MODx - End user target

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  zenmaster Reply #21, 18 years, 6 months ago

  Hmmm - I like to think of myself as a tech-savvy programming type. I have hacked PHP code (OSCommerce) and I NEVER want to do that again if possible. Yet here I am, after 2 weeks, and really no further forward with this app than I was when I started. I know nothing about CMS except that it is the correct solution to my current problem.
  
  I have looked at a number of CMS apps and only 2 have stood out from the crowd - TYPO3 and MODx - and I’m still here, aren’t I?
  
  TYPO3 is a mature product and has everything you could wish for in the back end, and documentation to die for. The thought that this is mostly the product of 1 man is astonishing to me - I have worked in teams of 50+ people that could not produce half so much. The only problem I have with it is that it is unintelligible to humans.
  
  MODx, by contrast, is just a baby and has some growing to do, but with that comes so much potential. At the moment too much work has to be done by the user. Sometimes I feel that I am completely writing my own front end - and I am struggling :’(.
  
  On another note I would ask, why do you guys (sorry Susan!) devote so much time and effort to an open source project? To make the coolest app for a few hundred cognescenti coders who know a good thing when they see one?
  
  Don’t stop there! Make it the coolest app for many thousands of users who don’t know PHP from POP (but still know a good thing when they see one).
  
  Look at TYPO3. Learn from it, steal from it, and adapt from it. Above all make it understandable for the rest of us.
  
  MODx has all the right ingredients, you just need to cook it properly. I hope that I wil be able to assist in the future.
  
  PS. The Rails idea is not outrageous. Maybe when MODx has grown a bit someone could take the 23 minutes to port it .
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  opengeek Reply #22, 18 years, 6 months ago

  Quote from: zenmaster at Nov 11, 2005, 01:48 AM

  
  TYPO3 is a mature product and has everything you could wish for in the back end, and documentation to die for. The thought that this is mostly the product of 1 man is astonishing to me - I have worked in teams of 50+ people that could not produce half so much. The only problem I have with it is that it is unintelligible to humans.
  

  I think that might be a direct result of the fact that only 1 person did develop it. That simplifies and quickens the path to many features, but without the collaboration of a team with various perspectives, it’s very hard to create something for the common user, whose perspective probably differs from the developers.
  
  Quote from: zenmaster at Nov 11, 2005, 01:48 AM

  
  MODx, by contrast, is just a baby and has some growing to do, but with that comes so much potential. At the moment too much work has to be done by the user. Sometimes I feel that I am completely writing my own front end - and I am struggling :’(.
  

  I went to Etomite and moved to MODx because of the flexibility it offered in allowing any kind of design to work. I was tired of the limited theming options and non-standards-compliant code of the YAPS. As we mature, the goal is to attract developers who will create the components that make the system easier to use for the average person, without losing the flexibility and power the professional designer/developer might want.
  
  Quote from: zenmaster at Nov 11, 2005, 01:48 AM

  
  On another note I would ask, why do you guys (sorry Susan!) devote so much time and effort to an open source project? To make the coolest app for a few hundred cognescenti coders who know a good thing when they see one?
  

  I invest my time in this project because I use the software everyday. I’m an independent web developer and have come to depend on it for most of my projects. I view it as a commodity to encourage independence and profit for me and my peers in the industry, and as a solution that my clients can depend on and learn to use themselves (especially as we move towards making MODx easier to use) to maintain and extend their sites.
  Jason Coward
  Chief Architect @ MODX
  http://www.jasoncoward.com | http://twitter.com/drumshaman | https://github.com/opengeek
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  davidm Reply #23, 18 years, 6 months ago

  zenmaster, I strongly advise you to have a closer look at TYPO3 : you’ll quickly understand that you will spend hours developping websites with it. It like flying a 747 or driving a tanker : it’s heavy, cluttered to the hilt and last but not least it’s not standard compliant (though there are some effort being made, let’s give them credit for that). I used it, and dropped it almost 2 years ago. As Jason points out, a designer quickly gets frustrated with this kind of application because it forces you to fit into its logic : it’s rigid.
  
  More often than not, what you need for your project will not fit with what the CMS is built to do. All-in-one core that does everything does nothing for you, in a way you work for it. You’ll end up hacking it, extensively using "workarounds" to make it do what you need and ultimately you will loose the benefits of a dynamic website : instead of spending time writing html pages, you’ll end up hacking php. Worse, when new needs arise and your website needs to evolve, you’ll have to re-hack the whole thing... tiresome.
  
