Can one MODX rule them all?

This thread is so long I only read page 7 and michael.graham and blankcheck are very excellent comments. I especially liked the "cheeky" comment -- one MODx core dev does this a lot.

MODx staff -- this discussion has gone on too long.

Take a stand.

@rthrash's next blog should say: "The Grand Cloud is on hold for a short time. We're taking our heads out of the cloud for awhile. We're walking back down to earth to fix the obvious major issues with MODx, then we'll head back up to the cloud."

The above is essentially what Drupal did. They spent 1+ year fixing Drupal 7, a much bigger project than MODx, and they used the cloud beta to help them fix Drupal. You can't compete with the Big Three, don't try.

Admit that MODx is excessively developer-focused and that nothing really cool can be done unless you're a developer. Then those of us who are not developers will know to use Drupal. WordPress?? Fabulous manager, hard to customize. Probably same true for Joomla.

Now the flames will fly at me.

Thank you, Tom

The way I look at it is pretty selfish but that's why developing and design are 2 different things...

Stick to what you do, if you're a designer then design and let the developer do what they do best. Designers trying to develop is what is keeping MODX back. Get rid of the stuff that slows Revo down to make things simple for non-developers and focus on making a powerful platform so us developers can give our clients what they want.

If you're complaining Revo is too complex then perhaps staying away from developing might be a better option. I found the ACLs etc very complex but I kept my head down and learned how to use it. People these days don't want to learn anything and complain, so if MODX is made simpler cos of people moaning about it, what happens to us that need this level of complexity? Do we complain or are we forced to move on.

If you don't know how to develop, don't attempt it or go and use Wordpress which is more suited to people that don't want to learn. [ed. note: rossco last edited this post 14 years, 5 months ago.]

I like blankcheck's post a lot. I basically feel the same way: put Cloud on a sidetrack for a while, fix the major issues with Revolution and make MODX shine again. I just want a slick and fast CMS with which I can easily use my own HTML & CSS. Hence the reason I've now switched back to Evolution for the meantime.

Man, some heated discussion going on here! (witch I am sure is a great thing!)

For me as a front-end web-designer & developer MODX (Evo and now Revo) has been a huge timesaver.

Template variables, chunks, snippets and templates allow me create templates fast and to create a manager sturcture any client will understand.

I have also been able to create a quick-start Revo template that saves me amazing amounts of time. (http://designfromwithin.com/flexibility/)

My main issue with MODX is speed, speed and speed.
If a client is complaining about the front-end or back-end speed he will not be happy with the site no matter how great it looks, is easy to use, works or smells (did you notice the new Revo smells like apple pie? seriously!)

Quote from: BobRay at Apr 11, 2012, 05:28 PM

One note: The table names are here (though probably backwards from the way you might want them): http://bobsguides.com/modx-object-quick-reference.html, and you can install the ObjectExplorer extra to have them locally.

Wow - that is incredibly useful - thank you for putting this together!! I wish I'd known about this long ago.

Quote from: BobRay at Apr 11, 2012, 05:28 PM

You gave me ideas for a couple of useful extras.

I've got a bunch of ideas for things I'd like to make, but I've also got limited free time at the moment. I'd like to take a stab at the element graph thing, but diving into Ext again is scaring me off a bit.

Quote from: BobRay at Apr 11, 2012, 05:28 PM

Let me know if you have any feedback on using MyComponent to create packages. I have some ideas for improving it.

I guess my biggest request would be to reduce the redundancy of all the information and package metadata you have to enter into MyComponent.

To start with MyComponent requires lots of multi-file searching and replacing and then lots of hand tweaking to get all the things the search missed. All of the project metadata (name, author, copyright, license, date) is repeated in every project file. Plus there are two readmes. It would be great if I could enter all the information just once.

Personally, I just delete the metadata from all the files and just leave it in the readme. But I suppose if you wanted to get fancy, MyComponent could insert comments at the top of all php files, and generate readme.txt from readme.md, etc.

Also, the package category has to be entered in more than one place, and this can lead to typos.

It would be very cool if the directory structure could be pruned a bit. Currently it is:


I know that MyComponent's file tree is based on what actually gets installed by the package, and sometimes you do need full access to this tree. But in the common case, it's probably sufficient to have something like this instead:


Quote from: BobRay at Apr 11, 2012, 05:28 PM

I've started work on a utility to export chunks, snippets, and TVs to it directly (along with their properties and an automatic transport.object.php file).

Very, very cool!!




Michael

Quote from: rossco at Apr 12, 2012, 07:18 AM

If you're complaining Revo is too complex then perhaps staying away from developing might be a better option.

