MODx suggestions

I’m not really sure where to put this, so I’m just posting it in the General MODx Discussions.

I’ve been thinking recently about what would really help improve MODx for me from a practical point of view. It might be that some of these things are already possible and I just don’t know how to do them. It might also be that they’re already planned. Having said that, here goes anyway:

1. Template Variable / Document Content setting on a document-by-document basis.

Here’s what I’ve got. I’ve got a couple of rich text template variables. On most pages, that’s exactly what I want. But on a couple of pages, I need to put Ditto calls in them. Obviously, Ditto calls get messed up by TinyMCE. I solve this by unchecking ’Rich Text?’ on the settings tab. However, this also stops all the other TVs and the document content from being rich text too. Essentially, this means that most users can’t edit those pages, because they don’t know HTML well enough. So, what I would like to be able to do is to turn off rich text setting for individual TVs/Document Content on individual pages.

Related to that, it would be useful if it was possible to restrict permissions for TVs on a document-by-document basis, to stop users being able to mess around with that Ditto call but still to allow them to edit the rest of the page.

2. Access Permissions

Here’s another problem I’ve got. I’ve got a news container that, obviously, contains news stories. I don’t want ordinary users to be able to edit the news container itself, because it’s got a bunch of ditto calls and other stuff in it that I don’t want them touching. I can set the permission of the news container so that only someone marked as a ’web developer’ can edit it. But that then means that the default permission for all of the news pages is such that the ordinary users can’t edit them, and obviously that’s no use. So, what would be useful would be to be able to have different permissions for the container and the documents in the container, rather than having permissions cascading down as they currently do.

3. Link checking

I’m looking for some kind of snippet or plugin or whatever that could, at the click of a button, check all the links on the site and report back any that are broken. I’m sure this is possible, but I wouldn’t have a clue how to do it. Just last week, I was sitting in a presentation about a new CMS my employers have bought and that was one of the features that had people in the audience nodding along.

So, now someone will tell me that all of this is already possible or about to happen and then I can go away and feel embarrassed.

Quote from: PatrickSamphire at Mar 12, 2008, 08:56 AM

2. Access Permissions

Here’s another problem I’ve got...So, what would be useful would be to be able to have different permissions for the container and the documents in the container, rather than having permissions cascading down as they currently do.

I can’t embarrass you with solutions to all your questions, but I might have a possible way to approach #2.

In situations like you mention, depending on how your navigation is set up, you might be able to have your news page with tight permissions, then have ONE subordinate un-published "news repository" like folder with the permissions you want, into which you put your news articles. The news articles would then assume the permissions of the un-published repository folder, not the main news folder. I’ve done that plenty of times and it has worked well. Generally speaking, I very much appreciate the cascade of permissions.

Template Variable / Document Content setting on a document-by-document basis.

I think that this one will be in 0.9.7...but don’t quote me on that

Access Permissions

If you do all your editing/publishing in the manager what the user (editor) can do is controlled by the users role settings.

Obviously, Ditto calls get messed up by TinyMCE.

You are mistaken, they look funny since the & become &amp: but they still work perfectly. Here is how I work, I create 2 text TVs and assigne them to only be edited by a manager document group (they wont show up for other manager users), and place these above and below the content placeholder. This way I can add anything like ditto calls and other items to be included before or after the editable content field, thus keeping all that ditto stuff away from the editors. Works for me so far

Link checking

I like this idea, not sure how to implement it, maybe a plug-in could do that. What was the CMS that has this feature, I am curious to see how it works.

Quote from: jaredc at Mar 12, 2008, 09:29 AM

I can’t embarrass you with solutions to all your questions, but I might have a possible way to approach #2.

In situations like you mention, depending on how your navigation is set up, you might be able to have your news page with tight permissions, then have ONE subordinate un-published "news repository" like folder with the permissions you want, into which you put your news articles. The news articles would then assume the permissions of the un-published repository folder, not the main news folder. I’ve done that plenty of times and it has worked well. Generally speaking, I very much appreciate the cascade of permissions.

That’s a clever idea. I think it would screw up my navigation structure, unfortunately, but it’s worth keeping in mind for the future.

(I guess I could probably also write a quick snippet that would fix the navigation, though.)

Quote from: dev_cw at Mar 12, 2008, 10:09 AM

You are mistaken, they look funny since the & become &amp: but they still work perfectly.

That’s interesting. I think it might confuse my users, but it’s good to know.

Here is how I work, I create 2 text TVs and assigne them to only be edited by a manager document group (they wont show up for other manager users), and place these above and below the content placeholder. This way I can add anything like ditto calls and other items to be included before or after the editable content field, thus keeping all that ditto stuff away from the editors. Works for me so far

Hm. I can think of a couple of places where that would work nicely. Other places it would probably be a disaster because the layout is so heavily templated, but I should be able to reduce the number of pages where I have to turn of rich text.

I like this idea, not sure how to implement it, maybe a plug-in could do that. What was the CMS that has this feature, I am curious to see how it works.

The CMS was Jadu CMS: http://www.jadu.co.uk/site/index.php. I have no idea how they manage it, and I have lots of other reservations about the system, but link checking sounds like a good feature to me.

When I am developing I have my ditto calls in the body of my content, it is quick and convenient. But once I have them tested I move them into the template (which is locked from the client).

Without seeing your layouts, I am not sure if this approach would help you. In my experience the items that call for using ditto have there own look and feel. It is easy to use CSS to place the ditto content where you need it.

ganesh: Xenu is very nice. I’ve just downloaded and tested it and it works very well. Having that functionality built in to MODx would be wonderful, but I’m guessing it wouldn’t be easy to achieve, so I’ll keep using Xenu.

bwente: I think the problem would be that I would just need too many different templates if I did that. Ditto calls are already in all sorts of different places, and I wouldn’t want to have a template for each.

OK, so I built a link-checker for MODx anyway, just because :-]

MODx answer to Moto-X Carmichael

Quote from: mrhaw at Nov 28, 2008, 08:20 PM

OK, so I built a link-checker for MODx anyway, just because :-]

MODx answer to Moto-X Carmichael

You ride bro? Nice. I’ve been riding/racing for about 15 years, since I was 4.

I love riding!! I have been on some really cool tracks on the west coast - WA,
like Washougal MX Park and Horn Rapids in Richland.

Its in recent years Ive discovered this sport, so its an old man that must break legs
if he wants become as good as you who started young. 

Im a swede who’s an american wannabe. Lot of fun stuff: motocross, snowmobiles, jetskiing
has got to me on my many trips over there. Im up in 16 US trips!

Enough with my life story! Rock on dude!!!!!!