  The light CMS core approach - which MODx has taken - is designed to be modular. It’s not Yet Another Portal System as Jason said. It’s more of a framework than a feature-locked app : you can install only the plugins and module and snippets you need, and better yet if you’re skilled you can write them yourself. There is a price to this flexibility : it can be disorienting at first.
  
  I understand you feel disoriented by MODx : it’s always the case when you start with a tool which gives you a lot of "degrees of flexibility". Where do I start ? How things relate to one another ? It takes time to understand how snippets, chunks, plugins, modules and templates variables all fit together and how you can use them. Same was true for me when I started with another flexible cms named texpattern. Once you get past it, you’ll see you can not only do almost anything you can imagine, but you can do it pretty damn fast
  
  In any case, there is a learning curve (believe me, TYPO3 takes a lot of time to master, and kasper’s logic is hard to grasp sometimes... learning typoscript was a real struggle for me...), the question is wether your learning will earn you freedom or not. My choice is made...
  
  
  .: COO - Commerce Guys - Community Driven Innovation :.
  
  

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  MODx est l'outil id
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  zenmaster Reply #24, 18 years, 6 months ago

  I think all of the above posts are expressing what I was trying to say in my original post. The joy of MODx for me is the (comparitive) simplicity of making it do what you want in a totally standards compliant way.
  
  I know TYPO3 is cumbersome which is why I (reluctantly) abandoned it, but it has some great back end features such as easy site structuring and module installation direct from the repository. It is the design aspects that make it really only suitable for "Technically savvy developers".
  
  MODx appears to me to be the inverse - the site design mechanism is relatively simple to grasp but the back end is ’feature light’ (although by far the best looking I have seen) and it is there that the tech savvyness is required.
  
  Anyway, the topic of this thread is "End User Target" and the point I am trying to make is, that with just a little more hand holding in the back end, that end user could be anyone who can use a browser.
  
  Gets my vote
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  Ryan Thrash Reply #25, 18 years, 6 months ago

  We’re getting there as fast as we can, just focusing our efforts for the time being on things that will make it easier for us to get there in a more stable, reliable, robuts manner. It’s going to be oh so fun next year!
  Ryan Thrash, MODX Co-Founder
  Follow me on Twitter at @rthrash or catch my occasional unofficial thoughts at thrash.me
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  MARKSVIRTUALDESK Reply #26, 18 years, 6 months ago

  Happy Birthday MODx!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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  sottwell Reply #27, 18 years, 6 months ago

  I first got involved with Etomite/MODx because I needed it for my first (and so far only) paying client.
  
  But I’ve been involved in shareware and freeware for over 15 years; I had the first CD online in the SE Connecticut BBS scene, all shareware/freeware utilities. It was a lot of fun. It took a lot of years to get to that point; when I desparately wanted one of those electronic computer kits back in the 60s my Father said they would never be of any use for anything, and besides that it was nothing for a girl to be doing. I became a grandmother less than a year after I got my first computer. I’m from the lower class- working class; neither of my parents finished high school, nor did my sister. I finished high school, but never made it to college. One of my boys just got his high school equivilency at the age of 30. So the only way I have ever been able to have computers at all is to have used and obsolete machines with free or very cheap shareware software. Now, I feel it’s a good thing to return some of the favor and give what I can to the community, for people like myself, who otherwise simply could not afford to get into this at all. Besides, it’s still a lot of fun.
  Studying MODX in the desert - http://sottwell.com
  Tips and Tricks from the MODX Forums and Slack Channels - http://modxcookbook.com
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  Lammikko Reply #28, 18 years, 6 months ago

  I like to think MODx as a large LEGO block where you can attach smaller and yet smaller blocks. So you can add all kinds of blocks to the core structure and with enough blocks you can build nearly anything. And that is why MODx really stands out from the majority of content management system clones.
  
  
  Mikko Lammi, Owner at Maagit
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  wendy Reply #29, 18 years, 5 months ago

  Quote from: ricardosanX at Apr 04, 2005, 09:58 AM

  
  So I’d like the target market to be:
  1. Web developers with some technical experience to install/design/configure.
  2. End-users who won’t do the install/design/config - BUT need easy GUI for limited configuration.
  
  The forums and detailed documentation should be aimed at group 1. User guides, manuals and Flash/MOV tutorials for group 2.
  
  Regards
  
  Rich
  

  
  I agree to RichardosanX, there will only be 2 groups, plus 1 group, which is a hard core developer/programmer.
  
  From the way I see it, MODx has the right mindset in building everything modular, and so far whatever that was done in MODx is oriented towards the first group, as what RichardosanX mentioned above. I like this idea, because I’m more into that group.
  
  As far as the other gorup, which is the second group, there is still a lot of things need to be improved for MODx to go towards this end user.
  
