I decided it might be a good idea to create a centralized place for the different series of beginner tutorials that are available at the Coding Pad in the different categories, so that they would be easier to find.  I will be working on more beginner series tuts on different topics, so keep checking this page and don’t forget to subscribe to the blog.

MODx Revolution Beginner Series

MODx is an extremely flexible and powerful content management framework that is capable of producing amazing results.  This series of hands-on tutorials takes you from the very beginning, introducing MODx Revolution, teaching you how to install it, and goes through templating and more in detail and with lots of screenshots to guide you along. This is a very hands on tutorial and at the end you will not only have a fully functional website, but you’ll have learned skills that you can use to work on your own projects.  If you’re a complete beginner, I recommend that you work through the parts in the order presented here for the most benefit.  No knowledge of MODx is assumed, but it would be helpful to have some basic knowledge of HTML and CSS.  Full knowledge of PHP is not necessary will get you a long way when it comes to doing custom snippets and building custom functionality into your website, but you won’t need it for this beginner series.

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Installation
Part 3: Basic Configuration and Installing Extras
Part 4: Working with Templates
Part 5: Working with Chunks
Part 6: Working with Template Variables
Part 7: Working with Snippets
Part 8: Using Wayfinder to Create Menus
Part 9: Using FormIt to Create a Contact Form
Part 10: Using getResources to Aggregate Content
Part 11: Using getPage to add Pagination

MODx Evolution Beginner Series

NB: I initially wrote these tutorials for MODx Evolution 0.9.6.3 but if you’re using Evolution 1.o+ they will work just fine.  There are some changes in terminology, and you can get a basic idea of the differences by watching this screencast that I created.  If it makes you more comfortable you can work through these tutorials using 0.9.6.3 and then upgrade your website to 1.0+ following the directions on this screencast.  These tutorials will NOT work for the Revolution 2.0+ branch of MODx.

Part 1: Introduction to MODx
Part 2: Installing MODx
Part 3: Working with Templates
Part 4: Introducing Chunks
Part 5: Introducing Snippets
Part 6: Introducing Template Variables
Part 7: Introducing Ditto
Part 8: More Ditto
Part 9: Adding Contact Form using eForm
Part 10: Adding Search Functionality using ajaxSearch
Part 11: Adding  Comments with Jot

This series is currently ongoing and more will be added to this list as it grows. Also, don’t forget to check out the list of MODx resources on the web, and the MODx Web Development book.

Drupal 6 Beginner Series

Drupal is another powerful and highly extensible mature content management system that has been used for building a large number of websites.   One of the main complaints about Drupal is that it does have somewhat of a steep learning curve when you’re starting out.  The goal of this beginner tutorials is to ease that learning curve for you by taking you step by step from the very starting point of installation and configuration to adding modules and themes, and adding useful functionality to your Drupal website.

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Installing Drupal 6
Part 3: Configuring your Site
Part 4: Playing with Blocks
Part 5: Playing with Modules
Part 6: Playing with Themes
Part 7: Installing Modules and Themes
Part 8: Pathauto, Content, and Content Types
Part 9: Users, Roles, and Permissions
Part 1o: Reports – Keeping Track
Part 11: Managing Spam and Comments
Part 12: Formatting Content

This series is currently ongoing and more will be added to this list as it grows.

Beginner’s Corner
This is a series of screencasts for the complete beginner on the very basics that will allow you to get started with a lot of the tutorials on this blog on your own computer.  If you have any requests for complete beginner tutorials please leave a comment and I will do my best to oblige.

Part 1: Setting Up a Local Development Environment
Part 2: Creating Projects, Databases, and Users
Part 2-2: How to Set Up Virtual Hosts on your Local Host
Part 3: Installing Scripts – WordPress, Drupal, etc.
Part 3-2: How to Install MODx CMS

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