Yet Another CMS/F Thingy called MODX
Some of you might have seen my many rants on Twitter about the state of MODX, I have grown weary and have now decided to fork it. I have decided to also name my fork “MODX”, yes this is for real, you don’t believe me. Proof right here.
I have been called fearless, but with the unknown of MODX why wouldn’t I be?
In this post I will be talking about what my MODX 3 will bring, I will try and be as un-detailed as possible (yes un-detailed is a word, well so I say).
Lets address the main issue everyone keeps talking about, will I remove ExtJS from the core? No I won’t, so you might ask why I made this decision? Well dictators answer to no-one, so there is your anwers.
I also see a number of you complaining about why is MODX so far behind with all the new features PHP has to offer and all the new cool stuff like Composer. I can’t say why its so far behind but that is changing in my MODX 3, you will be able to install it with Composer, I will outline the steps you will need to take below:
- Clone repo off Github (yes you need to posses a degree in Git first)
- Do composer install in your terminal at the root of the repo
- Do modx.phar install to get the system setup
- Next you will need to make sure you have PEAR setup (you might ask, what do I need this for? well nothing at all)
You should also know I have opted for Twig as the template parser, yes I know you don’t like logic in your templates. Luckily enough I created a Morpheus Complexius Zubberium Snippet manager on top of Twig, how does this work? I shall explain below.
A Snippet calls a Snippet that calls a Chunk that returns a Snippet.
Now I know the current repo looks just like MODX Revolution repo, but don’t be fooled. I have been developing this for the past 14 years with the help of this guy. Yes he works for the other MODX, but he has been helping me unknowningly. I will explain about him later.
Versioning
This is a major concern for every developer who uses MODX, when will the next minor version be out? when will the next major version be out? I have investigated this and have a viable solution.
TIME TRAVEL
Yes I am being real, this has been made possible by this guy, you don’t believe me? go checkout this extra he created before MODX even began.
I think the current release cycle (if we can call it that) is busted. You have to wait around 3 months per minor release and 3 years per major release. I have adopted the Chrome release cycle for my MODX, yes that means you should have MODX 5 before Drupal 8 is ever released.
Bug Fixing
The current process is flawed, I mean so flawed. So person finds a bug, person reports it to the MODX team via the tracker bug tracking thingy. MODX team evaluates it and then fix it some weeks later. Now that is definitely the wrong way to run a open source project.
Here is how I will be dealing with this, person finds a bug, person reports the bug to me, I tell person who find the bug to fix it themself. If I didn’t find it, it doesn’t exist otherwise it just plain old user error or browser issue.
Roadmap
This is a big issue with the current MODX team, WHERE IS THE ROADMAP? well it here, actually its on the tracker. See its all uncertainty.
I have revised this, I asked my Son to create a roadmap for me but he was too busy to complete it, so I did one myself. You can find the roadmap here.
My initiative is copy someone elses work and say its yours because you are awesome.
Go on people’s, get forking and send in your PRs like nobody’s business, but do remember I don’t fix other people’s bugs.
If you have any questions, follow and ping me on Twitter- I’m @silentworks.
I am a freelance web developer who works under the name Silent Works. I work on various open source project and try to evolve with new technologies as they arrive.
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