Using TVs Above and Below Content

I thought I’d share a little tip we’ve been using on some of our MODx sites lately. We often find that as we are placing content on a site it becomes necessary to include content, snippet calls or maybe chunks within the content areas of a site. This becomes problematic because when an end user comes into the administrative side of the site to edit content they are presented with bits of scary looking code within their WYSIWYG. While this can be intimidating to a user it also creates the opportunity for an unskilled individual to edit technical code.

In order to address this issue we’ve started creating two Template Variables (TVs), [*aboveContent*] and [*belowContent*], then we assign both TVs to the Super Admin user (that way we, as the Super Admin, are the only ones to see these particular TVs, not the end user) and also assign them to any relevant templates. Next, place one above and one below the [*content*] area of your site template.

It’s pretty straightforward but comes in really handy when needing to keep information within a content area of your designs, but just out of reach of an end user.