Book Image

MODx Web Development - Second Edition

Book Image

MODx Web Development - Second Edition

Overview of this book

MODx is a content management system and PHP web application framework rolled into one. With the ease of a CMS and the extendibility 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 fragments 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 CMS. 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. Starting with a walk-through of how to install 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. You will 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 code 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 that will help you build some of the commonly required web functionalities such as forums and image galleries. You will 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. Through following this easy-to-use, step-by-step guide you will, by the end of the book, have a fully functional, feature-rich MODx site with professional-looking, dynamic web pages that are totally customizable.

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MODx Web Development - Second Edition
Feb, 2011 | 288 pages
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Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
What is MODx?
What is MODx?
Content management system
An application framework
Web development methodologies
Why MODx?
Overview of the book
Summary
2
Getting Started
Getting Started
Setting up the development environment
Downloading MODx
Documentation
Getting support
Summary
3
MODx Basics
MODx Basics
Site configuration
Changing the name of the site
The basic element of MODx: Resources
MODx Manager interface
Using the HTML editor
Creating the Front Page
DocManager module
Resources revisited
Summary
4
Templating
Templating
Changing the template of a resource
Creating a new template and giving it a category
Making the home page use the created template
Choosing a default template
Introducing template variables
Modifying the template to add dynamic behavior
Template variables
Creating a blog site
Snippet and chunk basics
Using a custom form for the Post a Blog! page
Rich text editor for the blog content
Summary
5
Authentication and Authorization
Authentication and Authorization
Creating a web user
Add the login snippet
Resource group for friends
Restricting access for a resource
Post moderation
User registration
Snippets and authorization
Summary
6
Content Aggregation
Content Aggregation
Ditto
XML formats
Summary
7
Creating Lists
Creating Lists
Menu details in document properties
Authentication and authorization
Theming
More theming using chunks
Multiple calls
Summary
8
Snippets
Snippets
Working of snippets
Finding snippets
Learning about snippets
Using non-bundled snippets
Summary
9
PHx
PHx
PHx in action
The PHx notation
Summary
10
Simple Recipes
Simple Recipes
Forums
Image gallery
E-mailing from forms
User profiles
Similar posts
Summary
11
Creating Snippets
Creating Snippets
Learning to create a snippet
MODx API
Fortunes
Summary
12
SEO, Deployment, and Security
SEO, Deployment, and Security
SEO
Deployment
Security
Summary
13
Plugins and Modules
Plugins and Modules
Plugins and events
Modules
Summary
14
MODx Revolution
MODx Revolution
Why Evolution, why Revolution…
What is similar?
What to expect?
Tags
A peek into Revolution
Core technology changes
Join the community
Summary

MODx API

MODx provides APIs that you can use to avoid recreating commonly-used functions. The MODx APIs are accessed through the DocumentParser object $modx. You can explore more of the MODx internals by trying the following at the top of the helloworld snippet, after the <?php open tag:

echo '<pre>';
print_r($MODx);
echo '</pre>';
exit;

This will print the entire structure of the $modx object, so you can learn a great deal from the output.

You can use any of the available API functions from within the snippet using the $modx->functionname() syntax. In fact, the functions that you have been using to set the placeholders, and to display a chunk, are themselves a part of the MODx API that is available through the $modx object.

Next, we will see examples of a few of them:

  • $modx->getDocument(1) will get all the property and values of resource 1

  • $modx->getAllChildren(1) will get all of the child resources of resource 1

  • $modx->getTemplateVars will return an array of all...

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