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MODX Revolution Building the Web Your Way
A Journey Through a Content Management Framework

Aug 31 2012
Release Date



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MODX Revolution: Building the Web Your Way presents an extensive look at an amazing and extensible Content Management Framework by providing real-world examples and hundreds of screen shots to bridge the gap typically experienced by users when pressing into new concepts and systems.

Readers can approach this book as a quick reference, progressive primer, the basis to streamline team activities, or simply as a means to stretch skill sets into new areas based on the author’s decades of experience integrating development teams and partnering with clients around the globe.

MODX Revolution: Building the Web Your Way is divided into four logical sections allowing readers to quickly access topics via the outline formatted Table of Contents or the index. Each chapter progressively increases in complexity and builds on concepts previously presented in the text. Features introduced in MODX Revolution 2.2.x-pl: Media Sources, Dashboards, and file-based Elements have also been introduced.

In short, MODX Revolution: Building the Web Your Way is the book the author would have wanted on his desk, since he began using MODX products in 2005, and what multiple people from around the globe asked him for.



Summary

MODX Revolution: Building the Web Your Way is an example-driven guide which effectively walks readers through various aspects of administrating, using, developing, and designing websites. Everything necessary to successfully operate a MODX Revolution site has been included in this book with the intention of familiarizing users so they can rapidly begin developing their own applications.

MODX Revolution: Building the Web Your Way is divided into four sections:

Part 1: Foundations contains quite a bit of explanation and numerous examples regarding each of the topics necessary to become familiar with MODX Revolution.

Part II: Live Projects begins with a quick-start chapter and moves into real world development examples incorporating jQuery, Ajax, Search Engine optimization, and various other topics for building better projects.

Part III: Administration introduces the concepts and techniques to effectively administrate a MODX Revolution project. Access Control Lists and other “difficult” topics are presented in a straightforward manner utilizing very familiar terminology to quickly establish concepts usually considered to be advanced simply due to their assumed complexity.

Part IV: Development takes a “stone tossed across water” view of building dynamic PHP applications using MODX Revolution as a foundation. The areas of discovery range from the most commonly used methods in the API, to building third-party applications from scratch - including the xPDO schema and extending the generated classes into full applications. Regardless of your skill level, this book was conceived with the idea of allowing you to begin at your current level of experience and continue as far as you would want to.

The examples chosen for this book are intended to easily reach a large number of readers, especially those who are self-taught or who are looking for a "low-impact" learning curve. The author intentionally refrained from using overly technical examples and verbiage so as to relate to a larger audience, even though some of the topics may be considered advanced to some readers.

Abbreviated Contents

Part I: Foundations 2

Introducing MODX Revolution 4
Discovering The Heart of MODX Revolution: The Manager 16
Creating Project Templates 46
[[$Chunks]]:Simplifying Web Projects Using (X)HTML 58
[[*templateVariables]]: Building Interactive Interfaces 74
[[Snippets]], Plug-ins and Widgets: Adding PHP Dynamic Content 98
:filters - The Art of Manipulating Element Output 160

Part II: Live Projects 176

Quick Start: Putting the Pieces Together 178
Streamlining Web Projects With SEO, FURLs, and Minify 198
Power Blogging 222
Dynamic JavaScript, CSS, and jQuery Essentials 268
AJAX Content Injection 296

Part III: Administration 310

An Overview of Grouping: Category, User and Resource 312
Access Control List Implementation 328
Contexts: Implementing Sites with Multiple Faces 354

Part IV: Development 378

MODX Revolution API Concepts 380
xPDO: Foundations For Development 420
xPDO: Third-Party Applications 452
Now What? 532

Appendices 536

Download the full Table of Contents here

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Revised Index

Full Table of Contents

Free Chapter Sample Code

 

Images were drastically reduced to lower the download sizes of these files. The quality in the book is much higher.


The sample chapter was chosen as it shows a variety of layouts utilized within the book and due to its subject matter being very foundational and easy to communicate. It is by far the simplest chapter presented in the book, not including the introduction chapter.


Meet the author

W. Shawn Wilkerson holds a Bachelors in Supervision and Management and nine computer and internet technology degrees. He began his online career during his teenage years serving as a FIDOnet hub and has three decades of experience working with clients around the globe of various sizes and structure implementing computer, networking, and web technologies. He is the founding member of Sanity LLC where he functions as a freelance writer, industry consultant, and technical analyst.



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