The fourth stop for my little MODX Tour, this time at PHPAmersfoort. About the MODX content management platform, with a basic introduction and a more technical overview of some extension opportunities. Relevant links: http://MODX.com => official website http://rtfm.modx.com => official documentation https://github.com/modxcms/revolution => source code https://MODX.today => daily links/articles about MODX https://www.modmore.com => premium extras for MODX https://joind.in/talk/view/15171 => talk feedback

1. Unleashing Creative
Freedom with

2. Who am I?
Mark Hamstra
Founder & CEA at modmore
Freelance MODX Developer
my doggies
Turbo
Bommel

3. Agenda
• What is MODX, for whom, available
features, how to build a MODX site
• Tour of the MODX Manager (back-end)
• The Architecture of MODX, xPDO ORM,
extending and overriding

4. What is your current
platform of choice?

5. MOD-what?
• Open Source
• Written in PHP (of course)
• Primarily used with MySQL, other drivers available
• Already 10 years old young
• Content Management System Framework Platform

6. https://twitpic.com/3pvrmw

7. For who is MODX
• Web Professionals
• Designers
• Front-end developers
• Using MODX as a tool
• Est 4-5.000.000 sites

8. Community
• Free addons: 622
• Official Forum: forums.modx.com 50.571
• +- 1M views of modx.com per month
• Twitter: #MODX
• Slack: modx.org 289

9. All the features of a CMS
rich text editor versioning user groups
multisite templates multilingual extensions
markdown media browser hierarchical
page tree commercial support automatic
menu builder blogging permissions seo
friendly urls server-side caching

10. Installs without Assumptions

11. Elements as Building Blocks
Templates
TemplateVariables
Chunks
Snippets
Plugins

12. Templates
• Usually HTML
• Contains MODX tags
• One template per page

13. Template Variables
• Custom field for resources
• Commonly “TV”
• Tied to templates
• Text, image, select, checkbox,
date, radio, richtext, tag and
custom types available
• [[*name-of-tv]]

14. Chunks
• Usually HTML
• Reusable piece of code
• [[$name-of-chunk]]
Template
Chunk “head”

15. Snippets
• PHP!
• Comparable to a function
• Accepts properties
• [[name-of-snippet]] or
[[!name-of-snippet]]
Snippet “helloWorld”
Template

16. Snippets

17. But wait, there’s more!
• [[name-of-snippet]]
• [[!name-of-snippet]]
• = uncached!
• [[++name-of-setting]]
[[!++name-of-setting]]
• [[$name-of-chunk]]
[[!$name-of-chunk]]
• [[*name-of-field]]
[[!*name-of-field]]

18. Plugins
• PHP!
• Event-based, so no tags
• Can read and often
influence behaviour

19. No need to reinvent
the wheel
• Packages (aka extras, add-
ons, extensions, third party
components…) provide
common functionality
• Install via Package Installer
inside the manager

20. Example: getResources
• Lists resources matching
conditions
• Uses a Chunk as template
• Use Cases:
• Article listings
• Dynamic (sub)menus
• RSS feed generation
Template
Chunk “blogListItem”

21. Time for a Manager Tour!
http://localhost/tmp/phpfrl/manager/

22. MODX Architecture

23. Secure by Design
• Automatic $_GET, $_POST, $_REQUEST
sanitisation in the request handler
• xPDO ORM prevents SQL Injections
• 28 CVE entries, 8 since 2014
• WordPress: 906, already ~85 in 2015
• Drupal: 915, already ~120 in 2015
2015-07, cve.mitre.org

24. xPDO
• Object Relational Bridge / ORM
• Open Source (modxcms/xpdo)
• Extension to PHP’s PDO
• Support for MySQL, sqlsrv (and more)

25. Fetching a Single Object
$obj = $modx->getObject(‘modChunk’, 5);
$c = array(‘name’ => ‘head’);
$obj = $modx->getObject(‘modChunk’, $c)

