Gave up ... for now

I’ve been playing with Modx over the weekend and have to say that, for now, I give up on it.
I’ve been using Nucleus for the past few years and each time I try to jump ship I always end up staying with it.
I like Modx a lot but, man, why is everything such a pain to execute?!

I wanted to set up something very simple - a blog like site where I make a post, the posts are displayed on the main page as summaries and the navigation is easy to use.
I got the basics of what I wanted to do with Nucleus up and running an about 10 minutes, the same in Modx took all day.

I tried Modx, i think, about a year ago, (don’t quote me on that as I can’t remember but it was a while ago), and gave up then but kept in touch.

Maybe i ’m just not getting the Modx method but something is clearly missing for me.

The only thing I would say that Modx has over Nucleus is FURL implementation.
Other than that, i really can’t commit a whole weekend to working out the basics.

I’ll be back for another go in a few months.

MODx is not for everyone, and as you discovered, it doesn’t necessarily always click. Maybe it will in the future for you.

You_Know:Me, I believe that if you just want a quick blog site setup, there are much (or might be ) better choices than MODx. But if you want to make several sites, or one site that is complex and customized, then it is surly worth learning MODx, because there is nothing better!

Once you learned MODx you can set up a site like that in one hour!

As Ryan said, MODx is not for everyone. And, as you discovered, MODx isn’t like Nucleus, Wordpress, or any of the other blog software out there...you can’t use it like other blog-like applications without putting in some work into how it’s supposed to look and feel. I’ve tried Nucleus, Wordpress, Textpattern, and a slew of other popular blog and CMS apps. The reason why so many other blog apps are so easy to setup is because that’s more or less what they were built for. MODx isn’t like that...it isn’t built to provide specific functionality like a blog. Instead, it’s more of a framework to build things on top of. Sure, you can have a blog...but with MODx you are in completely control over how the blog is supposed to look and feel. Granted, other apps do the same...but the templating systems with other apps are significantly more sophisticated and require a little time to learn.

In a nutshell, we can expect MODx to be everything for everybody. The best we can do is provide a system that allows for the most flexibility and control, enabling web developers the freedom to do as they please. Not everyone will see it and MODx may not be the perfect fit for everyone. We understand that and we certainly won’t criticize anyone for believing in a different application. If you like Nucleus and feel that it’s the best fit for your needs then by all means stick with it. We won’t yell at ya.

Jeff

I totally understand all everyone is saying.

I have, as most people do, tons of sites. Some simple blogs, some complex huge sites.
What I wanted to to was simply see if i could use Modx for one of my most basic blogs. Then, if that was easy enough, move onto one of the bigger projects.

Stupid thing is that i made a few tests first and the complex stuff i managed to get going pretty easy, the simple stuff, like having posts listed as summaries with latest at the top, I totally stumbled on!

Personally I think that apps like Nucleus, WP etc are akin to a Ford Fiesta where as Modx is on a par with a Range Rover Sport!
I know which one I’d rather be driving!

Well, if having that many sites I would surely recomend spending the time needed to really learn MODx.

And MODx isn’t a range rover, MODx is http://www.koenigsegg.com/

:)

OK but I would still compare Modx with a Range Rover Sport.

The Koenigsegg is a very complex, specialist piece of machinery that takes training to get the most out of it whereas a RRS looks great, drives great and generally anyone can just jump in and drive one away.
At least this is what I would have hoped it would be.

On a serious note, can anyone point me to directions to list summaries in the order of latest at the top?

thanks.

Use Ditto. Documentation here.

A quick start would be just to call Ditto with

[!Ditto? &startID=`1`!]

There are lots of possible customizing possibilities, you can use a template chunk for outputting it the way you want.

I looked into Ditto and it seem s like quite a few of my problems can be answered.

however ... wouldn’t using &startID=`1` list post number 1 as the first post on the summary page? I would have assumed that something like &startID=`LastPost` is what I would need, but obviously this wouldn’t work.

Set the startId to the folder(s) from where you want to list documents.

A more advanced call could look like this, copied from one of my test sites:

[!Ditto? &startID=`452` &tpl=`tpl_ditto_list_latest` &summarize=`5` &limit=`10` &depth=`2` &hideFolders=`1` &dateFormat=`%Y-%m-%d` &showInMenuOnly=`0`!]

At http://www.sottwell.com/ you can login to the manager with a guest account to see more of Ditto in action.