ModxWell, I have site #3 done in Revo now. I have found that one of my challenges in making the transition from Evo to Revo is with relearning how to complete tasks that have become commonplace in Evo.

I was essentially trying to customize the Revo manager for my end users. I had the process down in Evo with ManagerManager and found it quite a bit different in Revo. I can honestly say that some of the terminology and process still has me scratching my head (nothing worthwhile is easy, right?), so I hope that this post helps anyone else trying to wrap their head around Rules, Actions, Containing Panels, Constraint, Constraint Class and/or Constraint Field.

In order to hide the default manager fields go to Security-> Form Customization. From here you will want to add a Rule. Once the Update Rule window is open you will be presented with quite a few options. This Field Visible, MODx help documentation shows how to configure the rule to hide a field for a certain user group. It is worth noting that you can use a comma separated list of fields in the Name field of the Rule.

Field Visible

Hiding fields for certain user groups is helpful, but I usually need to hide fields based on the template ID. Accomplishing this took a post in the forum and some digging on my part. Apparently, this is where Constraint(s) come into play. This Form Customization Rules, MODx help documentation demonstrates how to configure the Constraint fields to hide fields based on template ID.

Well, problem solved… almost. As I began to configure my field lists I realized that some of the field names seem to be new or have changed (see list below*). In my example I am hiding all the default manager fields except pagetitle and content.

  • id* (new)
  • longtitle
  • description
  • alias
  • menutitle
  • introtext
  • menuindex
  • template
  • published
  • link_attributes
  • hidemenu* (Evo: hide_menu)
  • modx-resource-parent* (Evo: parent)

There is an additional FC-Resource, MODx help document that identifies the available fields and tabs along with how to identify Template Variables for a given resource.

Addendum

This is an addendum to this post as I was about to publish it. I was informed by BobRay in the forums that in addition to the steps outlined above you will need to create another Rule, for each previous rule, that has the Action field changed from resource/update to resource/create. It appears that this is necessary for the document to inherit the hidden fields as it is created rather than after it is saved.

Access Denied

Another ManagerManager/Evo feature that I have been wondering about is the mm_widget_accessdenied, in that it allows the user to access the children of a document but restricts access to the parent. Would anyone like to share how to accomplish this in Revo?


Following the full public release of MODx Revolution I decided it was time to jump in and begin learning this new system. I can honestly say that I approached this challenge with hesitancy. I have spent the last couple of years learning, developing in and blogging about MODx Evolution [...] Continue Reading…


With the release of MODx Revolution 2.0, the last two weeks have really been a flurry of activity for the MODx community. I am hoping this milestone represents a big step toward the mainstream for MODx and it’s community.

Since I have traditionally focused on Evolution related posts I [...] Continue Reading…


Here’s another forum inspired tip based on Google’s, Specify your canonical from esnyder: Canonical URL tag in MODx – SEO trick. This SEOmoz article references the importance of using this SEO technique calling it “The Most Important Advancement in SEO Practices Since Sitemaps”.

As you read down through the post [...] Continue Reading…


Pleth recently had a customer approach us to build a site which would allow them to easily update photos of their work. I have used colorbox on a couple of sites lately and have found it easy to work with and it’s presentation of images is very appealing. Now, [...] Continue Reading…