Rethinking MODx

another needful feature I’ve not mentioned before:
the initial poster writes he needs a second template in each document... me too! but i need it (and I’ve it working in this way) for printing.

after release of the 0.9.5 I’ll post the SVN diff... maybee you’ll include it in the next releases

Why do you need a second template just for print? An alternate stylesheet will serve the same purpose very well.
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/goingtoprint/

Quote from: sottwell at Nov 11, 2006, 05:27 PM

...An alternate stylesheet will serve the same purpose very well. ...

and without creating duplicate content, and far easier to manage.

as i work professional with CMSes and XHTML/CSS i know that this isn’t really browsersave...

If you are really determined to have a link to the page using a separate template for print, then use the TemplateSwitcher plugin and have the link for printing include the template:

if you have friendly urls on, or use &template=print if you don’t.

i think you think the programmers way, not the "only-stupid-user" way... i have to think both...

Quote from: CBieser at Nov 11, 2006, 05:02 PM

I’ve only read the initial post in this threat... what i think is: this user needs a BLOG-system not a CMS.

Read the rest of the thread. Even if parts of it go over your head, it will be worth your while.

Quote from: CBieser at Nov 11, 2006, 05:02 PM

now, i have to create a document with content to publish it in the calendar. to use the same information in the news i have to create another document with the needed informations. and if i change something i have to do this twice ... so what i want is a CMS with possibilities to create new functions and a user-backend where non programmes can work with, not a BLOG-System!

MODx is currently for programmers. Well, if one admin is a programmer, other users really don’t have to be. A non-programmer admin can get by if he/she uses the work of others, either by reading documentation or asking questions, or by sticking to the built-in features. I’m not sure how soon it will be before non-programmers will be able to create efficient MODx set-ups.

I don’t think that it is efficient or a good idea to have duplicate content in the DB. It is just too hard to manage and can lead to issues.

I am not much of a PHP programmer but I am familiar enough with PHP to know that it is more than possible to generate formatted text files from HTML pages using a script. One could either program a script that would automatically generate a text only version of the document or find and modify a script that would do the same and create a snippet to do this.

This is the reason that MODx is mostly for developers. While I may not consider myself a PHP Programmer I know that without the skills I do have I would be lost using MODx.

If there is concern with the media="print" value not being crossbrowser compatible you could use a scripted style sheet switcher to force the browser to reparse the page using an alternate, print formatted style sheet in conjunction with a print click. Any modern browser should at least accept the style sheet and if there are old browsers that break such as NS4.7 or IE 5.0, I guarantee you that these users are accustomed to a broken internet experience (and should we encourage their continued use?).

Read the rest of the thread. Even if parts of it go over your head, it will be worth your while.

Yes, things may go over your head as some do mine but, as I get my hands dirty in MODx, I come back to this thread and get a whole new experience.

All the best,
Jay

Quote from: PaulGregory at Nov 12, 2006, 05:55 AM

MODx is currently for programmers. Well, if one admin is a programmer, other users really don’t have to be. A non-programmer admin can get by if he/she uses the work of others, either by reading documentation or asking questions, or by sticking to the built-in features. I’m not sure how soon it will be before non-programmers will be able to create efficient MODx set-ups.

in my oppinion it’s not needfull to develop MODx in a way that non programmers can set it up, this is the webmasters job, but non-programmers have to use it in an easy way to publish content. i think that this is one of the biggest typo3, mambo and joomla problems.

Quote from: identity at Nov 11, 2006, 08:21 PM

and without creating duplicate content, and far easier to manage.

again: the site has different news sections and a calendar and i want to prevent duplicate content with a re-use of existing documents!

for example: there is an event on the 9th december, so i create a document for the calendar with publish-date 12/9/2006. but it is a important event, so i create a document for the news with no publish-date but a unpublish-date, using an other template, etc. but i don’t copy the content. i use a snippet to re-use the content in the document for the calendar. and this isn’t what i would call user-friendly for a non programmer.

and please: don’t mix re-use of documents and printing them. these are different topics.
there are several good reasons why i have to use a different print-template in this project.