Switching from Contao to MODx - alternative to Metamodels needed

Hi everyone,

I just came across the idea to try something completly new and therefore thinking about to get involved in MODx. I'm usually using Contao as my preferred CMS system, however, I'm not always aligned with the idea of the community and the software.

Now, there's a plugin existing for Contao, called Metamodels. This plugin enables your system to create tables in your database, enter/modify data and display the data via frontend module. Additionally you can create filters, which gives the visitor the ability to look for specific content in the data.

Since I'm really in the starting position without having digged to much into MODx, I'm asking myself if there's something similar existing for this CMS. Would be great if someone could answer this question to me.

Many thanks in advance, regards, Thomas

I don't know, what Metamodels does.

There is MIGXdb, which is included with the MIGX-package.
It helps to create the needed xPDO-package(s) for custom-tables, helps to create Custom-Manager-Pages for CRUD and has some snippets(mainly migxLoopCollection) for frontend-listings and detail-views.
migxLoopCollection can also be used for filtered listings.

some Tutorials to get started:
https://rtfm.modx.com/extras/revo/migxdb/migxdb.tutorials
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwzx6O7zdaU

about xPDO:
https://rtfm.modx.com/xpdo/2.x/getting-started

The ClassExtender package creates tables for extending the modResource and modUser objects. In theory, it could be used to create other custom tables, but it might take some extra work on your part.

It's also possible that Metamodel could be modified to work in MODX. Without seeing the code, it's difficult to say how much trouble that would be.

Hi,

Metamodels is quite powerful and clever. Let me describe how it actually works.

You create a Metamodel, which is more or less a simple database table in the same database as the CMS resists. In the next step you create the attributes, which are the database fields. You can create several different types, some of them are predefined, like "Yes/no", but you can also reuse values from other Metamodels as values, like a select menu. After all fields are created you're using rendering masks, one for the backend, one for the frontend. Those rendering masks define the fields displayed. You can apply filters to those rendering masks, which control the data displayed, i.e. one mask for a list display, and a second mask for all details of an entry. As next step you have to create an entry mask, which is more or less the mask where you enter all data in the backend. Currently no data entry from the frontend is supported. As last step you define filters which can be either used in the frontend to enable the user some search options, or to apply filters for the rendering masks, i.e. jsut display all entries with a date from today onwards (tournamend_date >= sysdate).

Most magic happens in the backend, the frontend has no intelligence except the filter options to breakdown your list or catalog. A working example is a site, which I own. It displays tournament events for a local sport here in Austria. The link to this site is http://www.stocksportevents.info (sorry, just German). You see Metamodels in action at the front page (in the middle, ten rows displayed) and under "Termine".

Regards, Thomas

This is absolutly possible to build with MIGXdb

Definitely sounds like a job MIGXdb.