Introducing MODX Revolution and the concept of Creative Freedom at the first PHP Zwolle Meetup on August 27th. Relevant 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/15031 => for feedback on the talk

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, the future

4. 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

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

6. 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

7. Installs without Assumptions

8. Elements as Building Blocks
Templates
TemplateVariables
Chunks
Snippets
Plugins

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

10. 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]]

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

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

13. Snippets

14. 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]]

15. But wait, there’s even more!
• [[helloWorld?
&property=`value`
]]
• [[$head?
&extraCss=`<link rel=.. href=..>`
]]

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

17. 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

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

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

20. MODX Architecture

21. 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

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

23. Fetching a Single Object
$c = 5;
$obj = $modx->getObject(‘modChunk’, $c);
$c2 = array(‘name’ => ‘head’);
$obj = $modx->getObject(‘modChunk’, $c2)

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

25. 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’); }
👍
⚠

26. 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

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

28. 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>

29. 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" />

30. 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>

31. 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>

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

33. 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;
}

34. The Future of MODX
• MODX 3 & MODX Next
• Backwards incompatible release (semver)
• Cleaning up legacy code no longer relevant
• Full namespace support for xPDO models
• Composer/packagist support
• Proper Dependency Injection in the core
• Improved, faster routing with Slim

35. 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/15031 => please leave feedback
Enjoy your Creative Freedom