We here at the Zoom Creates Nerd Herd (the development team) have always loved the modX CMS tool. It’s extremely flexible, has a great system for templates and code chunks, and is limited only by your imagination. We’ve been using it for sites since before the code base was at a stable 1.0 release, probably since around late 0.8 beta releases. There are many great plugins that help with breadcrumbs, dynamic navigation and menus, AJAX requests, search engine friendly URLs and more. Today I’d like to point out some of the features and changes of their latest release, Revolution 2.0.4.
Many things are still the same, including most of the terminology. Chunks are pieces of raw HTML code that are reusable site wide, Snippets are reusable PHP code, Templates are HTML with certain Template Variables for different Templates. With just these four elements, you can build extremely complex sites with as vivid designs as web designers can come up with.
The way that you make calls upon your different elements has changed a bit with the upgrade from version 1 to version 2. Also, many pieces have moved around in the administration panel. Using jQuery, the navigation for administering your site has been totally revised, making it easier to browse around your pages and code. It feels much more polished and is quite a bit cleaner. Compare these two screen shots, the first from modX 1.0.4, and the second from the new 2.0.4.
This is the screen that you are presented with when you log into your site manager, and both look similar. Note the lack of tabs in the new version. Many elements have been moved to a new spot, but with the power of AJAX, it’s actually easier to find what you are looking for.
I urge you to check out modX 2. If you are familiar with modX 1, then you will pick up the new version very quickly. If you’ve never used this CMS, then now is the perfect time. RTFM at http://rtfm.modxcms.com, learn it, and make your life easier.
Nice article, just to note that modx v2 isn’t using jquery its using extjs.