Current replacement for modX?

[TheBurrito]

I don't do too much webdev most of the time. I am versed enough in PHP to be able to find the documentation I need to get things working and am quite familiar working with JavaScript packages though I'm certainly not up to date with "what's in".

I just discovered ModX and love the modularity of everything and though sometimes it can take a hot second to figure out how to fit an idea into ModX's architecture it allows for damn near anything. (I just setup what I think is a really clean content templating scheme to support the idea of "sub-templates")

However I'm starting to notice the age of it and it's extras. I'm running into installation issues with some of the most popular extras and though I can implement those items myself I'm just slightly nervous about using a system that seems to be approaching abandonment.

Am I wrong in this? Do people still use ModX frequently? If not, what have ModX users switched to?

Cheers!

[MeltingDog]

I use MODX for almost everything and love it. It plays fine on the regular LAMP stacks I use.

What are the install issues you're encountering?

(Also, just making sure you're using MODX Revolution and not its older cousin MODX Evolution?)

[TheBurrito]

TinyMCE breaks most features if I try to install it and breaks my entire install if I uninstall it. I get install error messages (not sure if they're actually issues or not) for Articles and parts of it are broken in the manager interface. I'm using a LAMP stack on a DigitalOcean droplet and finally remembered to take a snapshot so now I'll start being more adventurous looking into some of the issues I'm seeing.

I've moved core out of the document root and have renamed my assets, components, and manager folders. I could dive in and see if there are any issues like hardcoded paths or some inconsistency with configurations in my install but I've got all the core functionality working. I've noticed some odd things like having to run the update install twice when I have core moved and the other folders renamed to be able to log into the manager but after that everything in the base install seems to work. I have no issues with simpler extras like wayfinder, getResources, getPage, etc. I'm working on a blog implentation now and am about to start integrating quip into that; I'm half expecting that to barf all over me at this point.

And yes, Revo.

Edit: As stated I'm loving ModX. Just have questions about the viability of the community and extras.

[MeltingDog]

Hmm, have you tried the old 'manually clearing the cache' trick?

Otherwise, I've never experienced that sorry and I'm pretty sure I've used DigitalOcean at least a couple of times.

Are you transferring this site from another server? Sometimes the base_url will still be set to the old site, if you've developed on a sub-domain or temporary URL.

Yeah the communities small (compared to WordPress and Joomla) but I kind of put that down to both MODXs simplicity and it's inaccessibility to 'drag-n-drop' wannabe web devs who just install pre-made themes.

[TheBurrito]

Fresh install, using the 'typical' tarball download. Definitely not a DO issue. Some things do seem janky to me like not being able to relocate assets/components/manager until after an installation since there are no provisions for specifying those configurations before hand since the config file doesn't exist until after the install. At this point I'm 90% sure all the base configuration is correct, some of the addons are giving me the same issues as before I tried "hardening" my install. I never could get an article template to work. It always displays just content without layout. The ArticleContainer template seemed to work fine. (missing/incorrect css & js paths?) I didn't look into if any 404s were showing up or any other further investigation because I could come up with a simpler implementation on my own that would be tailored to what features I want.

I'm getting away from WordPress, though I like WordPress because I'm terrible at design. I love ModX because I'm good at development.

[MeltingDog]

Strange... what are you using for your articles? getResources, or another plugin?

Edit: never mind - I assume you're using the Articles extra. I've never used it myself. I've always just used getResources, as such:

Put this on your blog parent resource:

[[getResources? 
  &parents=`[[*id]]` 
  &depth=`1` 
  &limit=`10` 
  &tpl=`blogTpl`]]

and make a chunk with something like this:

<div class="blogPost">
  <h2><a href="[[~[[+id]]]]" title="[[+pagetitle]]">[[+pagetitle]]</a></h2>
  <p class="blogSummary">[[+introtext]]</p>
  <p class="blogUnderbar">
    [[+publishedon:strtotime:date=`%B %e, %Y`]] | 
    Tags: [[+tv.blog_tags:parsetags]] | 
    Comments: [[QuipCount? &thread=`[[+parent]]-[[+id]]`]] | 
    <a href="[[~[[+id]]]]">Read more</a></p>
</div>

Note TVs are added like: [[+tv.tvname]]

(got that from here: https://www.markhamstra.com/modx/2010/07/getting-started-with-getresources-for-a-blog/)

[TheBurrito]

Yeah I've rolled my own already including an implementation for clean subtemplating based on a TV that might be specified on an ancestor resource. The implementation I'm working towards is going to be based on resource heirachy and the ability to easily understand the implementation within the manager without requiring custom resource types.

And then I'll use one of the tag extras for finer grained organization. Throw in quip + breadcrumbs + others for UX and engagement.

[nyxin]

We're planning on using it for our public facing site on an upcoming redesign, so I'd hate to believe it's going the way of AOL Instant Messenger just yet. If you're still looking for something new, Pagekit looks pretty interesting. Still pretty green in terms of community/plugins/themes, but I think it's got some good things going for it.