Brief description on how to develop using MODx Revo

1. Power Developing
Extras
For MODx Revolution

2. Coming to Terms with
Terminology
• “Extra” - Anything coded for MODx. Also
called ‘Component’, ‘3PC’, or 3rd Party
Component
• “Add-On” - Anything that doesn’t extend
core but ‘adds’ functionality
• “Core Extension” - Anything that extends
the core

3. Coming to Terms with
Terminology
• ‘CMP’ - Custom Manager Page
• ‘Lexicon’ - A collection of translation
entries, or strings
• ‘Namespace’ - A unique name identifying
your Component

4. The Power of Extras
• Develop custom web applications
• Courseware, amazon gallery systems, web service
integrations, ecommerce tools
• Create Transport Packages to deploy anywhere and to
anyone
• Internationalization support readily available
• Use the power of xPDO to access custom tables
• Custom Manager Pages to have your own rich, ExtJS (or
other library) powered manager UIs

5. Two Methods of Dev
• Method One: Develop for myself
• Easy - same way as Evolution
• Can use new API, no need to add build
script
• Cannot be distributed with Package
Management

6. Two Methods of Dev
• Method Two: Building a Transport Package
• Makes for easy point-click installs
• Can be distributed via Package
Management
• Allows others to use it easily

7. The Namespace
• A unique identifier of your Component
• Related to Settings, Lexicons, CMPs
• Namespace path tells MODx where CMP is
• Think of it like the house your Component
is built in

8. Lexicons for
Internationalization
• Lexicons allow your components to
translate
• $modx->lexicon(‘entry_name’);
• Separated into topics. Loaded by: $modx-
>lexicon->load(‘namespace:topic’);
• Tied to Namespaces

9. Custom Settings
• Settings can be dynamically added
• You can package in settings
• System -> Context -> User

10. Custom Manager Pages
• Also called ‘CMPs’
• Replaces Modules
• Access to MODx API
• Can either embed your script in a MODx
page or load it completely alone

11. CMPs: Actions and
Menus
• An Action is a controller - a database
representation of a php file
• A Menu is a menu item for the top nav
• Menus attach to an action
• Menus can use lexicon entries

12. Properties and
Property Sets
• Any tag can now have properties
• Tags can be nested with properties
• Common Properties can be grouped into
Property Sets
• Default properties can be set for any
Element

13. Case Studies:
The Wine Guide
• by Digital Butter Limited
• Custom Manager Pages
• Custom DB tables
• Language-specific Contexts
• CSV imports/exports

14. Case Studies:
The License Coach
• by Collabpad
• Dynamic Courseware System
• Enrollments, Courses, Chapters, Modules, Quizzes, Dynamic
Questions
• Enrollments/Courses can be restricted to Branches
• Signup via website, tracking, heavy reporting, time tracking,
etc
• Course Plans to assess risk/progress of students throughout
course
• Heavy CMP usage - trees, grids, TinyMCE integration

15. Example Component:
Doodles
• Objectives: Display a list of Doodles that
are loaded from an external DB table
• Have a backend mgr UI in ExtJS to edit
them with
• Make it translated via Lexicons
• Have a Transport Package (TP) to distribute
with