MODX comes clean slate so there is no ‘ready to use’ provisions for creating Blog style site. One has to set it up using tools available in the CMS.
I took an easy way out for my production site by creating blog site using free wordPress service and then feed content to MODX page. with this, the only extra you will need is Spiefeed to handle rss feed from WordPress. But for purist approach it is certainly possible to setup blog section within MODX using few extras.
There are several articles available for creating Blog sites using MODX. The one shown in the modx official site is somewhat dated, but the article actually have a link to the instruction/article of more recent implementation of MODX blog site. Link is here. Better yet, this instruction is accompanied with a package published in the github which has all chunks, a snippet and a template packaged up to duplicate the blog site that the article discusses. A demo site is also available to check out the feel of using this template. The document states that the demo utilizes MODX 2.7. So can I use this setup with MODX 3 site? Furthermore, the instruction assumes you want the Site to be a blogging site. Can I add ‘Blog page’ to already existing MODX site? Answer to both questions are ‘Yes’ but we need to modify some parts.
To start, I could have created each chunk and template manually following the instruction but to reduce my typing effort, I went ahead and downloaded the demo package. I also installed dependent extras (getResources, getPage, Collections, and Tagger). Previously, I did not have any of those installed. – I am using pdoTools to get resources and get page. – <edit> It was fairly easy to change references to getResources and getPage to equivalent pdo* snippets.
Again, the setup instruction is written for MODX version 2.7 and the site I am setting up this blog structure is version 3.0.3. Setup also assumes the top page is a site home page. There are several area in chunks and template that refers to [[++site_start]] and this need to be changed to point to correct Resource. I want to have a blog page as a subpage of the site.
Looking through the template and snippets that I setup with the downloaded package , I found some more modifications were needed.
I will list out those changes.
- My server uses Nginx and it needs additional html tag to specify base url in <head> section of blog template html. Without it, Friendly URL won’t work correctly.
<base href="[[++site_url]]"> - In MODX 3, [[*class_key]] does not return “modResource”. It returns “MODX\Revolution\modResource”.
This means I get “MODX/Revolution\modDocument” or “MODX\Revolution\CollectionContainer” in [[*class_key]] field depending on resource selected. Two sections of “Blog Template” stops working due to this.- Template tries to pull in “jumbotron_CollectionContainer” or “jumbotron chunk based on [[$jumbotron-[[]*class_key]]] tag. This tag doesn’t work in MODX 3 as it returns [[$jumbotron-MODX/Revolution/….]] which does not exist and forward slash within chunk name is probably invalid anyway.
- Template tries to insert [[$blog_listing]] or [[$blog_article]] based on conditional modifier [[*id:is`[[++site_start]]`:then….]] but the blog_listing page is not at [[+site_start]] resources in my use case.
- To mitigate both problems, I have created a system setting [[++blog_start]] in custom namespace/area and set it to id of a blog home page resource I created. Then rewrote tags as follows.
For jumbotron section
[[[[*id:is=`[[++blog_start]]`:then=`$jumbotron-CollectionContainer`:else`$jumbotron-modDocument`]]]]
For container section
[[[[*id:is=`[[++blog_start]]`:then=`$blog_listing`:else=`$blog_article`]]]] - Note: It will be probably not that difficult to create snippets and replace conditional tags here.
- To mitigate both problems, I have created a system setting [[++blog_start]] in custom namespace/area and set it to id of a blog home page resource I created. Then rewrote tags as follows.
- getResources and getSnippet tags are used to aggregate child resources and parents properties are set to site home page [[++site_start]]. These needed to be changed to aforementioned [[++blog_start]]. These changes had to be made on $blog_listing chunk and $jumbotron-CollectionContainer chunk.
- @groups properties are hardcoded in calls to TaggerGetTags snippet. The snippet is called from $aside chunk is setting @groups to 1 and the snippet called from $headder chunk is setting @groups to 2. Make sure this agrees with your tagger group settings. I have first created ‘Category’ group and then ‘Archives’ group so I needed to change them to 2 and 1 respectively.
- Last and least 🙂 as this is just a demo template, links to “subscribe”, “search”, “Sign up”, “GitHub”, “Twitter” and “Facebook” are all mocked and pointing to itself. You either need to remove or put actual link to them when modifying to suit your site design.
So, in order to create a Blog section within Modx 3 hosted website, using this instruction and elements in the github repo, One needs to be aware of:
- Modx version 3’s breaking change of the model class caused decision logics inside Blog_Template to stop working. Rework of the logic flow was needed.
- Friendly url. Nginx needs base href reference in head section.
- Creating a blog section other than home page location. Needed to change references to [[++site_start]] system settings to [[++blog_start]], a user created system setting
- Adjust the template design to fit with other area of site design.
Some more miscellaneous items to note.
- $blog_listing_item chunk, content placeholder has a modifier :firstp. There is a firstp snippet that is installed with the package. I opted to replace it with ellipsis=`500` modifier to limit the content output to first 500 chars followed by ellipsis to suit my preference.
- Also in $blog_listing, getPage snippet uses @blog properties set. This set does not exists so the default property set will be used instead. I think idea is to create a blog property set within getPage snippet to override the default property settings in easy way, if customization is needed.
Commenting on the posts are not possible. This need to be setup by yourself and will require Quip extra. that part is not covered by this article. One has to go back to modx documentation’s tutorial section.