MODX - Does it have a future ?

I hope that the forum and the whole community will be there and to grow. I think that you have great products.

Quote from: andrzejkoziol11 at Dec 01, 2016, 12:27 PM

I hope that the forum and the whole community will be there and to grow. I think that you have great products.

I believe we will see the MODX Forums transition to another system (a Forum specific service). Hopefully that will get activity on the Forums back up. The MODX Advisory Board is a big step to increasing collaboration and communication between the product and the community. I hope the community doesn't hesitate to participate with feedback, concerns, and following the DRAFTS being proposed on GitHub.

fourroses666 wrote:

I think mostly Evo and its future is in the hands of the Russian community.
There are still plenty of users and I'm confident about updates for newer versions of PHP.

Personally I make small sites and think Evo fits that great.
When having larger sites and need many plugins Rev probably fits better.

I agree and I like MODx Evo for the reason that it fits the needs of very simple websites as well as more complex ones. I also appreciate that it is relatively easy to understand how it works and watching at the tables in databases is in this regard very instructive.
I've built for a municipality a website of more than 1000 pages, with completely different desktop and smartphone versions based on the same data. The secretary is updating the contents on a regular basis. This shows that quite large and complex websites are also possible with Evo.

mtalvenheimo wrote:

I'm Not sure i have what it takes to Ambassador. Lot of commitment of course. And deeeeep MODX knowledge? Since i'm not backend developer i feel a bit unsecure in this area.

Understanding the mechanics behind MODx Evolution is not that hard.

First try writing a very simple snippet without any MODx-related nor database functions.
Something like echoing a "Hello world". Then have a look at MODx database tables and try to figure out in which are stored the contents of the documents, the chunks, the snippets, the templates variables, a.s.o.

Also try understanding how the tables store the relationships (for instance which template variables are available in a template). It's fairly easy.

Then, try using the MODx API and especially the DB api. Try for instance retrieving programmatically the content of some value in located another document.
You can also have a look at the code of simple snippets like GetField to understand how does this work.

Once you got used to writing simple snippets, have a look at plugins. There are more or less like snippets, but a little more complex as triggered by events in the manager's code.
As for hacking the core of MODx, you'll see it's not that difficult if you have followed the steps above.

You can for instance wait the opportunity of the next parsing error MODx will display to understand what happens.
I strongly suggest using a software like winGrep https://sourceforge.net/projects/grepwin/ to seek trough source files and find which one output an error message.
With winGrep you can easily "bubble up" to what really cause an error.

vrdriver wrote:

I think the biggest downside to modx is the creation of extensions. I've tried and given up a few times. It's a very complicated process...

This is true for plugins as they require knowing MODx events, and even more for modules, but definitely not for snippets. I can write one in a few minutes.

Although you have to get accustomed to using it a the beginning, the MODx API, including the DB API is easy to use. Writing your first snippet will require time, but later to you can copy-paste some code to create other snippets.
I would compare the difficulty to thus of mastering Wayfinder: it's quite difficult at the beginning, but not afterwards.

Now, to answer the original question,
MODX - Does it have a future ?, I'll give my impressions and fears for the Evolution branch:

1. There is still active development around the Evo Core.
Evolution 1.2 brings several changes in the Manager as compared to Evolution 1.1

2. I think the current problem is Ad-ons (e.g. Easy2Gallery, TinyMCE in Evo 1.1, ...) as when new versions of MODx are released, some components are not adapted yet and some are no more actively developped by their main author. One issue are deprecated PHP functions which should be replaced.
The community to fix these problems is currently too small, as many users of MODx are only doing web design, but are reluctant to editing the source code of the components.

So, if no more people are ready putting their hands dirty to update the components, I see a real risk of Evo slowly dying, as less and less web hosting companies will have plans running previous PHP versions like the 5.4.

In consequence, I strongly encourage any people who appreciate MODx Evolution to have a look at how MODx works, so that we can create a more vibrant community that is capable updating the Ad-ons.

3. With each new release of MODx Evolution, I see that lot of energy is spent in creating new styles (menu appearance, a.s.o.) where the true problems are currently not there, but in Add-ons that are no longer compatible.

I originally started this post and have since asked myself many a time whether or not I should continue with MODX, not whether or not I should use Evo or Revo, but MODX

MODX used to be a growing name, but it is now in my opinion stagnated and lots of users are moving away to other systems.

