1. AdvSearch
      1. AdvSearch.AdvSearch
        1. AdvSearch.AdvSearch.tpl
        2. AdvSearch.Advsearch.paging1Tpl
        3. AdvSearch.AdvSearch.paging0Tpl
        4. AdvSearch.AdvSearch.containerTpl
        5. Advsearch.AdvSearch.extractTpl
      2. AdvSearch.AdvSearchHelp
        1. AdvSearch.AdvSearchHelp.helplinkTpl
      3. AdvSearch.AdvSearchForm
        1. Advsearch.AdvSearchForm.tpl
    2. cookieJar
    3. getYoutube
    4. aliasid
    5. AddHeaderfiles
    6. AjaxUpload
    7. amazonSES mailing list
    8. Analytics
    9. Archivist
      1. Archivist.Archivist
        1. Archivist.Archivist.tpl
      2. Archivist.ArchivistGrouper
      3. Archivist.getArchives
        1. Archivist.getArchives.tpl
    10. Articles
      1. Articles.Theming Articles
      2. Articles.Roadmap
      3. Articles.Retrieving Articles Outside of Articles
      4. Articles.Creating a Blog
    11. Babel
      1. Babel.BabelLinks
      2. Babel.BabelTranslation
    12. BannerX
    13. BannerY
    14. Batcher
      1. Batcher.Roadmap
    15. bdListings
      1. bdListings.bdCategories
      2. bdListings.bdHookNewListing
      3. bdListings.bdListings
      4. bdListings.bdPriceGroups
      5. bdListings.bdRedirect
      6. bdListings.bdTargets
    16. boilerX
      1. bx-head-open
      2. bx-head-append
      3. bx-head-close
      4. bx-container-open
      5. bx-container-close
      6. bx-bottom-open
      7. bx-bottom-close
    17. BreadCrumb
      1. BreadCrumb.containerTpl
      2. BreadCrumb.currentCrumbTpl
      3. BreadCrumb.linkCrumbTpl
      4. BreadCrumb.maxCrumbTpl
      5. BreadCrumb.categoryCrumbTpl
      6. BreadCrumb.homeCrumbTpl
    18. Breadcrumbs
    19. BxrExtra
    20. cachebuster
    21. CamperManagement
      1. CamperManagement.Customizing the Component
      2. CamperManagement.Developing the front-end
        1. CamperManagement.cmCamperDetails Snippet
        2. CamperManagement.cmCampers Snippet
        3. CamperManagement.Placeholders you can use
      3. CamperManagement.Managing your vehicle
      4. CamperManagement.Module home
    22. Church Events Calendar
      1. ChurchEvents.MODX Manager functions
      2. ChurchEventsCalendar Snippet
        1. ChurchEvents.Managing events
      3. ChurchEventsList Snippet
      4. ChurchEventsRss Snippet
    23. Cliche
    24. ClientConfig
    25. CMPGenerator
      1. CMPGenerator.5 minute example
      2. CMPGenerator.Foreign Databases
    26. Collections
    27. ContextRouter
    28. CookieList
    29. CronManager
    30. cssSweet
      1. cssSweet.lighten
      2. cssSweet.modval
      3. cssSweet.prefix
    31. CustomUrls
    32. Databackup
    33. Discuss
      1. Discuss.ChunkMap
      2. Discuss.Contributing
      3. Discuss.Controllers
        1. Discuss.Controllers.board
          1. Discuss.Controllers.board.xml
        2. Discuss.Controllers.home
        3. Discuss.Controllers.login
        4. Discuss.Controllers.logout
        5. Discuss.Controllers.profile
        6. Discuss.Controllers.register
        7. Discuss.Controllers.search
        8. Discuss.Controllers.thread
      4. Discuss.Creating a Discuss Theme
      5. Discuss.Database Model
      6. Discuss.Features
      7. Discuss.Getting Started
      8. Discuss.Installation
        1. Discuss.Installation from Git
      9. Discuss.Roadmap
      10. Configuring Sphinx for Search
    34. DitsNews
    35. Eletters
      1. Eletters.API
      2. Eletters.FormIt
      3. Eletters.Import CSV
      4. Eletters.Templates
    36. EventManager
      1. EventManager.emListEvents
      2. EventManager.emNewReservationHook
    37. eventsCalendar2
      1. eventsCalendar2.eventsCalendar2
      2. eventsCalendar2.Generating events
      3. eventsCalendar2.tplCalendar2
      4. eventsCalendar2.tplCell2
      5. eventsCalendar2.tplEvent2
      6. eventsCalendar2.tplHead2
    38. EventsX
      1. EventsX.Examples
    39. ExerPlan
    40. fastField
    41. FileDownload R
      1. FileDownload R.FileDownload
      2. FileDownload R.FileDownloadLink
      3. FileDownload R.Plugins
    42. FileLister
      1. FileLister.FileLister
        1. FileLister.FileLister.directoryTpl
