Packt Publishing was kind enough to send a copy of MODx Web Development by Antano Solar John for my review. The book covers the essentials of building a site with MODx, and it’s a pretty good read.

Check out the table of contents on Packt’s website.

It starts out with a bit of general info regarding what a CMS is and why they’re important. I liked how the author didn’t dwell on this area; instead, he goes through some of the key points, then moves right along into getting some hands dirty with the system.

He does go into a bit of detail on installation into different platforms, so expect the typical *nix/Windows installation breakdowns.

The book is pretty well written, not too technical but not too casual, either. The subject matter moves in a logical order, and if it’s your first time building a site with MODx, then this book will guide you through the whole process, from start to finish, in a good order.

You could probably run through this book and build a site in a day or two, maybe just devote a whole weekend to it. Even though it was written on 0.9.x, the same applies to 1.0, so don’t worry about any minor inconsistencies.

The author spends a good bit of time dealing with some of the more complex things in MODx, including PHx, Ditto, and Snippets in general. And of course, he spends a good chunk of time on templating, which is one the greatest aspects of MODx.

This book is thorough enough to get you going in MODx right away. You’ll find that rolling out sites in MODx is faster than using any other popular system, but I do recommend you build a full HTML/CSS prototype of your site before integrating into MODx; things go even quicker that way.

All in all, MODx Web Development is a great resource and a good read. It’s sure to get you into shape working with MODx in just a few days’ time.