A Quick Start Guide to ModX
Introduction
The University of Maine at Machias (UMM) uses a content management system (CMS) named “ModX” to manage the UMM web site. Faculty members can use the CMS to edit web site content. The purpose of this document is to guide the reader through the process of logging in to the UMM ModX manager and editing content.
Logging In To ModX
Log in to UMM’s ModX Manager by going to the URL: http://umm.maine.edu/manager and enter your user name and password.
Note: You must have a user account in order to log in. If you do not have an account you can contact UMM’s IT Helpdesk to request one. If you have an account and can’t remember your password simply click the “Forgot Your Password?” link and enter your email address. If you have further problems with logging in please contact the webmaster or UMM’s IT helpdesk.
Navigating ModX / How To Find Your Document
Upon successfully logging in to ModX you will see the following screen:
On the left hand side of the screen you will see the document tree (Fig. 2, mark 1). All documents that are visible to the public are stored under the first document in the tree titled “Welcome to the University of Maine at Machias” Expand this node by clicking the plus to the left (Fig 2, mark 2). You will see the various sections of the site beneath the “Welcome to the University of Maine at Machias” node. Navigating the ModX document tree is just like any other document tree. Follow the same path to the document you are looking for as you would through the web site. Pages that are both published and appear in the menu will be in black font. Other either unpublished pages or pages that don’t appear in the menu are shown are gray.
Tip: If you cannot find the document you are looking for simply click on the “Search” button (labeled “2” in the above screen shot) and search by document title. You can also look at the so-called ‘bread-crumb trail’ on the page on the website to get a sense of where the document resides.
Editing a Document
Find the page you would like to edit (Fig. 3, No. 2) and in the document tree on the left (Fig. 3, No. 1) and click on it (in this example we’re a content editor on the admissions team editing the main Admissions page). The document properties will appear in the right pane. Click the edit button (Fig 3, No. 3).
Fig. 3
A note on permissions: If, after clicking edit, you see the message “You don't have enough privileges for this action!” it means you haven’t been assigned permission to edit the page in question. If get this message in error please contact the helpdesk.
Once you have clicked edit you will see the Create/edit document controls in the right-hand side of the screen. Notice there are three tabs. We will focus on the General tab that has the fields Title, Long title, Description, Document’s alias, Link Attributes and Summary. If you are editing a document these fields will already be populated.
Fig 4
Scroll down (on the right side of the page) to get to the “Document content” section (Fig. 5).
Formatting Text
Like working with any web application it is best to type your written content in an offline application such as Word, Notepad or Textedit first and then copy and paste the text into the editor to avoid losing original content. The drawback to this is that pasting from Word into ModX can cause some formatting problems. These problems are very easy to fix thanks to the “Remove formatting” button in the ModX editor (Fig. 5, No. 3) Simply highlight the text in the editor window and click the Remove Formatting button to clean up the formatting.
Fig. 5
You can then format the text by using the paragraph style drop-down (Fig. 5 No. 1) and the Formatting button immediately to the right of the paragraph style drop-down (the little “A”).
Inserting Pictures
To add a picture to your page click on the image icon (Fig. 5, No. 2). A dialog box will popup allowing you to browse through images already on the server. You can also use the dialog to upload an image.
