1. No more waiting for page loading. Web pages take about 2.5 seconds to download and another 1-2 to render depending on your computer hardware and web browser. Ajax is a lot quicker as it only fetches the data it needs
2. The user’s browsing experience can be streamlined a lot better.
3. A site can interact with users in many more ways. The only reasonable way to change what you saw on screen was to click a hyperlink or a button. Now there are all sorts of events; mouse listeners, content changes, time, clicks.
4. Generally it makes life easier for the user.

It’s this love of Ajax that has led me to try MODx, an “Ajax CMS and PHP Application Framework. I don’t particually want to re-learn another CMS with the blood, sweat and tears that I’ve poured into Xaraya over the last two years. But it’s reaching a stage now where it’s a bit like using an old CRT screen – the technology is out of date and it just isn’t pretty.

Installation

Quick, easy, had all the necessary validation checks before letting me do something that would break the thing. Even used some Ajax to test the database connection. A good start.

First Impressions

Well… it’s pretty, and their interface designer needs a pat on the back! It’s got the ‘grab factor’. Everything is clean, well-spaced and it’s a good use of colour and contrast.

My eye gets drawn to some configuration settings. They’ve learnt a thing or two from Joomla in keeping things simple and comprehendable. They’ve also given me some reminders to delete the config file and the installer directory. The most attractive thing about this is that they’ve got a small message below:

What does this mean?
The install/ directory contains the installer for MODx. Just imagine what might happen if an evil person finds this folder and runs the installer! He’d probably not get too far, because he’ll need to enter some user information for the database, but it’s still best to remove this folder from your server.

Fantastic. So I now know; A: There’s a problem, and B: What the repercussions could be. This is the way of presenting information that I subscribe to, yet used to see so little of. One of the old unsaid proverbs on the web was seemingly “Thou shalt not make labels more than three words long”.  This occassionly could make things very obscure and you’d have to sift through Google or support pages for 10 minutes trying to work out what the bloody checkbox actually does!

This is a CMS that will turn people on when they first use it. They may stop once they find it’s flaws but at least it’s worth the exploration. With Xaraya my biggest critisism is that it doesn’t help itself whatsoever. Even the most able web developer would admit it’s heavy and difficult to pick up. Xaraya 2 has been rewritten and rebranded as an application development framework – a much clearer and fairer representation of the product.

What’s Next?

I’m going to play with it and familiarise myself with the layout and terminology. Get an understanding of all the base modules and the core of the application.

After that it’s on to the heavy stuff. Can I write a bespoke web module that does 95% of the things I want it to do and is 80% of it made easy for me.

We shall see…