MODX Digest # 2.1 (March 11 - March 25, 2019)

Fresh selection of news about MODX. In the issue: nightly builds 3 versions, the new SEO Tab, a big update of Vasily Naumkin's components, user mentions on MODX.pro and some refactoring details from Jason.

Enjoy reading!

Numbering digest modified to not conflict with a series of digests ( # 1 and # 2 ) from Andchir .

news and events

MODX Podcast - Modcast

The MODX podcast was released a week later due to technical issues, although it plans to release both a digest and a podcast on the same day. However, many points have since been finalized, permission has been obtained from services for podcasts and more.

Minor updates:

• the podcast site has been updated, now everything is beautiful and to the point - https://modcast.by
• The podcast has been added to iTunes , Overcast , PocketCast , Yandex.Music , subscribe and listen to where it is more convenient for you.

Night assembly MODX 3

About two weeks ago, the guys from Sterc asked to build a working build of version 3, since almost a year has already passed since the last release of the alpha version, and not a little work has been done during this time. I tried to assemble, but the first time it didn’t work out, I started to figure it out, and then I decided what to do with my hands, if I could automate it and made a service with night assemblies, where the builds are collected every night - https://nightly.modx.by/ .

The plans are to add another language download directly from Crowdin , since translations are usually poured before the release, and in the git version only English texts are relevant. And probably check whether there have been changes in the repository and not produce releases without special need (you also need to save server space).

MODX development

Since code freeze was announced and Jason prospoileril that he did something, the activity in the repository fell over these two weeks. So this is due to the fact that many are preparing for a meeting in Amsterdam this Friday, so you need to solve work and household chores, and someone else to prepare a presentation with a report. Nevertheless, what did they do.

• MODX 3 now requires the minimum installed version of PHP - 7.0 . Yes, many may wonder why not something fresher, because 7.0 is no longer supported. The answer is simple, there is statistics (albeit not comprehensive), which says that about 40% of users are still using version 7.0, therefore, it is unreasonable to deprive so many users of the possibility of updating without any serious reason (that's what we decided).
• As part of the work on the nightly build service MODX 3, I had to fix the build script a bit so that it would do what it should. In particular, the old script was not able to install dependencies through Composer, now it can.
• Mikhail Voevodsky made a good attempt to make everyone well , adding the code , file , inline system binders directly to the kernel so that you can write code more efficiently, as is now possible with components compatible with pdoTools. However, there are security issues and the likelihood that this pull request will be accepted is still in question.

I did not include smaller corrections, you can always familiarize yourself with them on GitHub. In addition to the code, work continues on a new documentation site.

Jason Refactoring

Last week, I managed to talk a bit with Jason and he was pleased with the good news. There is progress in the work, the main part is already completed, before the weekend last week, he began to convert processors. After finishing with them, he promised to show a draft on GitHub.

Now all classes are loaded via PSR-4, which means that no more require_once and loadClass, now just connect one autoload.php and use any classes of the system.

Models can now be generated and probably work on xpdo 3.0, there will also be no more string references to classes: they used to write 'modResource', now it's worth writing modResource: class. This will increase not only the readability of the code, but also enable the IDE to more correctly analyze the code and give hints.

It's all in words so far, since there is no code yet, but let's hope that at least by the mitap there will be a result. If not, then plan B, listen to it in the podcast.

Interesting notes and articles

• Mentioning users - Vasily Naumkin added the ability to mention users via "@" on the community website. And it works both in notes and in comments. It may be convenient if you need to attract a person to some thread in which he does not participate and therefore does not follow him.
• Cleaning community users - while they were making mentions, it turned out that there was a mess in the database with users who were prevented from using the normally new function, so that the number of users thinned out, the inactive ones were deleted, and the rest were “combed” with logins so that they wouldn't crash.
• [jwtSession] Transferring a session to browser cookies is an example of using JWT tokens in conjunction with MODX. As an experiment and solving a separate problem, the thing is very interesting, but it is unlikely to find widespread practical application. However, it’s worth a look.
• Protecting MODX Revolution - albeit not a fresh, but still relevant note on how to take care of security and protection against hacking a site on MODX.
• Nice video tutorials about MODX from Coddes . And they have a nice site .

New and updated add-ons

• Theme.Bootstrap 3.0.0-pl - updating the startup package with Bootstrap layout to version 4 of the CSS framework. The update also affected other add-ons (pdoTools, miniShop2, mSearch2, and Office) that use it as a dependency, so before upgrading, read more about the changes in the note -
  https://modx.pro/components/17790 .
• SEO Tab 2.2.0-pl is a great update to a component that helps with SEO. Something radical was not added, but about 10 bugs were fixed and from heels of minor improvements.
• Jevix 1.3.1-pl - typographer update for MODX. A couple of little things and hood affairs. Support post - https://modx.pro/components/17827 .
• mSearh2 1.13.1-pl - the main update - the correct accounting of prices after applying all sorts of different plugins that change the price of the goods (as a rule, various discounts). Now filters are able to correctly take into account such changes and show relevant numbers in sliders and other places.
  More details in the post - https://modx.pro/news/17738 .
• SeoFilter 1.6.4-beta - added ajax support for mFilter2 pagination, now compatible with MODX 3.
• ResVideoGallery 2.0.0-beta - a big update immediately to version 2. A bunch of events has been added, now it can in Fenom and can show photos from the miniShop2 gallery.
• cityFields 1.2.2-pl - new chunks on bootstrap, the ability to change the city through a get-request and many other useful corrections and improvements.
• logRotation 1.0.0-beta - allows you to reduce the size of the error log by deleting old log entries when the specified file size is exceeded. Discussion and suggestions for improving the component in a post on the community website - https://modx.pro/components/17837 .
• Context Export 1.0.0-pl - a component from Sterc that allows you to export the whole context in XML format. It also knows how to export access rights and media elements (i.e. pictures and files).
• Point of Interest 1.0.0-pl is another component from Sterc, which allows you to display points specified in MODX on a Google map. It can be resources or some records of another component, or any other data. The documentation is still lame.

Thanks for attention!

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PS Links to paid components are cut from the digest so as not to violate the rules of the sites where the digest is published. Where to find them, you yourself know very well.