A Newby: my observations/challenges so far...

I just found the Wanted page on the Wiki:

http://wiki.modxcms.com/index.php/Wanted


And also, one of my favorite software products, FoxyCart, just redid some parts of their Wiki.
I might like to do something similar for our current wiki.

Here is what they did:

http://wiki.foxycart.com/integration
http://wiki.foxycart.com/

I was thinking of making a wiki page that has links to all the good sources of information whether they be deeply buried forum posts, wiki pages, or off site guides (like Bob’s Guides). It would basically be a list of everywhere I went to find the information I needed to build knowledge.

John,

You seem to be doing a lot of thinking on this. Personally, I hate the clutter of Mediawiki. It is made for the editors but not content seekers.

The FoxyCart stuff seems to be very well organized and thought out. I think that a simpler organization of the existing wiki is great. I don’t think that enough people use the wiki myself included. Writing documentation in Mediawiki is annoying. For others it is intimidating. If you want to go in and start moving stuff, improving stuff and adding, please go for it.

One thing the MODx wiki will not be (as far as I know) is the official documentation for MODx. It will be user tips, howtos and user contributed/edited documentation. Official documentation may take elements from the wiki but there must be editorial direction for a good user guide.

It may almost be worth it to put a challenge out to post articles, edit/update existing ones and clean house. I think many people don’t get wikis and don’t take charge and make changes when they could easily.

On your suggestion on the Forum Gems: It would make more sense to pull the information out of the forums and into an edited form in the wiki because references are far easier to do when you don’t have to jump from format to another. Links are fine for external references but for forum content I’d say migrate it.

Back to you soon.

Cheers,

Jay

Max, Pro, S9 etal,

I’d like to thank all of you for generating a very interesing and useful discussion.

I am a complete newbie to MODx. I know a reasonable amount of HTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL, so I can write dynamic web pages by hand OK. I installed MODx pretty easily, as there are good instructions for that. However the next step has me feeling like an idiot: I can’t even find out how to change my homepage and create the very basics of a new website from scratch. If you folks plan to create straightforward documentation/examples of how to get started from this early stage, then I would be very grateful.

I would love to help out in this, as I see it as a very worthwhile exercise (I have had the same experience with many other software systems). However, I am a newbie. So if it is useful I would be happy to offer my services as a guinea pig and test any draft instructions for you. I can provide complete and honest feedback on what helps me and what doesn’t.

The context for this is that I have to migrate a relatively small website (8 pages and a contact form) from asp to MODx. I have converted all but the contact form to PHP as an initial step. The hard bit is now breaking it up into templates and creating variables. Then enlisting a form snippet (?) to take over from the asp form.

And I have only 3 days to do it. All feels very daunting right now!

If you can help me with these simple steps I’d be very grateful.

And if I can help you guys in return as a ’test pupil’ then please let me know.

Cheers,

Gav

MODx is very flexible, so the "best" approach will be dictated by the circumstances. The very basic steps are:

1) create the working html file;
2) copy the html into a MODx template (Resources > Manage Resources Templates tab) - note: make sure you change the file paths to the correct locations;
3) replace html tags with document variable placeholders ([*pagetitle*], [*content*]...);
4) replace menus (and other features) with snippets.
5) that’s basically it.

For additional content options you can use Template Variables.

For the form processing, use the eForm snippet to handle this. It may have been installed as part of the bundle, otherwise it is available in the repository. There are good docs in the /assets/snippets/eform/docs folder.

To learn on-the-fly and build a site in MODx in 3 days is a bit over the top. It can definitely be done in less once you have the basics down. if you have the working site coded that is a great starting point. Use the working HTML as a base for your template and go from there.

Thanks for that dev_cw.

I just came across a very useful page on the Wiki which has helped a lot too: http://wiki.modxcms.com/index.php/Beginner%27s_Guide_to_MODx

Maybe three days is a tall order, but I’m going to give it a bash. Feels like a nice challenge now that I’m a couple of steps up the learning curve.