I've been doing web programming for 15 years and I found it hard to adapt to MODx. Maybe that's because I started programming MODx before I took the time to learn Ext programming. By contrast, I picked up yii in less than a week, and found it very straightforward to use.

But it's not about me.

I'm assuming MODx wants to be able to sell organizations on using Revo for their web sites. I think that there will be more successful installs if there is less specialized technical knowledge required to deploy and maintain a MODx site.

I'm also assuming MODx wants to attract developers with a moderate amount of web experience - to improve the core and add extensions. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only programmer who feels there is a barrier to entry.

Quote from: rossco at Apr 12, 2012, 07:18 AM

if MODX is made simpler cos of people moaning about it, what happens to us that need this level of complexity?

Personally, I think that Revo should retain its advanced features, but it should make them easier to use. E.g. better developer documentation, a debugger for the ACL system, the ability to "impersonate" users, tools to help visualize and manage your site's content, etc.


Michael

I don't see the issue with Revo and Evo, it's as easy to develop a website in Revo. You still have TVs, chunks and pre-build components to retrieve documents etc. Those who find Revo slower, I had issues as well but I found using caching helped a lot and shared hosting might not be ideal for Revo if the host overloads their servers. Similar issues also plague Drupal with shared hosting from my experience.

There are a lot less extras, but it doesn't help that so many people refuse to take on Revo so you cannot expect the core team or those who choose to use Revo to make life easier for those who don't want to learn. It's a joint effort, the MODX team have developed a powerful web application so if you want to use it then it's down to you to learn it. They can't hold our hands every step of the way.

What exactly do people want? The web is moving and at an increasing pace so it makes sense to keep up with it or be left completely behind.

From what I gather, those who don't like Revo expect a new product that is identical to Evo or to drop Revo and return to developing Evo? Evo was great but times have changed and Revo is showing MODX can compete with some of the best CMS out there. Revo isn't perfect but Evo is even further off the mark. Obviously there's no way to please everyone, I just hope that MODX doesn't bow to designers trying to be developers and ruin what is becoming a tool that larger businesses are taking notice, who pay my bills.

I'm a MODX partner and decided to dedicate my development work to using MODX exclusively so I have a real interest in what happens with MODX, this is why I am getting frustrated with hobbyists cos it's my bread and butter and things dramatically change for the bad then that's no use to me. This is why I would support MODX creating a version (Revo) specifically for those who need a platform with such power.

I agree 110% with rossco's last two posts!

And I would really like to hear MODX team thoughts on this: If your goal is to primarily attract/target designers (who are "trying to be developers") please let us know because I am mostly in similar situation as rossco, as, I guess, many are.

I think Revo's advanced features are great but they should not take weeks etc. to learn, that's all.
There has to be a way to encapsulate common use cases into simpler ways to set them up.

One thing more: site migration needs to improve a lot. Provisioner was/is awesome but only for certain versions. All that is really necessary is a tool to extract the proper stuff from the database and copy it into another properly set up database. I myself despite not being a programmer etc. have had some success with this. Moving a modx site is mostly about the database content...if someone can figure out how to do an appropriate mySQL dump to import into another mySQL database, they can make MILLION$!!!

Thank you, Tom

What bothers me about Evo versus Revo is not necessarily whether one is better than the other.

It is the non backward compatibiliy of Revo with Evo add-ons.
If someone who has been using Evo for a while with add-ons like Ditto and Jot to make a popular Blog with hundreds of blog pages and hundreds of Jot comments wants to move to Revo there is no path unless you're a developer guru that wants to spend the time in hacking a solution.
Who cares about Quip and GetResources if you can't transfer Ditto and Jot!?

And probably trying to sell Revo as a Totally separate product and excluding a migration path was probably not the brightest marketing decision and probably alienated a lot of developers who used add-ons for Evo. And by saying "not the brightest marketing decision" I'm trying to be polite because I probably should use more colorful language.

I get wary when there's "blue suits" (CEOs and corporate) moving in with $$Greed$$ coming in.
But maybe that is a good thing seeing how Marketing is flopping around trying to figure out where north and south is.

And now we have the "Cloud" thing. Whatever that is.
Evo just barely got off the ground and people were excited and it came to pass that there out of the blue riding on a cloud with a golden chariot came Revo! to save us all from our misguided Ditto ways and the general confusion associated with that. Revo showed us the Quip Resources path of salvation. The Heathen scattered wondering what new devilry hath befallen upon the peoples.

So there, now I guess I emptied my bag of rants.
But the bottom line is that there is no migration path from Evo to Revo including major add-ons and that is the number one issue for me. [ed. note: modxjr1 last edited this post 14 years, 5 months ago.]