Newbie notes - easy till templates

As post title indicates, I’m new to Modx; built sites w Joomla and Drupal, and while both strong, neither perfect, and after coming across info on Modx, reading of it for some time, started a Modx site.

I did the install inc the sample site. Found I could quickly create new pages, edit existing pages; including using wysiwyg editor right away, and uploading photos / including them in pages (when first tried w Drupal, they didn’t show; some security feature filtering out the image codes. Plus, Drupal a bit confusing for images; - not to mention trying to wrap my brain around taxonomy n the like!).
Instructions seemed good.

Then, came to templates info - and Whoa!: a grand jump in complexity, with blocks of code etc, links to sites on CSS.
I realise that can create own templates; but early on, seems a tad daunting, esp if not sure that Modx really is the way to go.
Maybe, could instead start by giving info on where you can find other templates (also, do templates listed for earlier versions of Modx work with latest one?); advise on editing an existing template (maybe Firebug extension for firefox can help, as I’ve found w Joomla n Drupal). Then the build your own info.

I’m curious re version numbering; .9.6.1 now, with .97 months away - so 1.0 maybe some years off at this rate? Yet, Modx clearly is fully ready for actual websites; and even for folk who know little re websites (based on my experience, I’d say pretty easy to start, get pages inc w images, also content sections; I found snippet easy enough, and youtube embedded in page in minutes). Wonder if stepping up thro numbering might help a little, get more people on board, and so help development. I dunno.
Seems wise, as I’ve seen elsewhere in comments, to not get over carried away with fancy stuff.
Anyway, those are quick comments after just a few hours w Modx; I plan to continue, and realise there’s much to learn.

I have mentioned this before to a number of new people. If you are coming to MODx from Joomla or WP, forget anything you every thought you knew about building site templates.

The workflow is this:

• Build or view source of a page of your template in plain old HTML/CSS
• Go to Manage Resources->Templates: New Template
• Copy HTML into the new template field
• Add MODx Tags (sort of like Smarty tags) like [*content*], [*pagetitle*], [(site_name)]
• Copy your css file somewhere (usually to assets/templates/nameofyourtemplate/file.css
• Place link to css file into the head of your newly created template linking to [(base_url)]assets/templates/nameofyourtemplate/file.css
• Save your template.
• Then go to your documents and select your new template from the choices and there you go.

No messing with loops, php functions, boxes, modules, nodes and the like--HTML, CSS and a few simple tags.

A complete tutorial is in my sig.

Let us know if you have any questions.

All the best,

Jay

Hi Jay:

Thanks for the reply.

Tho my point was that at present, I don’t want to make a template - but info on changing templates, finding more (and note re whether templates for older versions work with current version) would be handy.
For anyone starting out, it’s a sudden hill to climb, is templating and learning html/css (I see from another post you’re an HTML/CSS guru; I’ve been building my own sites for years, learned only little of each - I’ve plenty of text/photos, only learning html/css at stages where I feel I have to).
As to me, maybe various others, I’d want to have template that looks about right, then get started on adding content n so on. Doing basics like this proved straightforward.

Perhaps broader point with the 0.9.6.1... , months later 0.9.7.0... - is Modx set to progress from up and coming cms anytime soon?
I appreciate too much bombast not good, but then again, Joomla still has "easy to manage" on its main page, when I reckon only small fraction of computer users would reckon so.

Martin

Martin,

I fear that it may be an uphill struggle for you as MODx is not really designed to be installed and configured by end users. It is really for developers and designers with a background in either PHP/MySQL with some XHTML/CSS or serious XHTML/CSS and some PHP/MySQL. Sure the manager is fairly easy to use but it may be a bit of a shock for someone without either skill set they are going to be scratching their head more than they are editing content.


Templates in MODx are going to be mostly compatible. The tagging system in 0.9.7 is going to require conversion but I did it the other day in about 5 minutes with a quick search and replace. I am sure that it could be done with a Plugin with regular expressions but someone would have to build it.

You can download and install some templates to see how it goes.

Jay

MODx is indeed more intended for experienced web-folk. As far as conversion from 096 to 097, there’s a tested tool that works well to import legacy sites and handles the conversion quickly and automatically ... accurately too!

docMartin: getting templates for MODx is much easier than for most other CMS because a MODx template is a standard html document. MOdx templates do not need to follow any particular rules, however, most of MODx add-ons will work natively with a well formatted xhtml/css formated document. Check out the available templates in the resource repository.

One thing to do is to get a css/html template at http://www.oswd.org/ and slowly adapt it to MODx by repacing the content section with the [*content*] tag, then taking it step by step replace the navigation and move on to other features.

HTML/CSS is not as complicated as it seems. The key is to keep it simple. Some of the stuff I see is unnecessarily complicated. Stick to the basics and move on from there. Tis site is the best entry level reference: http://htmldog.com/

Listmatic is a nice site to help you build css/list driven menus: http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/

List-o-matic is a wizard that can help styling css/list driven menus: http://www.accessify.com/tools-and-wizards/developer-tools/list-o-matic/

Most of the menus from the tools above can easily be build with wayfinder.

Bottom line, yes MODx is geared towards developer types but is so easy to use that any non geek user can go very far with a bit of effort. You will need to get a bit of html/css skills with whatever tools you choose to use (unless you are happy with site-builder type tools). One of the biggest attractions to MODx is that it has such a easy to use templating method.

Hi all:

After Jay’s second message, I figured I would come back today, post re giving up on modx, and trying drupal 6 for small new site (seemed a few features may be good vs drupal 5, which I already use, inc re easier templating)

But extra responses made me think again; (re)read some modx reviews, and info on the latest drupal. Thanks, inc for the useful links.
So, will persist.

