The Content Types section is another area that most users will never need. It shows the MODX default MIME types for resources. If you need to add another MIME type (e.g., application, audio, or video), you can do it here.
Contexts
The Contexts section allows you to create and modify contexts (you can also modify them by right-clicking on the context’s icon in the Resource tree).
When installed, MODX has two default contexts: mgr and web. The mgr context is the MODX manager itself. It is a special context allowing access to the Manager and should not be renamed or deleted. The web context contains the resources that will be available in the front end of the site.
See the Site Organization and Contexts chapter (Chapter 9) for more information on using contexts to organize your site. Many MODX sites have only the mgr and web contexts.
Actions
Actions are essentially menu choices in the Manager. Using this section, you can create custom manager pages and add new menu choices. You can also hide choices from specific users, rename menu choices, or reorganize Top-Menu items either for security or to make the Manager less intimidating for specific users.
See Chapter 11 for information on how to create custom Manager pages, create new menu items, or redesign the Manager’s menus.
Namespaces
Many users will never need this section. It shows the existing namespaces and allows you to create new ones.
If you are creating a new add-on component, you can create a namespace for it here, but this is usually done automatically when creating a transport package (see Chapter 13).
The only time you might need to create a namespace here is if you are creating a complex component that will not be distributed in a transport package.
Each namespace must have a path associated with it. The standard form for a component’s path is:
{core_path}components/mycomponent/
Don’t forget the trailing slash. One function of the namespace path is to allow MODX to find a component’s lexicon (language) files, which will always be located in the lexicon/
directory just below the namespace path. With the namespace path above and a core path of core/, for example, the lexicon directory would be located at the standard location for component lexicon files:
core/components/mycomponent/lexicon/
Another use of the namespace path is to allow MODX to find the files used by Custom Manager Pages (CMPs).
User
The User choice on the Top Menu allows individual Manager users to update part of their user profiles, change their own passwords, see statistics about their actions on the site, and send and receive messages from other users.
This section allows limited access to user information. It does not show the user’s full profile, and it doesn’t allow the creation or deletion of users or any modification of their security permissions. Those tasks are in the Manage Users option of the Security menu (which some users may not have access to).
Profile
This section shows a limited version of the user profile on the General Information tab.
Users can alter their profile information and save it.
The Reset Password tab allows the user to change his or her password. The Recent Resources tab shows a list of the resources the user has worked on and the publication status of each resource. You can publish or unpublish resources here by double-clicking on the “Pub
lished” field in the grid.
You can also right-click on a document to view, edit, or preview the resource. Clicking on
“Edit” takes you to the Create/Edit Resource panel for that resource.
Messages
In the Messages section, users can see any messages sent to them by other users. They can also create messages for other users by clicking on the “New Message” button.
Support
The “Support” Top Menu option provides links to various support sites for MODX Revo
lution. Each choice on the Support menu opens a new browser window and takes you to the support site.
Forums
The Forums link takes the user to the MODX Forums. The forums are probably the most valuable resource for MODX. The MODX community uses the forums extensively and has traditionally been extremely friendly to new users and very generous in answering their questions.
Before asking for help, be sure to try finding the answer on your own with a web search, a search of the MODX documentation, and a search of the MODX Forums.
The Forum search itself is notoriously bad. Often, using a search engine (e.g., Google) and searching for something like modx revolution yourtopic or modx revolution forums yourtopic will get better results. If you know where you want to look, an even better way is to Google site:modx. com yourtopic to search for documentation or site: modx. com/for urns yourtopic to search the MODX Forums.
If you post to the Forums, make your question as clear as you can and be sure that the
of MODX are more likely to respond to it. Always indicate what version of MODX you are using, and if they might be relevant, list the type of server you’re on and the version of PHP and MySQL installed there.
Remember that you paid nothing for MODX. Posts that demand help or imply that some
thing is wrong with MODX or the people who created it are less likely to receive helpful answers. People who show a willingness to contribute to the MODX project get better results on the Forums.
Bear in mind that most of the people who created MODX and its add-ons are volunteers.
None of them get paid for answering your questions. They are doing it because they are generous and helpful.
Asking questions in emails or personal messages to individual members of the MODX team is strongly discouraged because others can’t benefit from the answers and the team members end up answering the same questions over and over (rather than working to improve MODX).
If you find a solution to your problem, it’s good form to report the solution back to the Forum for others to see, to thank the people who helped you, and to put [Solved] in the subject line of your post.
Wiki
The name of this option may have changed by the time you read this. This link takes you to the official MODX documentation site. As with any open-source project, the documenta
tion is a work in progress. It always lags behind the project because fixing known bugs and adding new features to MODX takes up most of the team members’ time (and most have to make a living in addition to working on MODX).
It’s a fact of life in the open-source world that the documentation is sometimes out of date and may contain errors. It’s important to point this out in the appropriate Forum topic, but try to be polite about it.
Bugs
This link is for submitting bug reports and suggestions for improving MODX. If you have a feature request or a suggestion for improving any part of MODX (including add-on com
ponents), this is the place to report it. To avoid spam in the system, users need to register a free account there and log in each time they visit.
When reporting bugs, it’s usually a good idea to search the Forums first, and if you don’t find an answer, ask a question there. What you think is a bug may be due to a misunderstanding of how MODX works or a misconfiguration of your MODX install (or the server it runs on).