Enterprise Software Blog

MODx Overview

MODx is a compelling open source Content Management System to publish & manage content on the web. It is a PHP based robust application Framework with Mysql backend and leverages AJAX for in-place editing and more. It generates fully XHTML compliant pages with CSS based layout.

MODx is an open source PHP Application Framework that helps you take control of your online content. It empowers developers and advanced users to give as much control as desired to whomever they desire for day-to-day website content maintenance chores.

MODx is the alternative to hacking blogging tools and other tools to death, extended learning curves, and changing your workflow to fit software that just doesn’t quite “get it”. MODx allows you to focus on usability, design, content and building great sites, not on the tools that build them.

MODx is a relatively new CMS that, in our view, competes favorably with established CMS like Mambo / Joomla or Drupal.

MODx Features

The key features of Modx are:

Rapid website design with strong SEO features

MODx helps your SEO efforts by making it easier to adjust the meta-content of your site precisely and on a per-page basis. It also helps your SEO efforts by making it easier to adjust the meta-content of your site precisely and on a per-page basis.

Quick learning curve

MODx simply organizes content by putting pages inside folders. To most computer users this is perfectly intuitive, so there is very little learning curve. That makes developers and clients cheerful.

Robust and extendable API

The MODx API and template system allows you to accomplish the same end result in a variety of ways. In fact, you can pretty much emulate the building style of all the other systems if you so choose.

Flexibility of design

• You can easily add PHP snippets in your pages
• You can specify different template for each page
• You can specify meta-tags for each page
• You can reuse php snippets, html chunks and meta tags
• Permissions can be set enabling limited access to different editors within your organisation
• The Data Sources (eg. a Database, Flat File etc) can be tied (or “bound”) to a Template Variable in MODx called @bindings or formatting and displaying in document.
• You can use Widget, a Template Variable component, to format the Input Value to some desired visual output on web sites.
• A flexible API and event model that allows to override how the core behaves; means excellent flexibility and the ability to customize the solution to your needs

Disadvantages of MODx

Truely speaking, I didn’t come across any major problem with MODx. But some developers claim problems with SEO friendly URL and META tag ordering. Also, the manager uses frames, and every so often the navigation goes blank, for no evident reason. The person has to reload the page to see the menu again.

MODx is not a yet another community portal like the majority of so called content management systems. It’s more like a extreamly flexible framework where you can store any kind of content.

MODx versus Joomla

Joomla is a highly popular open source content management system with a very strong user base. We used Mambo and then Joomla for several years before deciding to switch to MODx. The key benefits of MODx over Joomla are:

Joomla as always is pretty inflexible if you want to think outside Joomla box. To incorporate php code in Joomla you will have to use a plugin like Jumi, which works pretty strangely when it works. Personally I would like something simple & reusable. Modx allows you to incorporate (and reuse) snippets in documents which are essentially PHP code. Similarly you can use chunks to incorporate to embed static reusable html content in your documents. Chunks can contain snippets too.

Modx allows you to edit a page directly from the page itself along with other functionalities by automatically adding moo Javascript library for logged in users. This is a nicety I never had in Joomla / Mambo. You will love it once you get a hang of it.

Modx doesn’t have all the add-ons that Joomla has. However it compensates for it with its simplicity & ease of use.

Compared to Modx, learning Mambo / Joomla looks like rocket science to me.

Conclusion

MODx proved extremely easy to use and customize as compared to Joomla / Mambo. Combined with strong SEO capabilities, AJAX editing and architectural flexibility makes MODx a strong contender in the already over-crowded CMS space.

Note: Based on our evaluation have decided to re-design taragana.com based on MODx which will be released shortly.

I can tell that I have been able to figure out how to install the system, to edit, add, and delete content,theme the site using CS’S and Xhtml in a very short period of time. Additionally, it is a very powerful and search engine friendly CMS, making it a little bit convenient to use.

Filed under Enterprise Software

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 23rd, 2007 at 9:05 am and is filed under Enterprise Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.