Creating themes for MODX Revolution (maybe for ThemeForest, strategy and discussion)

So how do we do this? What is the best workflow strategy and what will be needed?

Stuff on my mind:

1. Best way to create package? I use MyComponent from Bob Ray (thanks Bob its amazing!) for my Flexibility 4 template but it could be way easier, MODX presented this at the MODXpo 2013 will this be the official best practice for this?
2. MODX needs a theme selector option to activate and try themes without going live
3. I want to use my Flexibility 4 template as a base/core and install themes over it, will allow template updates separate from theme
4. Any specific things that a MODX ThemeForest theme will need?
5. Best way to provide a install that will not override the content?

[ed. note: ThaClown last edited this post 12 years, 11 months ago.]

I've been interested in creating "themes" for MODX for a very long time, making themes as a passive income has been proven and the MODX community is perfect for this right now so I'm pretty excited about these possibilities.

Now, I put the word themes inside quotes because currently MODX doesn't have a concept of interchangeable themes like other content management systems and WordPress. A MODX template is not a theme because it doesn't include any meta data about CSS files, JS files and other theme-related info.

I think this is the first problem we need to discuss and discover a possible solution. For standard website owners and for a lot of the web developers out there having installable and interchangeable themes is mission critical. Simply having to reconfigure many templates, assets and chunks to change the site design is not going to cut it.

At this point we are all going to separately create our own system for interchangeable themes.

We can push to introduce a core "theme" concept to MODX, maybe for 2.3.5, 2.4 or 3.0; or we can come up with some kind of plugin or extra which handles swapping and replacing themes.

What ideas and concepts have you guys got for packaging, swapping and interchanging themes in the smoothest way possible?

I also have a default set up much like the flexibility one that I can use on the majority of projects. I haven't tried packaging it as yet but will give it a go and put it out in the community to use. Would myComponent be the best method for this?

Some way to select themes like there is in WP would be a great addition. I guess it would work by replacing templates, tv's and chunks without touching the content. Although it would also be good to have the option of adding some dummy content...this way users get the whole selection of content possibilities such as galleries, blog posts, accordions, tabbed areas, seo etc etc.
But packaging up all the extras in addition to this would mean huge file sizes wouldn't it?
I'm not sure what can currently be packaged and whether a whole site (extras included) could feasibly be unpackaged (via PM) to a fresh Modx install?

This is something I would love to see as I would do some, however I totally agree with Adam

I think this is the first problem we need to discuss and discover a possible solution. For standard website owners and for a lot of the web developers out there having installable and interchangeable themes is mission critical. Simply having to reconfigure many templates, assets and chunks to change the site design is not going to cut it.

With the current system there is no way to just apply another theme to your website due to chunks, TV's, etc, the only way to do it is to apply the theme on a standard install and then build on that ( for most people ) however from my experience with wordpress people like to test the template on their site before committing to it and changing a couple of things.

without changing the way modx works ( and I really don't want to ) I can see the only way forward would be to have a MODX theme shop, where we can commit our designs to it and people can see a working version ( like themeforest ) but just give them the warning it would need to be installed on a fresh install and MODX take a small cut to help fund it.

If new MODX users buy a MODX theme from ThemeForest they want to try and switch themes easily
With just installing themes like packages it might be too complicated way of adding themes to a MODX install.

Providing a simple, risk free system to try out themes on live sites will be critical for (non-tech) ThemeForest buyers.

Even if your theme is nicely separated in files with the theme name, if site managers want to change the total website theme, they will have to change the template of every page... This should be easy to do with a one click preview... [ed. note: ThaClown last edited this post 12 years, 11 months ago.]

It`s really hard goal for MODX. We can not switch templates for all resources by some system setting. Natively...
I do this via phpTemplates+modxSmarty.

Clickable:




[ed. note: Fi1osof last edited this post 12 years, 11 months ago.]

Haha nice fix! But not really something that would be good for general users...

Quote from: ThaClown at Nov 07, 2013, 05:50 AM

Haha nice fix! But not really something that would be good for general users...

Have you things how create it in pure MODX? I did not. Create templates with prefix in MODX-tags or some else?... I dont think so.

Now "Creative Freedom" is a restriction here. ;-)

Programmers love the clean slate. Its difficult to have a base/rigid system and everyone has their own.

As an end user switching themes would require minimum 2 things:

Fixed Template or set of Templates.
Pre-configured chunks/tv's and snippets.

Thats just to get started with. Every developer will have their own system for templates. I don't think there's a one base solution for all. But strategy could be same for all.

Just a note: Batcher allows you to change the template for multiple pages very easily. I'm not sure if template variables keep their values, though.