MODx vs. Wordpress vs. Joomla

What about us "No Brainers", we simply use MODx because it is easy

I have been reading the Fatwallet.com forums too much. I found myself trying to give "green" to dev_cw

Quote from: davidm at May 07, 2008, 03:26 AM

:)

We’re not saying different only you went way further into it than I did, and as you say there are differences in most individuals and hemispheres are specialized. We also agree that we use all parts of our brain, just that we develop preferences and that in this or that context we will use this or that pattern most of the time . . .

Yes, but when you say it, it sounds so . . . . . French.

Joomla: too restrictive. It is what it is: manages content very well. The minutes you go beyond content is when you run into a whole bunch of issues that can be neatly labeled as restrictive.

WordPress: no better blogging tool out there. But the minutes you want more then you need to ask if you want 4x4 tires on your city car.

MODx: limited only by your imagination, be you a right/left/whole/no brainer. And if 097 is built to its blueprint, wow!

I’ve talked myself blue in the face explaining Joomla’s menu builder. None of my clients get it. I’ve converted all of my sites to MODx and my clients love it. They’re no longer intimidated. They love seeing everything right there in front of them. It took me several months to learn MODx and unlearn the inflexible and intolerable gunk that is joomla and drupal.

I love MODx for many reasons. Chief among them is it is a superior SEO/SEF web standards beast. Meanwhile, Joomla continues on with its supremely ridiculous 100% width table rows. Tables! That is so 1999.

<off topic>

Quote from: BobRay at May 07, 2008, 07:06 PM

Yes, but when you say it, it sounds so . . . . . French.

Which either mean my english is more limited than my french (which it is) or I fall into the "lecturer" reputation of french people

</off topic>

Well I had to use Joomla for a recent site and have a few more observations.

1. Joomla is really good for a quick, content-site profile (because of their modules and professional templates)
  - caveat: you need the content before-hand to make it pretty
  - Joomla does *SUCK HORRIBLY* at customization (ie Progressive Enhancement)

Why I like MODx more than Joomla
I have started feeling the best way to build a small to mid-size site is:
1. BASIC BUILD - build the simple site (that looks nice) and introduces the website goals to customers
2. TESTING - install Google Analytics, Crazyegg, and ClickTale
    - See if your goals are being met
3. Optimize the site to better reach your goals (Progressive Enhancement)

#3 is where Joomla fails and MODx rocks. To optimize the frontpage, menu, or other sections of Joomla almost takes a rebuild and decreases ROI exponentially. It is almost not worth it- because it takes so many hacks and workarounds. Joomla is made for basic content or pre-made components with their layout. J! 1.5 helps address this, but addons aren’t plentiful yet, and it’s still hacky with content overrides for different sections.

With MODx TV’s, Ditto, and Wayfinder- progressive enhancement has a huge ROI because simple changes can be accomplished very quickly. So multiple layout options can be tried without affecting the core (upgradability) and without having to hack the main files.

Places where I feel MODx lacks (but so does most other CMS’)
- MODx could really use a TV that allows for multiple input boxes (similar to expressionengine multi-text --*1-- - http://expressionengine.com/forums/viewthread/39153/)
- The current way to manage and add users for a database is very customizable but requires a lot of work --*2-- (WebloginPE and ppp try to address this but are buggy. I still prefer ppp)

--*1-- I am willing to work on a multi-text TV and have looked into it. If anyone has any suggestions on how to do this, please PM me. I have considered using ManagerManager (to AJAXify it) and a Manager Plugin (to serialize it).

--*2-- I have been testing using DabbleDB, ZohoCreator or even a mailing manager (like MailChimp) to manage additional user attributes. Most websites I build dont need people to comment/blog. They just want their customer info for marketing/testing purposes.


Edit - one of the strengths of MODx is how easy it is to use eForm (or Weblogin with OnWebSaveUser plugins) and an external API (CURL for DabbleDB, zohoCreator API, or MailChimp API) to save users additional information into an external database. And even using the MODx API to pull that info back into the site if needed.

Quote from: ProWebscape at May 13, 2008, 03:25 AM

- Joomla does *SUCK HORRIBLY* at customization

Could not agree more! I have a site made in old Mambo and it’s "impossible" to upgrade to more recent versions of Mambo/Joomla because of my customizations. It would be easier to migrate the site to MODx.Quote from: ProWebscape at May 13, 2008, 03:25 AM

2. TESTING - install Google Analytics, Crazyegg, and ClickTale

Crazyegg and ClickTale I didn’t know about, thanks for the tip!
Quote from: ProWebscape at May 13, 2008, 03:25 AM

I still prefer ppp

Nice! I thought I was the only remaining user of PPP! I’m actually thinking of make it better and to make it totally compatible with WebLoginPE so I can use them both together. (Feel free to report the most annoying PPP bugs in the PPP thread.)

Quote from: ganeshXL at May 13, 2008, 03:59 AM

I hear you, but for a lot of circumstances it’s enough to define a textarea input type TV, and just use a certain kind of separator character to enter multiple values.
Granted, you’ll need a custom snippet to pull out those values again for display, but usually that’s quite trivial. You basically just need to explode() the TV string.
Or am I missing something?

It’s mainly a human-error thing. The less the client has to worry about semi-colon or csv seperated items the better.

Quote from: ProWebscape at May 13, 2008, 04:57 AM

Quote from: ganeshXL at May 13, 2008, 03:59 AM

I hear you, but for a lot of circumstances it’s enough to define a textarea input type TV, and just use a certain kind of separator character to enter multiple values.
Granted, you’ll need a custom snippet to pull out those values again for display, but usually that’s quite trivial. You basically just need to explode() the TV string.
Or am I missing something?

It’s mainly a human-error thing. The less the client has to worry about semi-colon or csv seperated items the better.

Couldn’t agree more, (unless the site visitors are programmers). Making it literally impossible for a user to enter corrupt input is always primary goal for me.

Bob

ProWebScapes: what is PPP? I searched the Repositories but couldn’t locate a link. I’ll be more than happy to test your solution when you build it.