Can MODx replace Dreamweaver?

I always flunked math. Can’t add two and two; my mother told me ’way back when they used manual cash registers to never take a job where I would have to make change. I get my address and phone number wrong all the time. If I say left, go right. If I say 24, I probably mean 42. That’s why I love computers. They do my calculating for me, and if it takes me three or four tries before I get something right, at least with php and web programming the code-test-fix cycle is really quick! That’s the real reason I keep things so clean and modular, so I can find my silly mistakes more easily. So that excuse won’t wash, either!

The new Wiki is my worst nightmare... you have to add or subtract and put in the answer to log in!

Quote from: sottwell at Nov 04, 2006, 11:07 AM

I always flunked math. Can’t add two and two; my mother told me ’way back when they used manual cash registers to never take a job where I would have to make change. I get my address and phone number wrong all the time. If I say left, go right. If I say 24, I probably mean 42. That’s why I love computers. They do my calculating for me, and if it takes me three or four tries before I get something right, at least with php and web programming the code-test-fix cycle is really quick! That’s the real reason I keep things so clean and modular, so I can find my silly mistakes more easily. So that excuse won’t wash, either!

The new Wiki is my worst nightmare... you have to add or subtract and put in the answer to log in!

Its well weird I`m amazing at directions I can drive 400 miles to somewhere once and i remember it forever, perhaps its because its a visual thing.

Well is nice to know your a true "muppet" just like me!

Interesting, me too, while my non-math-impaired friend (whom I let handle all of my financial affairs) can’t find his way out of a wet paper bag.

I’m starting to wonder if I’m the only <20 years old on this site or if this topic is just attracting the oldies

But ontopic; I doubt age matters too much, it’s sure somewhat harder to learn difficult things when you’re older, like a (programming) language but without enough motivation everyone can, eventually

I think its more atracting the oldies than anything else...

To answer the initial question, All MODx does is inputs the content into the style where you want.. so for example if you start from the very begining and just wanted your content to be displayed with no page template or anything else you could just have a style formated like this:-



Oviously this is a major understatment of what Modx can do in regards to templating but im sure you get the idea you start with a style you create in what ever designing program you want to use be it Dreamweaver, Notpad, or any other design aplication and then tell modx where to put what with the "tags" [[snippitname]] for a custom snipit, {{chunkname}} for a custom Chunk, [*feildname*] for a page specific feild, or [(feildname)] for an site wide option i.e site name.

What this means is you can use ANY standard HTML style, be it an example from OSWD, a custom creation or a profesional design you have bought from somewhere/someone, by simply changing the content parts of the site to the tags and including snipits and chunks where you want them on the page to create menu systems and so forth you will have created it into a Modx Theme.

Quote from: Leftblank at Nov 04, 2006, 11:50 AM

I’m starting to wonder if I’m the only <20 years old on this site or if this topic is just attracting the oldies

But ontopic; I doubt age matters too much, it’s sure somewhat harder to learn difficult things when you’re older, like a (programming) language but without enough motivation everyone can, eventually

Ah, children are so cute!

Quote from: sottwell at Nov 27, 2006, 09:37 AM

Ah, children are so cute!

I agree.

There’s one thing the young ones lack - wisdom. Wisdom comes with age (although age does not necessarily come with wisdom - think about it). Although learning seems to be more difficult as one gets older, I’m sure that much of it is to do with this simple fact: The young think they know everything after the first lesson; the wise know how little they have learnt after ten.

Quote from: nzkiwi at Nov 28, 2006, 02:08 AM

I agree.

There’s one thing the young ones lack - wisdom. Wisdom comes with age (although age does not necessarily come with wisdom - think about it). Although learning seems to be more difficult as one gets older, I’m sure that much of it is to do with this simple fact: The young think they know everything after the first lesson; the wise know how little they have learnt after ten.

A tad generalistic, don’t you think? I mean, I know enough to know that I don’t know everything, not even ’a lot’ compared to what you can know, so that wouldn’t confirm your theory

Quote from: Leftblank at Nov 28, 2006, 09:15 AM

A tad generalistic, don’t you think? I mean, I know enough to know that I don’t know everything, not even ’a lot’ compared to what you can know, so that wouldn’t confirm your theory

I’m going from personal experience. I was a youngster once - a long time ago

Quote from: DorianJ at Oct 18, 2006, 10:27 AM

Hi all:

I’m brand new to CMS’s and not 100% certain what they’re capable of. I’ve been doing web design for years with Dreamweaver. I’m wondering if MODx is something that I can now create all my work with rather than Dreamweaver. I’m experienced with PHP, MySQL, Perl, and JavaScript so if any new "language" is needed to use this, then I am willing to try because MODx looks exciting. I also run several forum communities with SMF and seeing that this forum is also powered by SMF, hopefully there will be easy integration between the two.

I know this is an old thread, but having come from Dreamweaver, I thought I’d chime in here for others who are thinking about making the jump to MODx.

First of all, DO IT!

A MODx template is very much like a Dreamweaver template, only better. Like Dreamweaver, MODx lets you specifiy which parts of a document are editable by users. Where Dreamweaver has pseudo-comment tags that identify editable sections, MODx has variable tags like [*content*] that do the same thing. There are a set of standard variables but you can add your own through MODx template variables.

The best thing about this is that, unlike Dreamweaver, when your manager/users edit pages, they can’t actually see the non-editable content. Better yet, they can edit the editable content from any computer in the world with web access in a rich text editor that’s close enough to WYSIWYG to do the job. As the admin, you can do the same and edit the non-editable sections as well. You can also manage user access to various pages very easily.

In addition, you can use "chunks" of re-usable content on multiple pages using the {{chunkname}} tag and place "snippets" anywhere on a page that execute PHP code with the [[snippetname]] tag. Better yet, the snippet call can have parameters that are passed to the PHP code to control its execution.

There are some amazing snippets that come with MODx. Wayfinder, for example, generates an automatic, stylable menu that automatically includes all the documents on your site that you’ve designated as menu-worthy. Menu-worthiness is simply a checkbox on the document editing page and you can set the menu index in the same place to control the order that they appear on the menu. Changing the menu index number in one spot will then move that menu item on every Wayfinder-generated menu at the site.

Documents also have published and unpublished dates. They will show up on the site and disappear on the dates you set (which can be changed in seconds).

Dreamweaver has a somewhat better code editor than MODx, but the MODx one is improving all the time and it’s possible to put your MODx PHP code in files and edit them with Dreamweaver. You have to upload them everytime you make a change but, if you have broadband, it’s about as fast as saving them in the MODx Manager and switching windows to see the changes.

You can also design pages in Dreamweaver, if you want, and then paste them into MODx as templates. I’m gradually doing this with all my Dreamweaver sites.

You might still decide to use Dreamweaver for design but, as a web site platform, MODx blows it away.

Bob