Let’s Us Do Our Jobs

MODX has a WYSIWYG editor similar to WordPress and Drupal. You don’t need to know HTML to make updates. MODX doesn’t have a page view like Cascade, but you can click on the preview button to see exactly how it looks on the live site. It’s intuitive, but might take a bit of time to get used to. If you’re not comfortable using MODX, let us take care of the website updates so you can focus on more important strategic communications such as promoting our diversity, our centers, and our faculty as well as getting our rankings higher, which have always been a high priority on the Dean’s list.

Drupal was on the table for us about five or six years ago when the University went through a complete redesign. They made it mandatory to migrate to Drupal as well as to use their templates, but they backed away. We didn’t want to move into Drupal because we didn’t want to lose control of our site and to be stuck with their templates. We didn’t want to use Drupal because it is a developer-oriented CMS. In fact, the user interface in Drupal is even more complex than in MODX. In addition, Drupal renders tons of JavaScripts and HTML junks; therefore, the performance is slow. Even WordPress, now comes with its own block editors, is doing a horrible job of spitting out HTML markups. Out of the three content management systems, MODX is the only one that renders semantic, well-structured pages.

MODX does a decent job of accommodating non-technical users. The former Associate Dean for Library & Technology used to make changes on the site without knowing HTML. The library staff members are using MODX to make updates and they don’t know HTML. The current Associate Dean for Library & Technology used to make updates as well, but now she has higher priorities in her new role. I am sure the Associate Dean for Admissions can do it as well once she understands how MODX works, but she has more important priorities. She sends us updates so she can focus on recruiting students.

The Web Content Specialist and I work inside MODX everyday and we prefer using the blank editor to make sure the HTML markups are clean, organized, and readable by humans, browsers, and search engines. For us, the blank editor is much easier and quicker than the WYSIWYG editor. So please let us take care of the small updates so you can focus on marketing strategies such as improving our social media engagements, creating new videos to attract prospective students, and writing new featured stories.

I don’t have any concern about MODX security. As I pointed out in my comparison between MODX and Cascade, we have been using MODX for over 15 years and we have not run into any security issues. Like Cascade, MODX is hosted on the cloud and is protected by WAF (Web Application Firewall). In addition, we use CAS Authentication to protect the manager’s side. With two layers of protection, I have no worry about our site getting hacked. In fact, security is what sets MODX apart from WordPress and Drupal. When I first took on this job, I didn’t like MODX and wanted to switch to either WordPress or Drupal. The more I worked with MODX, however, the more I appreciated its flexibility and reliability. MODX is not as popular as WordPress and MODX, but its security is top-notch.