  But here is the point that I want MODx to pay attention to. A lot of other CMS software are trying to make a CMS in approach to this both end user, but what they did wrong is, their core system is not as modular as MODx. Let say Joomla/Mambo, their core is rigid and can’t be modify that easy, so in the end, the core developer spent more time in evolving the core into something that can serve the second group.
  
  With MODx, what I want to see, the future of packaging of module, which can be installed or included in fresh intallation of MODx. Let say, if MODx still keeping the core system to be modular and lightweight, and depends everything on the plugin, snippets or etc. By providing a way to package them all and able to include them in fresh installation or able to be installed later on, it will put the core developer into a state where all they need to care is making sure the core system is still lightweight and modular, and the first group, which is the technical savy are the one who responsible to second group in making a packaging of MODx, so that the second group able to fresh install the software with a predetermined package being installed already, and they are able to change it right away, without having to understand how the pluging/modules being integrated into MODx.
  
  So I will put MODx users into 3 groups, in terms of the whole point of view of MODx users.
  1. Core Developer - Making sure the core system is lightweight, modular, fast, secure, reliable, and etc.
  2. Technical Savy People - Using the given core API and available modular option to modify MODx into specific end user target (ex: blog, portal, small sites, and etc), and make the right package (using the future MODx packaging), so that it can be installed or included as a fresh installed for the end user in this last group.
  3. Non-Technical Savy Guys - Look for the right module, or download the right fresh installation of MODx, for easy installation.
  
  If I make a wrong point in here, please correct me.
  
  Thank you
  
  
  Best Regards,
  Wendy Novianto
  Wendy Novianto
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  davidm Reply #30, 18 years, 5 months ago

  I have been thinking lately that we should segment things a little further : what kind of people will use MODx, what their needs are and what is key for them to adopt MODx. I am glad of such insightful inputs. The ball is rolling, which is nice ! Like RicardosanX, Wendy has many very good points
  
  Yet I have some nuances I want to try to bring to the table. I agree you can segment MODx users into 3 skill groups : developper/coder, designer and end user. But you have to consider 2 target markets which are individuals and corporations. That’s where the nuance is to me, and also the reason why CMS’s are off target in many cases (as Wendy nicely pointed out about Joomla/Mambo).
  
  Individuals have various skills level from average joe to full blown geek. Their skill level vary from basic end users to talented coders. They are by essence, hard to grasp... because they are more often than not doing everything by themselves. Installing, Customizing, administrating and editing content : we’re talking webzines, blogs, community websites... All the features are aimed at one and same person. You can’t really define a profile for your target and thus you risk missing it
  
  The corporate target is quite different, because many people will be involved in website building and animation, from tech savvy admins to webdesigners, editors and end users. Each of them can be identified by their skills and needs. More likely than not, they will have higher expectations than most individuals (not talking geeks there ;p)
  
  To me, the end user is the person who will use MODx "as is". It means editing and publishing content, pure and simple, but also "secondary features" like notification when the content is approved or refused (if approval is required per workflow settings) or/and when comments are published, basic statistics access for the document author, and other features. The end users will more probably enjoy MODx nice frontend editing, thus links to notification settings page or statistics would be nice. The key to meet the user’s needs is usability, basically you want an intuitive, simple, fool-proof interface. I would add a specific kind of end users : the editor who will take care of document approval (e.g manage the workflow). All these guys will need is a clean, usable backend to perform whatever operations they have to perform.
  
  The webdesigner is the person who will take care of helping structuring information depending on the communication’s goal of the company, of building the templates to customize the website’s design. His appreciation for the CMS will come from templating flexibility, easy to learn and powerful macrolanguage (aka tags) that allow for conditionnal display of content and database extraction, custom content types and areas (TVs and widgets are huge benefits in this regard!), expandability of the application through plugin/modules (number, nature and reliability of plugins will come into play here). In most cases, he’ll also handle administrator’s task such the system’s installation and settings, files management and of course permissions and roles.
  
  Last but not least, a developper/coder will be needed for specific/bigger projects that can’t be answered through existing modules/plugins. Integration with existing systems or integration with other applications that don’t yet exist, expanding features to answer specific needs... (help me fill this one since I am no dev). The key for this target is offering a clean and commented code, nice API documentation, and probably the modular approach won’t hurt
  
  I think MODx has great potential because it’s able to answer high expectations from those skills groups. As Wendy said, there is still work to be done, mainly to answer end users needs but with the upcoming interface overhaul the future looks nice to me
  
  
  .: COO - Commerce Guys - Community Driven Innovation :.
  
  

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  MODx est l'outil id

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