26. Easy Query Builder
$c = $modx->newQuery(‘modResource’);
$c->where([
‘parent’ => 0,
‘AND:pagetitle:LIKE => ‘%About%’
]);
$matches = $modx->getCollection(‘modResource’, $c);
foreach ($matches as $modResource) { . . . }

27. Automatic Filtering
$search = $_POST[‘search’];
$c = $modx->newQuery(‘modResource’);
$c->where([
‘introtext:LIKE’ => “%{$search}%”,
]);
$modx->setPlaceholder(‘search’, sanitise($search));
function sanitise($value) { return htmlentities($value, ENT_QUOTES,
‘UTF-8’); }
👍
⚠

28. Custom Models with xPDO
1. Create an xPDO Package Schema (XML)
2. Use build script to write schema into the actual
model files/classes
3. Register it before use ($modx->addPackage)
4. Use any xPDO method (getObject,
getCollection) on your custom model

29. xPDO Package Schema - Head
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<model package="phpfrl"
baseClass="xPDOSimpleObject"
platform="mysql"
defaultEngine="MyISAM"
version="1.1">

30. xPDO Package Schema - Object
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<model package=“phpfrl” …
<object class="frlMeetup" table=“meetups”>
.. fields ..
</object>
<object class="frlSpeaker" table=“speakers”> … </object>
</model>

31. xPDO Package Schema - Fields
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<model package=“phpfrl” …
<object class="frlMeetup" table=“meetups">
<field
key="name"
dbtype="varchar"
precision="100"
phptype="string"
null="false"
default=“PHP FRL Meetup" />

32. xPDO Package Schema - Indices
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<model package=“phpfrl” …
<object class="frlMeetup" table=“meetups">
<field key="name" dbtype=“varchar" …
<field key=“starts_on" dbtype=“datetime"
<field key="name" dbtype=“varchar" …
<index alias="name" name="name" primary="false"
unique="false" type="BTREE">
<column key="name" length="" collation="A" null="false" />
</index>
</object>

33. xPDO Package Schema - Relations
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<model package=“phpfrl” baseClass=“xPDOSimpleObject" …
<object class="frlMeetup" table=“meetups">
<field key="name" dbtype=“varchar” …>
<composite alias=“Speakers” class=“frlSpeaker” local=“id” foreign=“meetup”
cardinality=“many” owner=“local” />
</object>
<object class="frlSpeaker" table=“speakers">
<field key="name" dbtype=“varchar” …>
<field key="meetup" dbtype=“int” …>
<aggregate alias=“Meetup” class=“frlMeetup” local=“meetup” foreign=“id”
cardinality=“one” owner=“foreign” />
</object>

34. xPDO Generated Model
<?php
class frlMeetup extends xPDOSimpleObject {
}

35. Interacting with that model
$modx->addPackage(‘phpfrl’, ‘/path/to/model/‘);
$c = $modx->newQuery(‘frlMeetup’);
$c->sortby(‘starts_on’, ‘DESC’);
$meetup = $modx->getObject(‘frlMeetup’, $c);
echo ‘De volgende meetup is ‘ . $meetup->name . ‘ en vind plaats op ‘ . $meetup-
>starts_on . ‘. ’;
$speakers = $meetup->getMany(‘Speakers’); // or just $meetup->Speakers
foreach ($speakers as $spegfytaker) {
echo $speaker->name . ‘ zal vertellen over ‘ . $speaker->subject;
}

37. Custom Resources
• Extend the base modResource object
• Custom processing logic
• Custom UI

38. Custom User Objects
• Extend the base modUser object
• Custom authentication logic

39. Interesting links:
• MODX.com => official website
• rtfm.modx.com => official documentation
• github.com/modxcms/revolution => source code
• MODX.today => daily links/articles about MODX
• modmore.com => premium extras for MODX
• https://joind.in/talk/view/15171 => talk feedback
Enjoy your Creative Freedom

40. Thanks