A common conversation many developers have with clients is which system to use. MODX is not as well-known as WordPress, so many clients are reluctant to try it, even when MODX is the more flexible and better-architected system (if you disagree with that, I'll throw the MODX vs. WordPress book at you, due to come out this summer).
I'm sure there are already discussions out there as to what plugins/add-ons MODX would do well to have, but I thought it would be useful to solicit feedback in a dedicated forum thread here.
What Plugins does MODX need? What sexy add-ons does MODX need to compete with WordPress?
Off the top of my head, here's a list:
Desired MODX Plugins
SEO -- this is a buzzword again (facepalm), and even though many SEO "services" are nothing more than cheap exploits of Google loopholes, good luck explaining that to the ignorant public. MODX is structured in a way that would make it easy to automate certain tasks following Google's playbook:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291 The corresponding WordPress plugin would probably be the "All in One SEO Pack":
http://semperfiwebdesign.com/
Calendar -- a simple template or Snippet that could format pages that contain event or scheduling data. I know there's a "Church Events" add-on in the repo, but I don't know if it does any of what we'd need, but I wouldn't think a plugin with such an exclusive name would be the first choice of someone looking for just basic calendar needs.
Columns -- it would be handy to quickly segment content into columns without having to cut into your templates. See the WordPress "Easy Columns" plugin
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/easy-columns/ -- Concrete 5 also has something like this built in.
Gallery Slider -- A way to put multiple images into a slideshow. This could be done via a TV custom output type. Part of the difficulty here is that while WordPress *requires* that each image uploaded gets a database record created for it (much like a MODX Static Resource, but without the PHP streaming), MODX usually doesn't take that route, so any images or other assets are not tracked in the database. See the WordPress sexiness here
http://rivaslider.com/
Google Analytics -- Although it's trivial to add the GA code to your templates, some people need a GUI For everything, and hey, why not have a plugin that helps those users get their fix without having to cut into the HTML?
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/
Google Sitemap -- yes, this is already out there, but is the current implementation clean and sexy and drop-dead simple?
FaceBook/Twitter/Google Plus -- this is so popular... the Facebook API makes me want to punch somebody, so I can imagine it would be much appreciated if some brave developer killed that dragon and made it easy for site authors to share content and post to their facebook site or facebook app. It might make sense to take it to the extreme and generate an entire toolbar for your social media stuff a la this plugin:
http://jamesdebono.com/wibiya-toolbar/
Custom Resource Types -- how cool was it when Articles came out? Can you imagine if we could more easily create other types of resources, e.g. an "Event" resource, with fields that helped you schedule anything? This would tie into the Calendar thing above.
Quick Menus -- I love getResources and WayFinder, but they are no substitute for a simple cherry-picking drag and drop system of menu creation. I can imagine a CMP that acted as a front-end for one of these snippets and it would achieve the goal of letting technically inept users create a list of pages quickly.
Front-end Widgets -- yes, with 2.2, we now can add dashboard widgets, but I imagine that if you had a CMP that allowed drag and dropping of content blocks which could be displayed in your templates by including a simple Snippet, that would be popular. All this stuff is already possible in MODX, it's just not streamlined or drop-dead simple.
Forms -- if your users want forms on their site and they don't know any HTML, they could make use of something like WordPress' cForms (
http://www.deliciousdays.com/cforms-plugin/). You'd need to come up with a unified way of handling the form submissions and validating input. This really is what would take FormIt to the next level.
Contact Form -- another take off from FormIt, it'd be handy to quickly and easily store submitted forms in the database a la WordPress's Contact Form 7. MODX can do this, it's just not streamlined... or has someone published a form to database hook for FormIt?
Simple Permissions -- it's great that MODX
can get extremely granular in its permissions, but the fact of the matter is that 90% of the time, it's overly complicated. I've started some work on a plugin to streamline the permissions that are exposed to the administrators so they can quickly apply the most common restrictions to their users.
Taxonomies -- MODX has tags (available as a TV), but the implementation is not clean. The add-on should feature a more guided installation so you can easily add the tagLister snippet to a dedicated tag page for example. Also, MODX does not feature categories for pages. An orderable, hierarchical category system, and really a way to create any arbitrary taxonomy and easily search for classified pages would be hugely helpful. Frankly, WordPress makes this soooo easy, partly because WP has controllers in its templates (*facepalm*) that handle the canned searches.
Translations -- it'd be nice to have a simple interface to do quick translations of page content and all TVs into multiple languages.
Does MODX already have plugins/add-ons/snippets that does this stuff? If so, let's see some links and feedback -- do they need any polishing? A lot of times MODX can do something, but the way it's implemented is not elegant and it requires some technical know-how on the part of the user. We're after SIMPLE and SEXY.
[ed. note: Everettg_99 last edited this post 14 years, 7 months ago.]
☆ A M B ☆
