have full regression testing available via unit tests; then I don’t need y’all anymore. (ROFLMAO...these are just jokes people)

Warm welcome Ace of Dubs!

Thank you very much for very detailed post! and liking the MODx, and its a brilliant testimony also (Thanks to David for adding into testimony collection)

Happy MODx’ing!

best regards,

zi

Quote from: Ace at Sep 13, 2006, 10:58 AM

Quote from: rthrash at Sep 13, 2006, 08:32 AM

[*] Conditional Tags (or the equivalent) will come after the next release (post-0.9.5 in public beta now)

That’s probably the main thing that’s keeping me from using this as my workhorse as I depend heavily on conditional tags. Glad to hear you have it planned for future release though. If I may make a request, one thing I find lacking in TXP conditionals are elseif statements ... if/and conditionals would be sweet too!

Another thought just occurred to me..I remember reading somewhere that you can parse modX tags within tags (using them as attributes) is this something already in place or planned for future release?

Coming from txp, at first this was one of things that I missed, but so much is gained (TVs, my dear TVs) that you get along quite well without it. Of course, that implies more templates, which is not always a good thing in term of maintenance and keeping things lite.

Both conditionnal testing and recursive parsing will come with the new parser, in the near future (here I am making you drool again )

Quote from: Ace

Still I wouldnt mind seeing some reorganization and added functionality to help developers get around quicker so dont be surprised if I take you up on your offer

That would be great !

It’s funny you mention this, we had this whole conversation inside the team which started from the "Simplicity Sells" video from David Pogue, which you can download here (man, this guy is smart and funny !). The idea is, start from a blank slate and give a lot of thought to the manager interface from a user’s standpoint (I should say users plural, since different roles mean different needs). I am very much into that, I have an eye on the CMS UIG initiative. It’s hard to make things simple for the user, it’s a lot of design work... we sure could use ideas


Quote from: Ace

Quote from: rthrash at Sep 13, 2006, 08:32 AM

Finally, since our current 0.9.x series is definitely more capable, arguably more stable, and definitely robust than many, many other CMSes out there, why the insistence on 1.0?

It’s really all david’s fault for getting us to drool over new features!

I confess, I am such an enthusiast I sometimes do a bit of teasing, because I am SO excited about the future here
It’s part of the "evangelist" profile I guess

Quote from: OpenGeek at Sep 13, 2006, 12:23 PM

Partially my fault too, for making David aware of the upcoming features...but then again, I like giving people that feeling of anticipation bordering on impatience.

Like I said, I am teasing but not revealing too much, hopefully. Just enough to make people drool

Quote from: Ace

Quote from: davidm at Sep 13, 2006, 10:00 AM

About Textpattern’s team being outgrown, I do think it’s a workload problem but a lack of vision and leadership ever since Dean left, that lead to a slowdown, but that’s only my opinion

I can definitely see that...its totally understandable too. However, in defense of my txp comrades I will say that they are definitely picking up momentum and cranking out revisions to the code faster than ever. I think they are doing a fantastic job for such a small group and the future looks very exciting (especially with what they have in store for 4.1) I just think they could use more hands to distribute the workload. No one should have to bust their hump that hard for free.

Hmmm, as I said not sure the problem lies here. But I might not be neutral, me disagreeing with Zem’s way of running things. I am sure the pace has picked up with Mary on the dev team, and some things announced (like elements in the crockery branch) were nice but also long overdue... When I got on board, Dean was his own dev team, it’s not so much the work he put up than the concept he chose for txp (simplicity, flexibility) that made it was it is now...

Quote from: OpenGeek at Sep 13, 2006, 12:23 PM

(is that shot at Ace of Base?).

I’ve uploaded my avatar so you get the idea. I was going to use this as a production name but decided not to, thanks to everyone’s favorite pop group from the 90’s. I still like to use it as an online handle though..has a certain ring to it.

Quote from: OpenGeek at Sep 13, 2006, 12:23 PM

I am also working on a way to aggregate user data (credentials, profiles, and/or permissions) from various data sources and then expose that data as a set of services that can be used internally by MODx via PHP API as well as externally via services (SAML? Ajax? Vanilla XML?) and/or PHP API, by just about any other application.

The XML and PHP API combo sounds very tasty! Do keep us posted

Quote from: OpenGeek at Sep 13, 2006, 12:23 PM

I look forward to more of your contributions

Why wait? Here is an idea I had for TXP which the core team has not expressed any real interest in (that I know of)



Basically its admin skinning on the fly. The majority of elements are built with flat colors which you can easily customize. You can also upload corporate logos in a snap and save your settings as admin themes.

It’s still in its rough stages, and obviously has not been tailored to ModX yet, but I thought you guys might appreciate the functionality..