User-Friendly Interface for Clients

I am thinking about developing a site with MODx for a client. The reason I have chosen MODx is - fundamentally - that it allows for rather fluid integration of your own CSS-driven templates. (MODx, in my opinion, is a clear leader in this capability). My only real concern right now is that my clients are not very web savvy and the Manger Interface is not quite as ’user-friendly’ as in other products. So, for instance, if the site I am developing has News items that are integrated via Ditto, each item would live as a document that resides in a directory that displays on the Site tree. To create a new News item, the client would have to start messing around with the document tree (namely, they would have to create a new document within the appropriate directory) rather than just click on something like ’Create New News Item’ somewhere in the manager interface.

So, my basic question is this: Does MODx provide (out of the box, or close to it) a more user-friendly interface that developers can offer clients who are not all that web savvy?

Thanks folks.

Marconi

I believe ManagerManager does pretty much what you want.

Hey Bunk58, thanks for the tip. I downloaded and installed ManagerManger. As a ’newbie’, getting it to offer the sort of functionality I need however, is a whole other story. I am at a loss and somewhat frustrated. So, let me ask the following:

Do you think that I should be investing my time in another CMS? I am fairly fluent with hand-coding CSS and HTML and do have one MODx site under my belt at this point. That being said, my primary interest in using a CMS is to (without much difficulty) provide clients with a clean and intuitive interface for updating their site content. I know some very basic PHP principles, but not enough to do any significant coding myself. Am I missing the obvious here, or do you think MODx, realistically, just exceeds my development capabilities and I should turn my attention to another solution?

Thanks again for any additional advice.

- Marconi

I think that if someone can use a computer and send an e-mail, that they have the skill set needed to use the MODx manager. The interface may be a little overwhelming at first, but as GaneshXL stated you can easily add shortcuts to the key functions (Add News Item) on the home page of the of the manager. Another option is to use a front end document manager setup (either with NewsPublisher or FDM or a custom setup using the DocManager api) that could adhere to the structure that you are wanting.

There are also some very nice manager templates that are a bit more "attractive" that may make the experience a little better.

What specifically are you wanting to simplify?

ganesh, dev_cw -

thanks for your comments. i am largely satisfied with MODx as an open-source CMS, and grateful to all the folks who have put time and effort into developing a fine product. Indeed, that is why I just used it to build a site for myself, am currently building another site for myself with it, and am seriously thinking about jumping into building a site for a client with it. The issue that is confronting me now is that (out of the box) it is not quite as user-friendly as I would ideally want for some of my clients. Sure, adding a new document to a directory is not such a big deal. It is more of a deal however, than simply clicking a button that says: ’Add a News Item’. And the problem is that although I am sure you can ’easily add this sort of functionality’ to the Manager home page, I am still not quite sure how to do this. Earlier today I downloaded and successfully installed ManagerManager but found myself at a loss with regards to how it is actually implemented. The documentation - in my opinion - does not always provide the relevant details; particularly for folks like myself who (although competent with css and html) are not php programmers or mysql gurus. The last step in the ManagerManager instructions says: " Insert your rules into the marked section within the plugin code in the manager." That is fine and dandy, but, how on earth do you actually do this? (And it is not like I have not hunted through the code and forums. The steps and high-level logic are just not intuitively presented in my opinion.)

In the end, I am still just trying to get my arms around the whole CMS protocol. I have worked with CMS Made Simple as well as MODx, and a little bit with Drupal and Joomla. The thing I REALLY liked about CMS Made Simple and MODx was that in both cases, creating your own CSS-driven template is pretty straightforward. I have ultimately elected to work with MODx more than CMS Made Simple because MODx offers additional freedoms not present in CMS Made Simple and it just strikes me as being a more elegant product (’MODx’ is also a cool product name). All that beings said, in the context of being under pressure to build a commercial site for a client, I was just a bit apprehensive about some of the configuration and tweaking I might need to work through in order to get everything to run smoothly.

Believe me, if there was a MODx course I could take where I could sit down with an expert for a day or two, I would sign up in a second. I am sure this would get me over the critical threshold. And all-told, MODx remains the best CMS i have ever used, so please do not misinterpret any of my remarks here. MODx is a great resource!

At first I was concerned about some clients not being able to figure it out, but after I presented it to them and walked them through a few processes they learned very fast and grew to appreciate the flexibility.

I am not sure if you have worked with creating roles for manager users. You can greatly reduce the number of options that the user can view by using manager user/document groups. For example you can limit a TV to only be editable to certain manager user groups. You can remove the resources and the other tools then with managermanager you can then place items in new tabs or change menu names or simply hide items that are not needed (for example you can remove all of the unnecessary fields that are not being used).

Here is an article from the wiki that walks through the process of adding shortcut links to the manager home. I use this all of the time and it really helps: http://wiki.modxcms.com/index.php/Customizing_the_Manager_Homepage

I’ve used Modx for quite sometime, and have shown different clients with a mixture of different skill abilities how to update their sites using the manager that ships with it - and have had no problems at all. Even training them how to alter keywords, meta data etc.

I think you’ll find that most people, with a few hours tuition and some technical support via email or phone won’t have too much problem updating their site using the manager that is provided.

Thanks again folks. Yeah, i am familiar with the basic strategy for changing user settings such that you restrict the update functionalities available to particular admins. I know that this sort of customization can be further refined via ManagerManager and perhaps the use of TVs. I am still a bit unclear on TV functionality however (the high-level picture of what TVs offer), and yesterday, I successfully installed ManagerManager but hit a wall with regards to ’modifying the code’ in order to actually implement its features. (I have read the associated documentation but initial attempts to get it up and running have not delivered the goods for me yet. How do you tweak ManagerManager code so that the admin features for a specific user are customized?) In any case, I am still very much a fan of MODx and expect that - as time goes on - I will spend a lot of time in the forums and get more and more fluent in effectively utilizing the product’s vast features and flexibility.

Three cheers for MODx!

- Marconi