John A.S. - MODx Web Development [2009, PDF, ENG]

Preface
Chapter 1: What is MODx? 7
Content management system 7
An application framework 8
Reusable program components 8
Abstracting logic from presentation 8
Web development methodologies 9
Old school—conventional three tiers 9
Advantages of the conventional three tiers 10
Disadvantages of the conventional three tiers 10
Templating 11
Advantages of templating 11
Disadvantages of templating 12
Application frameworks 12
Advantages of application frameworks 12
Disadvantages of application frameworks 13
Content management systems 13
Advantages of content management systems 14
Disadvantages of content management systems 14
Why MODx? 15
Why a CMS? 15
Why an application framework? 15
So, why Modx? 15
Overview of the book 16
Summary 17
Chapter 2: Getting Started 19
Setting up the development environment 19
Prerequisites 19
Linux 20
Windows 20
MAC 21
Verification 22
Downloading MODx 22
Installing MODx 23
Creating a database 23
Starting the installation 25
Installation status and diagnostics 26
Documentation 28
Official documentation 29
Community-driven documentation 29
Getting support 29
Web forums 30
IRC 31
Summary 31
Chapter 3: MODx Basics 33
Site configuration 33
Configuring the site 34
Default Manager interface page 35
Noticing and fixing errors and warnings 36
Changing the name of the site 36
The basic element of MODx: Documents 36
Containers 37
MODx Manager interface 38
Using the HTML editor 39
Creating the Front Page 40
QuickEdit module 43
Documents revisited 44
Editing documents 44
Document properties 45
General tab 45
Page Settings 46
Meta Keywords tab 46
Preview tab 47
Summary 47
Chapter 4: Templating 49
Changing the template of a document 49
Creating a new template and giving it a category 51
HTML 51
CSS 52
Steps to create the new template 53
Making the Home Page use the created template 55
Choosing a default template 56
Introducing template variables 56
Modifying the template to add dynamic behavior 57
Changing existing templates 58
Template variables 59
Creating template variables 59
Template variable values 61
Data source binding 62
Widgets 62
Creating a blog site 63
Creating a document 63
Post a blog entry 65
Snippet and chunk basics 67
Generating output 67
Using a custom form for the Post a Blog ! page 69
HTML for the custom blog form 69
Steps to create a chunk 70
Using a chunk as a form template 71
Checking the Post a Blog ! page 72
Rich text editor for the blog content 73
Creating the template variable 73
Chunk and template variable 74
NewsPublisher and the Rtcontent field 76
Summary 77
Chapter 5: Authentication and Authorization 79
Create web users 79
Other user properties 81
Add the login snippet 82
Document group for friends 87
Restricting access for a document 88
User group: Document group 88
User: User group 89
Post moderation 90
Creating a role 90
Creating a Manager user 91
Checking the new role 92
User registration 93
Showing a signup form 93
Joining a default group 95
Link the signup form in the log in snippet 95
Snippets and authorization 96
NewsPublisher and authentication 96
Summary 97
Chapter 6: Content Aggregation 99
Ditto 99
More flexibility with parameters 100
Aggregated data in a template 101
Theming MODx—chunks and placeholders 103
Introducing tagging 105
Creating a template variable to hold the category 105
Assigning documents to a category 106
XML formats 106
Machine-readable formats and readers 107
Readers 107
Formats 108
Ditto and XML formats 109
Creating RSS views for each category 110
Filtering 112
Multiple clauses 113
Extenders 114
Summary 114
Chapter 7: Creating Lists 115
Menu details in document properties 115
Authentication and authorization 116
Getting to know WayFinder 116
Theming 118
Creating a simple menu 118
Nested menus 122
Changing the name in the menu 129
Doc Manager 130
Removing pages from the menu 132
More theming using chunks 133
Breadcrumb navigation 133
Multiple calls 135
Summary 135
Chapter 8: Snippets 137
Working of snippets 137
Finding snippets 138
Learning about snippets 138
Jot with the minimal configuration 138
Placeholders 148
Using non-bundled snippets 151
Installing a snippet 151
Downloading and extracting a snippet 152
Adding a snippet 152
Copying required files 153
Using the snippet 154
Snippet without dependent files 156
Snippeting skills 157
Summary 157
Chapter 9: PHx 159
PHx in action 159
Installing PHx 160
Adding Family and Friends documents 160
The PHx notation 170
Simple usage 170
Conditional statements 171
Usage with the PHx placeholder 172
Multiple conditions 173
Summary 173
Chapter 10: Simple Recipes 175
Forums 175
Installing SMF 175
Installing the SMF module 180
Image gallery 181
Emailing from forms 185
User profiles 190
Installing WebLoginPE 190
Edit profile 190
List users and view profile 191
Link to edit profile 193
Similar posts 195
Summary 198
Chapter 11: Creating Snippets 199
Learning to create a snippet 199
Returning an output 200
Returning placeholders 201
Processing a chunk 203
Using parameters 205
MODx API 206
DBAPI 207
$MODx->db->select 207
$MODx->db->getRecordCount 208
$MODx->db->makeArray 208
Fortunes 208
Creating the table 209
Code for fortunes 210
Testing the snippet 211
Chunks, placeholders, and parameters 212
Using files 214
Summary 214
Chapter 12: SEO, Deployment, and Security 215
SEO 215
Search engine-friendly URLs 215
Meta tags and keywords 218
Site map 219
XHTML Strict 221
Other SEO tweaks 221
Using CSS to control the layout 221
Content first 221
Hidden text 221
Descriptive text 221
Tracking 222
Inbound links 222
Quality content 222
Deployment 222
Filesystem 222
FTP 223
SFTP 224
WebDAV 225
Database 225
Exporting 226
Importing 226
Configuration file 228
Configurations 228
Security 229
File permissions 229
Installer 229
Writable configuration file 229
Captcha 230
mod_security 230
Unused files 230
Manager configurations 230
User tab 231
File Manager tab 231
Summary 231
Chapter 13: Plug-ins and Modules 233
Plug-ins and events 233
Using an existing plug-in 234
Configuration 235
System events 236
Exploring other plug-ins 237
Using custom plug-ins 237
Learning about the plug-in 240
Creating plug-ins 241
Event-triggering snippets 243
Modules 243
Using modules 244
Creating a module 244
Executing a module 244
Module's Manager interface 245
Dependent plug-ins 246
Learning to use custom modules 248
Summary 248
Index 249