Is there an alternative to sIFR flash code for a slide bar?

Is this the right direction to setup a MODX development website?
http://rtfm.modx.com/revolution/2.x/developing-in-modx/overview-of-modx-development/setting-up-a-development-environment

That's a bit complicated for my tastes. I use MAMP on my Mac, it has a Windows version now as well. And while I do have phpStorm, I never use it, and mostly use the Ace add-on for in-Manager editing of snippets, chunks, etc, or TextWrangler for editing external files when I have to. I prefer to work inside the Manager whenever possible, and it's almost always definitely possible. But then I'm a simple, uneducated grandmother and like to keep things simple so I don't forget what I'm supposed to be doing.

Actually that documentation is quite old and out-of-date. Nobody does it like that any more. For one thing, even MODX itself has been on GitHub for several years. [ed. note: sottwell last edited this post 9 years, 1 month ago.]

Thank you.
I would also prefer a simple 'Grandmother' system to work with...why not?
So, I understand that with MODX, editing it is live.
I have edited a live website using MODX.
This seems to be okay for simple text edits, however editing images or a slide carousel I need to work on, can be more complicated and risk or error.
Therefore, I need a local editing option in case I break the site.

I'm happy to use whatever works for editing and then pushing up to the live website.
Here's my ultimate wish:
Pull the live MODX website to my local computer running a local server (XAMP).
Having some sort of local git repository control of edits, so I can use Vimdiff to easily manage changes.
Push the edits up to the live MODX site.

I understand not everyone will be tech savvy enough to handle a local edit and will choose a live edit.
This means I need a quick and easy way to pull the live MODX website before I edit, so I can then edit the current live website with any code a less tech savvy person may have edited.

For something like working with images or a slideshow, you can just create a "testing" resource and a "testing" template for it, with a "testing" category for all of your "testing" elements. Plugins, now, can indeed affect the whole site, and I suppose a really flaky custom snippet could overload an entire server, or crash a database table. But simple stuff like working with images and galleries and what-not won't hurt anything except that one "testing" page.

But if you are more comfortable, you can use MAMP or one of the other web development stacks (XAMP, etc) and the text editor of your choice on your local machine.

I had fun a little while ago with MODX-on-a-stick using this https://bitnami.com/stack/modx
http://forums.modx.com/thread/94616/bitnami-amazon-aws-and-modx

Use Vapor to clone your site, it generates an installable package that you can install like any other package in your new MODX development installation.

Thank you.
I used Vapor which seemed to have relatively clear instructions.
The issue now is that to import the Vapor package, this has to be done with MODX cloud.
I don't have MODX cloud, just the Bitnami MODX server running on my computer now.
I'm looking in the local computer bitnami MODX website for Import, but not clear yet.

It seems Vapor is only for MODX cloud and not for copying to my local computer. I might try this: http://rtfm.modx.com/revolution/2.x/administering-your-site/moving-your-site-to-a-new-server