Revo will carry on running as the LLC are behind it, but Evo is solely community driven now and as such could fall away again if we are not careful.

I think it's time to move away from the LLC to establish a standalone community solely for Evo.

Remove outdated snippets / plugins and modules and go from there. There are already talks about a new website which would possibly mean better support

Evo is now up and running again and hopefully it will stay like that for a long time to come - with the help of the community it has a future

Quote from: iusemodx at Dec 05, 2016, 11:10 PM

such could fall away again if we are not careful.

Maybe one question we need to ask looking forward is why to users cling to legacy versions? That doesn't seem to happen as much in other communities. There's already some of that discussed on this thread with Evo being nice for smaller projects.

Why should I not stay with something that works perfectly OK for all of my needs ?

I've used Revo and found it to be "not mine" and as such am glad that the Evo community DEV team have done such an outstanding job to update Evo in such a way that it is now better than it ever was

Legacy is in my opinion the wrong word - the code has been heavily modified since the LLC stopped working on it.

Just to note - Evo is not just good for small sites, I personally run 2 large sites and I know others use Evo for large business and shopping sites [ed. note: iusemodx last edited this post 7 years, 4 months ago.]

I started with Revo. And know nothing of MODX Evolution. In fact I have had no cause to even try it out. Though I have tried WordPress.
Simply _because_ I was/am content with MODX Revolution; and to quote @iusemodx, it works perfectly OK for all of my needs.

Well, is that "BECAUSE" wholly true? And, is MODX Revolution "perfectly OK" for all my needs?

Part of the BECAUSE truth is: Evolution is looked upon as the "before stage" of the organism called MODX. Use nice words like Legacy, but for me the hovering connotation was that Revolution is what Evolution became. And that the fact that Evolution still exists in itself is due to the phenomenon ..., to paraquote @jpdevries, ... of certain strange users clinging to legacy versions.

Now for the "perfectly OK" part, I very often am chasing after other CMSes - what Web Developer does not, let's face it! I look at Craft, OctoberCMS, Processwire etc etc.
I have other projects I would like to handle differently from the way MODX Revo does (don't ask me why).
After the web treks, I still come back to MODX Revo because other CMSes are a complete dissatisfaction, and, let's face it, MODX (Revo) is pretty awesome.

But a few days ago, I saw some serious lively github commitment to Evo, and I muttered to self: boy oh boy, that's one other CMS I have not looked at yet.
I am so excited about Evo and its future.

I called Evo a CMS, not legacy anything, or MODX Before or MODX Junior.
I really hope that Evo becomes completely parallel (and seen as such) to MODX Revo, not just merely linearly ever-behind it.
I really hope that Evo solves within its own self any issues that Revo solved by becoming Revo (from Evo).

In the end, the two best CMSes should be MODX Revo and MODX Evo (I doubt the necessity of a name change)

My rusted 2 cents
Long-live Evo.

Quote from: donshakespeare at Dec 06, 2016, 12:52 AM

Now for the "perfectly OK" part, I very often am chasing after other CMSes - what Web Developer does not, let's face it! I look at Craft, OctoberCMS, Processwire etc etc.

Insight of those who look at and use other CMS systems is particularly valuable. I hope you feel free to share this input with the MAB. We may call upon you to help keep us in the loop.

Quote from: donshakespeare at Dec 06, 2016, 12:52 AM

I really hope that Evo becomes completely parallel (and seen as such) to MODX Revo, not just merely linearly ever-behind it.

That is interesting. I've never thought of it that way. If the Evo team decides to go that route perhaps they can participate in and share some of the findings we are working on with architecting a more futuristic MODX Manager interface (HTML5 standards, modern JS).

Basically Evo and Revo are two different approaches to accomplishing the same thing. And MODX Next will be yet another approach to the same thing. The basic CMS features won't change, just the way they are approached and implemented will be different.

My experiences with Evo in the last year or so suggest that it's developing into a separate product, much like what happened with MODX and Etomite.

For example, the process of authenticating users was changed in Evo so that, in many cases, if you move Evo users directly to Revo, they won't be able to log in. For GoRevo, I had to gin up a Revolution plugin containing a copy the Evo authentication code that logged users in via the plugin, and created new hashes and salts for them based on what they put in the Login form.

In addition, the permissions systems are completely different and incompatible.

I expect to see more of the same as time goes by, since I don't think either group of core developers are concerned about Evo/Revo compatibility.