confused about modx

Hi all,
Pardon my ignorance but i have been trying plenty of CMS, i finally settled and decided to learn Joomla but decided to look further and stumbled upon ModX. From working with Joomla it was about installing a template and customizing it. With ModX however "from checking youtube videos" it looks like that i have to customize template through code....

The above question might be premature because i haven't had enough time to actually play with ModX but thought of throwing this question at yea.

Regards,

You're right. MODX is completely flexible, which means you can put any template into it, code it from scratch, or anything in between.

If you want to use a template, go ahead. If the coding part has you wary, just pick one from wherever and use it. MODX doesn't care. Well, you can't just install a WordPress template, but you could theoretically grab the css, html, and js from one and make it work (don't tho... just get the html version if there is one).

The beauty of MODX is, you CAN do this. It doesn't exactly take advantage of the power of MODX, but you can, in theory, simply place your page's template code into a MODX template, assign the template to a resource (page), and it'll display it. What we try to do is create templates that can be used across multiple resources and then tell MODX exactly what to display, and what not to display on the various pages. Effectively building what you're used to with Joomla which is a template (or templates) that is then highly customizable for the developer and end user.

There are plenty tutorials and videos out there about building sites in MODX, as well as a few base templates available in Package Management for you to install and learn with. I like the Flexibility package, as it does have quite a few bits that leverage the power of MODX pre-packaged and installed for you. The videos at http://designfromwithin.com are also extremely helpful and provide for some ahh ha! moments.

Some other great resources are:
http://codingpad.maryspad.com/
http://bobsguides.com/
http://sottwell.com/
http://modxpo.eu/2012/video

While MODX may seem difficult at first, it's really just way too much fun once you realize how the limits that make you crazy with other CMS simply don't exist. Enjoy!

Personally I think the tutorial series at CMS Tricks is really good and introduces a variety of subjects: http://cmstricks.com/tutorials (start at the bottom)

With MODX you will find less "plug and play" but more "100% the way you want it".

Thank you guys for the great info and the links, i will start digging into Modx, it looks promising!!

The first problem most people have with MODx is to over-think it; it's much, much simpler than they expect it to be. Things don't get complicated until you start to do heavy custom development. If you do get into development, remember: never, ever modify the core code. Learn to use the APIs, both MODx and xPDO, and the system event model. That's what can get complicated.