I still don’t believe creating new template will be priority for many who might try modx: for me, enough to find an existing one, then maybe tweak it later - as I’ve done w joomla n drupal (w both cases, photos etc in content important: don’t want a "loud" template).
- I’d rather get going on making pages, "sections" etc, seeing what this "SEO CMS" malarkey is all about. Then add a few extras; get something like a website up.

Doing this, I figured tag cloud could be good; yet problem w tvgtagcloud, inc from some conflicting instructions (posted re this in forum). Then tried tag cloud in a drupal site; worked fine. Looked for tag cloud for my joomla sites and - as can be typical w joomla - found there’s a commercial addon.
I expect some grief, esp as I don’t know php (got some notions re html, rather less re css) - but this experience w tvtagcloud made me wonder if modx just a tad too "raw" at the edges, or I was unlucky - a youtube snippet was easy to deploy.

As far as being "geared towards developer types": that’s perhaps the norm w open source cms, esp those that can do quite a bit. Drupal certainly dense when it comes to info, and use of language ("nodes"!!);
Despite info on J’s home page, I don’t reckon it’s a cinch to use for non techies - doing some things that I’d reckon should be standard can require using hacked files, even hacking em (cutting n pasting php, then fingers crossed, in my case!).

Martin

Martin,

I hear you! I bounced like an indecisive bumble bee between Drupal, Joomla, MODx, CMSMadeSimple, Textpattern etc.

What attracted me to MODx was that it seemed open to using regular XHTML/CSS design work. The others all seemed to have rigid "themes" and achieving your own style meant peeling the themes apart. Some like MODx as it is friendly to developers. I know zip about development but I know enough about creating structured, valid strict XHTML pages.

After an initial attraction I became very frustrated with MODx and went back to the other choices. What I found was that they too required time and study. Drupal seemed so huge with so many add ons it became overwhelming. I also found the MODx forum to be the most helpful, even to bleating newbies like myself. So I stuck with MODx and have no regrets now. Its not perfect and the instructions/documentation can be frustrating. MODx is not the best blog system (I would choose Wordpress) for that. But MODx’ most annoying aspect is that once you spend some time with it and gain some initial success it sort of becomes an addictive pastime. I can be doing something completely different and I will still be thinking about some thing I want to try out with MODx.

I suggest sticking around and asking questions. There are some really smart folks here (I am not one of them) that offer great assistance.

Hi Photowebmax:

Thanks for this reply; I’d seen a post you made, on your experiences w Modx.
Drupal indeed huge, and took me some time to figure what was going on - can almost seem like users just know how to use it, rather than needing instructions: bandy about terms like "cck". [i did add a little to instructions, re getting photos to show - something that does not happen by default]. Seems that despite improvements, Drupal templating a bit obscure - I’ve seen instructions for taking open source template and converging to drupal: looked daunting to me.
Seen that modx templating looks far easier.

Yes, no cms perfect; and can be that people immersed in projects not always good at explaining them.
Yet, as mentioned above, I’ve found installing, then making web pages inc images, simple enough w modx.

There’s relevant alertbox from Jakob Nielsen - on website usability, but could apply here too.
Includes:

One of usability’s main laws is that "designers are not users."
...
Open software often falls into this category: designed by geeks, for geeks. [!!]

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designer-user-differences.html

- well, seems to me that best open source should mix aiming for users, and coders/developers who both advance projects and, hopefully, build websites [wasn’t always case at Joomla, say]. As you’ve found with modx - and I’ve experienced w drupal, the software also works for non coders, albeit need some geekiness. Having info/instructions to suit such a broad user base is one of the challenges.

So thanks for being positive; will stick around some more - modx intriguing, and seen strong comments on it: again, making me wonder re the 1.0 step.

Its the nature of the beast...

A lot of designers and Photoshop guys got into web design because they had to. Most hated it. I think a lot of artsy types did connect with the concept of producing pure, minimal html and putting all the presentation into the CSS file. It was a concept that designers could relate to. I certainly did. It works great with static sites. You can be a designer and be a some time web producer and still enjoy being a bit of a code snob...

The trouble is that the web is changing. More and more the arena is shifting to dynamic sites and CMS style systems. The problem is that for Photoshop, InDesign and design jockeys this new world is controlled by geeks. Its all complicated scripting languages, databases and CMS systems with intricate modules.

How does a Mac loving dude who swears by the Apple Cinema Display and has a Pantone swatch book on his desk relate to all the geeks who are into Unix, PHP, scripting languages, databases and Ajax etc? The answer is not very easily. You have to swim against the tide.

So facing the tide is all about picking your poison. You have to pick one. In a way all of these choices will taste foul in your mouth. After doing some bitter taste testing myself I have concluded that MODx is my future as far as dynamic web creation goes.

But I feel like a dumb kid in the sandbox with the big kids most of the time. But there are some great people here. For that I am grateful. I am excited with the prospect of new versions of MODx that are around the corner. It sounds like some major advances will be a reality soon.

Still, MODx and other systems can seem like the province of geeks and hardcore developers. Explanations, visual examples and documentation are not perfect. I have a good friend who is a successful Java developer. He explained to me that almost all developers hate creating real documentation. Maybe it goes with the territory? Its hard to produce the perfect package, present it well, make it easy, and market it to the masses. How many have really done this? Look at Apple’s Steve Jobs, perhaps the #1 business person on the planet. What makes his vision so brilliant? Is it making great products, hardware, software etc? I think his real talent is with making his products seem so appealing buy capturing the imagination of his customers: "look at the cool things you can do with these tools..."

This is my number one wish with MODx: that the developers can simply show: "look at what you can do with this..."

Good luck...

Max