Modx as an Article Manager?

Hi All, This is my second "sit down and have a good look" of Modx in about a year. I’ve been cruising around the site and forums for a couple of days now, trying to get my head around this.

Last time I came across Modx it was for a charity site I was setting up for bombing victims in Dahab last July. Modx was perfect although the charity collapsed.

This time, it’s for my own venture.

I’m in charge of a site that could be mainly described as a news and article portal for promoting Collegiate Rugby Union in the USA. I’m a PHP developer by day and created this one from scratch. http://www.usacollegerugby.com

My problem is, the site was developed in a rush so we could launch with the 2006 season, so the system isn’t very well planned, and now I’m feeling the pinch of that (as I expected to).

There are two main issues for me as I decide whether to use a CMS, or redevelop my own code. We need a way for people to be able to submit articles to us, and have them published by an editor. The home page lists 4-5 of the most recent articles. Game results should also be able to be submitted.

To this end, what I have found in Interspire ArticleLive is perfect, however the price is not.

My question is: Is this sort of customisation possible with Modx? I mean, anything is possible, and I can see how to create a form in Modx, but does that data get stored in the propriety tables, or can it be specified? How do I access these articles to show a paginated view of all articles, or drill down based on category. (I’ve been reading about this thing called "Ditto", but I barley understand what exactly it does). Modx already solves one of my jobs with the SMF integration module.

All these things I can do by hand coding, but a CMS would make my life easier in the long term, not to mention my non-techie partners (who need me to do the most simple of changes). If someone tells me that the learning curve and tinkering involved in such a customisation is probably outside what Modx is designed for, I will thank them and open up the old Zend Studio and replan the site the way I should have.

I feel a bit silly asking all this being a PHP developer, but I’ve never used a CMS or Templating system.....all this TV, Template, and Snippet stuff is new to me.

Thanks for your time
Aaryn

P.S. If anyone has links to a site using Modx that’s in similar format, let me know.

I’m somewhat new to MODx too, but I’ve been following it’s development for awhile now and I’m working on moving over a similar site like you’re asking about. My members submit articles to me (through a discussion forum) and Site Managers add those articles to the site for them. I also have a contact form which allows visitors to contact me with questions or content updates (which I’d like to have displayed by MODx rather than an email), so this is the same idea as what you’re asking for.

The List Indexer snippet (which is packaged with MODx) can display the latest articles for you, and you can set up manager users who can add content and such. I’m not sure about your other criteria allowing users to submit an article to you and having managers add it. The eForm snippet could send their posted data to you in an email, but you probably want it submitted so that you can access it via the manager. Emails can be turned off though, and I’m sure that with some tweaking it could be used to submit the data to the database, which could then be displayed through a module in the manager or a snippet in the frontend (viewable only to users with permissions, of course).

I haven’t tried this yet though (currently trying to convert my other scripts to work properly with MODx), but I’m sure with a little tweaking it would work.

Cheers buddy,

I’ve had a good look at Modx. I think it’s a primo CMS. But because of the learning curve, and the trial and error involved in what I am trying to do, I’ll stick with what I know and redevelop the Bespoke app. Hell, I may even be able to port the article manager to a Modx module when I get a chance to dig into the Modx API.

Let me know how you get on though.

Cheers
Aaron

You can allow users to submit articles using NewsManager; it can be set to have the submitted article unpublished, and an editor with Manager access would be able to publish it on approval, and even to move it into the appropriate section if necessary.

Ditto is used to display selections of articles, news, blog posts, or anything like that.

Quote from: sottwell at Feb 14, 2007, 04:14 PM

You can allow users to submit articles using NewsManager; it can be set to have the submitted article unpublished, and an editor with Manager access would be able to publish it on approval, and even to move it into the appropriate section if necessary.

Ditto is used to display selections of articles, news, blog posts, or anything like that.

I was actually going to suggest that; maybe having any submitted content by NewsPublisher be moved to a "queued" folder being unpublished and await a manager’s approval to move it to the appropriate document parent and publish it. I wasn’t sure if it would be possible to prevent users from publishing documents though, but it looks like there is. Just another example of how the same thing can be accomplished two (or more) different ways.

as long as your lister ignores "unpublished" docs you shouldn’t even need to move them. Ditto will ignore unpublished docs. You could also use the blogging tutorial to get the submittal system running really quick. two snippets and some permissions and you’d be up and running in about a week if you knew nothing. For a developer it shouldn’t take a day to get up.