WIKIMODX developer info
Implementing MODX templates from html and CSS
The main resource for MODX documentation is their online manual.
MODX Manager
Resource, Elements and Files tabs
- Resources: which are database-generated pages or links, arranged as nodes in a tree structure
- They can include CSS pages if this is wished
- They include some basic template variable fields, including longtitle and content
- RTFM page
- Elements: which are back-end things
- RTFM page
- Templates: which structure the page
- Template Variables: custom information assigned to resource / page
- Call a TV in a template with [[*tvname]]
- Chunks: chunks of recyclable html, can contain database information ‘placeholders’,
- Chunks can also ‘nest’ more chunks, plug-ins, etc
- Call a chunk in a template with [[$chunkname]]
- RTFM page
- Chunks can also ‘nest’ more chunks, plug-ins, etc
- Snippets: small pieces of php code
- run a snippet in a template with [[snippetname]]
- run a snippet each time the page is loaded with [[!snippetname]]
- Nearly all snippets use a ‘chunk’ to render their output,
- to make sure style and content are separate
- Snippet database results are normally placed into hunks with [[+placeholders]]
- RTFM page
- Plug-ins: bigger programmes
- They execute as the page is generated or form other system events.
- Plug-ins are not therefore placed into a Template, as they are more functional
- RTFM page
- Files: arranged as the end user wishes, including images, CSS files, documents
Building a template
- Place the page structure into the Template
- Add common fields like [[*content]] and [[*longtitle]]
- Add any custom TV output
- Render internal links by pointing to the node number, like this <a href="[[~123]]”>
- Where several similar templates use the same html, these can be placed in [[$chunks]] to make updating easier
So you might have
<body> [[$standard_head]]
[[$template_content]]
[[$standard_footer]]
</body>
or
<body> <h1>[[*longtitle]] </h1> [[*content]] <p>Copyright notice and privacy policy</p> </body>
- Wayfinder is used for menus
- Getresources are the main ways to generate database content
- Quip is used for comments
- Archivist is used for lists of posts
- Taglister is used to generate tag lists
- If is used to create conditional statements within templates (if this do that)
- Articles is used to standardise the use of these for blog posts
Each ‘snippet’ has a database call which looks like this:
[[snippetname? option=`one` otheroption=`2` templatechunkforrenderingoutput=`chunkname` ]]
Blogs posts using Articles
Articles standardises all this, and requires us to use two templates, one for the blog listings, and one for the blog posts
Two sample templates can be adapted, Prism articles and Prism articles list