Book Image

MODx Web Development

By : Antano Solar John
Book Image

MODx Web Development

By: Antano Solar John

Overview of this book

<p>MODx is a content management system and PHP web application framework rolled into one. With the ease of a CMS and the extensibility of a framework, MODx allows you to develop professional-looking, intricate websites with its easy-to-use interface and flexible architecture. MODx provides reusable code called snippets most of which are so generic that, without any modification, they can serve multiple functionalities. The generic nature of the snippets makes it possible to get the perfect customization that is so hard in other content management systems.<br /><br />This book will get web developers up-and-running with MODx. With step-by-step examples and illustrative screenshots, you will be guided through installation, configuration, and customization. By the end of the book, you will have created a powerful, dynamic website by using the individual elements of MODx, without the need for programming know-how.<br /><br />Starting with a walk-through of installing MODx, you will quickly learn how to develop your site without having to use any programming language. Logical, step-by-step instructions will show you how to create your own unique site by adding and editing documents using the inbuilt TinyMCE editor. Change the look and feel of your site by creating your own templates using HTML, CSS, and widgets. By following the example of a blog site, you will learn how to extend your templates to allow rich user interactions through comments, posts, and forms. The book teaches a few core snippets such as Ditto and Wayfinder in detail. These powerful and flexible snippets will enable you to add multiple functionalities to your site. The book will also introduce you to many more snippets which will help you build some of the commonly required web functionalities such as forums and image galleries. Manage your users with authentication and authorization and make your site user-friendly with user groups, forums, and the use of PHx notations to embed logic in templates.<br /><br />Through following this easy-to-use, step-by-step guide, by the end of the book you will have a fully functional, feature-rich MODx site with professional-looking, dynamic web pages that are totally customizable.</p>
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
MODx Web Development
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface
12
SEO, Deployment, and Security
Index

Snippet and chunk basics


Snippets are executable PHP code that provides some functionality when called.

In the previous example, NewsPublisher is a snippet. The only content of the Post a Blog ! page was the call to the NewsPublisher snippet; the snippet takes care of displaying a form and storing the values entered through it as a new document. There is a whole chapter on Snippets in this book (Chapter 8). In this section, you will learn the bare minimum about snippets that is necessary to follow along in the consecutive chapters.

Generating output

Most snippets return an output that gets shown in the template at the same location where the call to the snippet was made.

Such output can be returned by snippets in two ways:

  • Return the HTML: In this method, there is less control over what the snippet returns. Changes in the returned output can only be made by editing the snippet code, as the snippet has the HTML that has to be returned within the snippet code.

  • Use chunks: Snippets can render...