Cheers,

G

Photowebmax -

Just stumbled upon the posting you published back in December in which you describe your foray into the MODx world. Your observations and experiences resonate so closely with my own that I could not resist the impulse to comment. Just like yourself, I too looked at Joomla, Drupal, CMS Made Simple, and then MODx. And again, just like yourself, I was enticed by the design latitudes that the MODx framework offers. I thought that CMS Made Simple was also a pretty decent contender in this regard, although, in the final analysis, I think MODx is a more sophisticated product and offers degrees of freedom beyond CMS Made Simple (MODx also has a product name that you would not be reluctant to put in the footer of a site).

As a professional technical writer (who is now also into web design) I could not agree with you more about the MODx documentation. There are undoubtedly some procedural gems in there, and the forums are very helpful, but you really need to hunt around far too long in the official documentation in order to piece it all together; and often, even after countless hours of research, you still can’t ’get it’ without the assistance of someone more experienced. That being said, this problem seems to be an epidemic with many software products, and in particular, those that are open source. So, MODx is really no worse than most CMSs in this regard. But MODx is such a worthwhile product that it really warrants better documentation -- a feature that would not only propel it even further beyond its competitors, but would increase its user base, popularity, and chances for survival in the long run. It is amazing how much the overall virtue of a product is influenced by the quality of its supporting documentation.

I am still pretty new to the CMS world, and to MODx in particular (My first download was maybe a month ago), and I am happy to report that - despite some of the frustrations - I have stuck with the product. I continue to learn new things and techniques all of the time, each one coming to me like a little triumph worthy of celebration. I have a long way to go yet (lots of snippet functionalities still elude me) but, incrementally, I manage to move forward -- in large part due to support in the forums.

Anyway, I really hope that MODx sticks around and that the time comes when it is accompanied by a comprehensive and well-composed documentation resource. As a professional technical writer, I too would be willing to get involved with such an endeavor once my skill level grows a bit more -- I feel that strongly about this product. Let’s keep the MODx wave alive. I would really like to see it win another award this year too.

- Marconi

PS: Have there ever been any MODx t-shirts available?
PSS: I know that some CMS communities sponsor annual events. Does the MODx community ever do this?

Thanks for your feedback and offer to help on the documentation front Marconi; we’re really looking to improve there but it takes a special type to pull it off properly!

No MODx t-shirts ... yet. It’ll be nice when we have an official logo on that front to start making them.

No annual events ... again yet. We’d really like to do this but are really focusing on the 097 work and getting that out there before attacking that challenge.

sounds good to me. just great to know that the MODx team is still at it.

- marconi

Thanks Marconi,

I think many folks stumble around at first. Almost like a right of passage if you will...

Part of that comes with searching and testing CMS systems that are new to you. I sheepishly admit that I was guilty of playing with all of them at the same time. They do function differently.

For me one of the tipping points towards MODx was this forum, especially in the early stages of my confusion. A noticeable difference from the feeling that I had while drowning in the Drupal kiddy pool: the lifeguards just did not seem to care...

I am going to start my third MODx project soon. This site will be for a talented guitar maker who is relocating to France. I need to figure out to make the site bilingual. I showed the guy the basics of MODx today. He was impressed with the manager and the ability to add content without getting his hands dirty with real code. My job will to make everything as bullet proof as I can. This project will include some custom photography by me (photographer by trade, web design is a side thing...)

As to the idea of MODx T-shirts: why not have a design contest? We have a lot of talented design guys and gals here...

Cheers,

Max

Multilanguage sites in MODx are quite easy; that’s why I started using it back in the Etomite/MODx days when I needed a site in four languages.

There is an excellent Wiki article on how to do it, with a few embellishments.

http://wiki.modxcms.com/index.php/Make_Multi_Lingual_Site