MODX – Page 8 – The Coding Pad

Win a Copy of the MODx Web Development book and more – Blog Contest

Welcome to the first ever Coding Pad Blog Contest!! We’re giving away some stuff – so read on!

What’s the occasion? – None really, just thought it would be cool to celebrate the MODx Content Management Framework/System

What’s my goal? – To get more exposure for MODx and to get more people interested in MODx and it’s power and flexibility. And ofcourse, to invite more interaction on the Coding Pad 🙂

What’s up for grabs? –

A copy of the MODx Web Development book by Antonio Solar John. This is the first ever MODx book in the English language. I currently have three copies to give away to three winners, but hope to get more in the coming days.

In addition to the book, the top winning entry will also get a namecheap account with $20 credit (you can use this for purchasing domain names) and a three month membership to the tuts+ network!

In addition to the book, the second winning entry will get a three month membership to the tuts+ network.

In addition to the book, the third winning entry will get an opportunity for some free MODx consulting from modxguru.com‘s Shane Sponagle, an experienced MODx Developer. You get to choose from one of two consulting options: an analysis of your MODx website with a report on how to improve your website, or 2 hours of email support consulting. You will have three months from the day the contest ends to utilize the consultation.

The fourth and fifth winning entries will each get a one month membership to the tuts+ network

I anticipate that I will have more prizes to offer to the winning entries, and to allow more winning entries.

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Building a Website with MODx for Newbies – Part 5: Introducing Snippets

Welcome to part 5 of our series of tutorials on building a website with MODx CMS. So far we’ve looked at:

Part 1: Introduction to MODx
Part 2: Installing MODx
Part 3: Working with Templates
Part 4: Introducing Chunks

As we work through these tutorials, we’re building a MODx resource site called Learn MODx. In the last installment we introduced chunks and learned how to use them to clean our template and make it more manageable. So far our website looks like this: (you can click on the images to see a larger view)

Today, we’re going to introduce snippets and learn how to use them to add functionality to our website using one simple example. At this point in our tutorial, if you’ve been following along, our website navigation is simply cosmetic and the links don’t really lead anywhere. We’re going to use a snippet to rectify that and make our site navigable from the horizontal menu links.

Continue reading “Building a Website with MODx for Newbies – Part 5: Introducing Snippets”

Building a Website with MODx for Newbies – Part 4: Introducing Chunks

Welcome to part 4 of our series of tutorials on building a website with MODx CMS. So far we’ve looked at:

Part 1: Introduction to MODx
Part 2: Installing MODx
Part 3: Working with Templates

As we work through these tutorials, we’re building a MODx resource site called Learn MODx. In the last installment we started working with templates and moved our site from using the minimal base MODx template to the nice blue Swansong template. So far our website looks like this: (you can click on the images to see a larger view)

In this tutorial we are going to get a gentle 🙂 introduction to chunks. I had mentioned in the last post that we would delve into chunks AND snippets in this post, but I realized after some thought that I was being a tad too ambitious. I feel that it’s better to introduce each in its own post. I apologize for any crashed hopes and dreams, and any harmed puppies and turtles, but we will look into snippets in the next post.

So what are these chunks anyway? Chunks, to me, are like little mini-templates.

Continue reading “Building a Website with MODx for Newbies – Part 4: Introducing Chunks”

Building a Website with MODx for Newbies – Part 3: Working with Templates

Welcome to part 3 of our series of tutorials on building a website with MODx CMS. So far we’ve looked at:

Part 1: Introduction to MODx
Part 2: Installing MODx

As we work through these tutorials, we’re building a MODx resource site called Learn MODx. So far our website looks like this: (you can click on the images to see a larger view)

If you recall, we didn’t install the sample website but instead opted for a minimal install, which I feel is cleaner and easier to work with. As I clarified in my addendum to the post on Installing MODx, Shane’s comment about the value of installing the sample website as a demo to see how MODx does things is an excellent idea. If you didn’t read the addendum to that post and the comments please do so.

In today’s post, we’re going to start looking at templating MODx. We’re going to begin implementing a new template to our site to give it a unique look and in the process we’ll learn about some of MODx’s template tags.

Continue reading “Building a Website with MODx for Newbies – Part 3: Working with Templates”

MODx Web Development – MODx Book Now Available!

The first ever (I believe) MODx book is now available! It is titled MODx Web Development, authored by Antano Solar John and published by Packtpub.

You can get a copy of MODx Web Development at Packtpub (ebook costs $22.39, paperback costs $35.99, bundle costs $40.79).

Here is a quick rundown of the contents of the book:

Continue reading “MODx Web Development – MODx Book Now Available!”