Frequently Asked Questions
From MODx Wiki
General stuff
How and why did MODx start?
The MODx project started out of frustration after a multi-year search for an open source CMF (Content Management Framework). We needed a solution that would allow us to quickly build clean XHTML/CSS sites and web applications (i.e., a sensible, robust and extendable API without extended learning curves), and that also worked as a great marketing-site CMS. While MODx began as an add-on hack of Etomite, the founders ultimately found themselves having to choose between forking the project or abandoning over a thousand hours of work. They chose dinnerware.
Do we really need another Open Source PHP CMS?
Considering that few CMSes – Open Source, Commercial or otherwise – do a stellar job of supporting web standards and offer an API that makes it straightforward to develop custom web applications, yes.
Who is MODx's ideal target?
Someone who is ready willing and able to get their hands into the code a bit and try to figure things out. MODx's team doesn't have the bandwidth right now to address the ultimate end-user market (the folks wanting to learn CSS and to figure out how to import and export databases, although we sure seem to answer a lot of those questions in our forum).
How do I make sure MODx works best?
We've spent hundreds of hours in the forums that can be traced back to really cheap hosting; you really do get what you pay for there. The following guidelines should result in more smooth sailing.
- A very reliable web host without turbo-overloaded servers.
- Linux.
- Apache with mod_rewrite.
- PHP 4.3.10 or above. PHP 5.1.x will get you some very cool things in the near future.
- MySQL 4.1.x or above.
- You've seen and know what "<?php" means.
Is there a simple getting started guide, including how to install MODx?
Starbuck, one of our friendly community members built an awesome tutorial site that is updated regularly. It's a great resource for anyone wanting an overview of most of the MODx basics in a step-by-step screenshot oriented format.
There's also the complete Beginner's Guide to MODx article on this wiki.
What's the best way to upgrade MODx between versions?
Please refer to the Installation Guide and Upgrading Guide
How do I move from a staging to a production server?
Please refer to the page: Moving Site To Another Location
How do I style my navigation menu with CSS to look like ...?
MODx's menu building tools are tremendously powerful and offer a lot of options to leverage CSS to it's fullest. If you're not a CSS pro, you might want to review a few resources dedicated to CSS found elsewhere on the net. Google is your friend in a big way here. Some great CSS resources to help you understand before you start asking questions in the forums:
How do I change the template of my documents?
Go to Modules -> Doc Manager. Choose the template and then specify the ID's of the documents you want this template to be applied to.
What are friendly urls?
Friendly urls are often referred as human readable urls. Instead of having a link http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php?id=1 you could have something like:
- http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php?q=blog-post-about-modx
- http://www.yourdomain.com/blog-post-about-modx.html
- http://www.yourdomain.com/my-blog/blog-post-about-modx.html
How to get friendly urls to work?
Please refer to the Friendly URLs Guide.
How do I add a new page?
Log in to the Manager. Click on the "New Document" icon in the left section's Document Tree menu bar (the yellow folder with the green plus sign). The right section will load a new, blank document editing form for you.
Alternately, you can right-click on a document in the Tree and select "Create document here" to have a new document form loaded with the right-clicked document already set as its parent.
Another easy method is to right-click on a document and select "Duplicate Document". The right section will load a copy of the clicked document and you can edit it as you like.
You can also select "Duplicate" from the top menu of any document opened for overview. Simply click on the document's name in the Tree and it will be opened for overview.
Don't forget to set the desired menu index for the new document!
How do I link to another page in the site?
That depends on what exactly you want to do. If you want to link to another page in the site from an existing page, make a link as you normally would. But for the URL, use the MODx internal url tag: [~xx~], where the xx is the document ID of the page you want to link to. Each document's ID is the number to the right of the document's title in the Document Tree list.
If you just want a link to an internal document in a menu, use a Weblink document. Click on the New Weblink icon in the Document Tree's menu bar (the chain link with the green plus sign). You can either put a regular URL in the Weblink field, or click on the little folder next to the Weblink field then click on the document in the Tree that you wish to link to. The ID of that document will be inserted into the field.
See What Is A Weblink for more information.
How do you change the order of items in the navigation menu?
When you edit a document, you will see a field "Menu Index" just before the main content editing field. Put the number you want for the position of the document in its subsection.
What does URL file-access is disabled mean?
Certain snippets, such as RSS feed readers, will open remote files with a URL. Certain settings in PHP can disable this feature. The directive allow_url_fopen has been available since PHP version 4.0.4 and defaults to ON. PHP 5.2 introduced a new directive, allow_url_include, which defaults to OFF. If you have problems with snippets that report this or similar errors, check the settings of these directives.
For more information, see the PHP filesystem documentation.
The user comments on this page of the PHP documentation page have a number of scripts for accessing remote files if this directive is OFF.
Tips
You can also find various info from the Category:Tips.