        2. FileLister.FileLister.fileLinkTpl
        3. FileLister.FileLister.fileTpl
        4. FileLister.FileLister.pathTpl
      2. FileLister.Roadmap
    43. FirstChildRedirect
    44. Flexibility
    45. ForcedPasswdChange
    46. FormIt
      1. FormIt.FormItCountryOptions
      2. FormIt.FormItRetriever
      3. FormIt.FormItStateOptions
      4. FormIt.Hooks
        1. FormIt.Hooks.email
        2. FormIt.Hooks.FormItAutoResponder
        3. FormIt.Hooks.math
        4. FormIt.Hooks.recaptcha
        5. FormIt.Hooks.redirect
        6. FormIt.Hooks.spam
      5. FormIt.Roadmap
      6. FormIt.Tutorials and Examples
        1. FormIt.Examples.Custom Hook
        2. FormIt.Examples.Simple Contact Page
        3. FormIt.Handling Selects, Checkboxes and Radios
        4. FormIt.Using a Blank NoSpam Field
      7. FormIt.Validators
    47. FormIt2db
    48. FormitFastPack
      1. FormitFastPack.Tutorial
      2. FormitFastPack.fieldSetDefaults
      3. FormitFastPack.field
      4. FormitFastPack.fiGenerateReport
    49. FormSave
    50. FoundationX
      1. FoundationX.How to Use FoundationX
    51. FX2themebase
      1. FX2.How to Use FX2
        1. FX2.For Theme Authors
      2. FX2.Included Extras
    52. Gallery
      1. Gallery.Example1
      2. Gallery.Gallery
        1. Gallery.Gallery.containerTpl
        2. Gallery.Gallery.thumbTpl
      3. Gallery.GalleryAlbums
        1. Gallery.GalleryAlbums.rowTpl
        2. Gallery.GalleryAlbums.containerTpl
      4. Gallery.GalleryItem
        1. Gallery.GalleryItem.albumTpl
        2. Gallery.GalleryItem.GalleryItemPagination
        3. Gallery.GalleryItem.tagTpl
        4. Gallery.GalleryItem.tpl
      5. Gallery.Plugins
        1. Gallery.Plugins.Galleriffic
        2. Gallery.Plugins.Slimbox
      6. Gallery.Roadmap
      7. Gallery.Setting Up the GalleryItem TV
      8. Gallery.Setting Up Your Gallery
    53. GatewayManager
    54. gCal
    55. getDate
    56. getFeed
      1. getFeed.Adding a Twitter Feed
    57. getPage
    58. getRelated
    59. getResourceField
    60. getResources
      1. getResources.Examples
        1. getResources.Building a RSS feed
        2. getResources.Category Index Page with Thumbnails
        3. getResources.Google XML Sitemap
    61. getUrlParam
    62. getRTImages
    63. getVimeo
    64. GoogleSiteMap
      1. GoogleSiteMap.GoogleSiteMap
        1. GoogleSiteMap.GoogleSiteMap.containerTpl
        2. GoogleSiteMap.GoogleSiteMap.itemTpl
      2. GoogleSiteMap.Roadmap
    65. GridClassKey
    66. HandyMan
      1. HandyMan.Frequently Asked Questions
      2. HandyMan.Installation
      3. HandyMan.Roadmap
    67. Hits
    68. HitsPage
    69. HybridAuth
      1. HybridAuth.Integrating Facebook
      2. HybridAuth.Integrating Google
      3. HybridAuth.Integrating Twitter
      4. HybridAuth.Integrating VK.com
    70. If
    71. Image+
    72. imageHERE
    73. ImageStyles
    74. ImportX
    75. LexRating
    76. Lingua
    77. Login
      1. Login.ChangePassword
      2. Login.ConfirmRegister
      3. Login.ForgotPassword
      4. Login.Login
      5. Login.Profile
      6. Login.Register
        1. Register.Example Form 1
      7. Login.ResetPassword
      8. Login.Roadmap
      9. Login.Tutorials
        1. Login.Basic Setup
        2. Login.Extended User Profiles
        3. Login.Request Membership
        4. Login.User Profiles
        5. Login.Using Custom Fields
        6. Login.Using Pre and Post Hooks
      10. Login.UpdateProfile
    78. Loginza
      1. Loginza.Loginza
      2. tpl.Loginza.login
      3. tpl.Loginza.logout
      4. tpl.Loginza.profile
    79. mChimpX
    80. MetaX
    81. mhPayPal
      1. mhPayPal.Snippet Usage
        1. mhPayPal.Snippet Usage.Hooks
        2. mhPayPal.Snippet Usage.Templating
    82. MIGX
      1. MIGX.Backend-Usage
      2. MIGX.Data-Entry
      3. MIGX.Frontend-Usage
      4. MIGX.Tutorials
        1. MIGX.Fancybox-images with seperate placeholders in Richtext-Content
        2. MIGX.Simple opening hours table
        3. Using resource-specific mediasource and multifile-uploader with MIGX
        4. MIGX.Varying layout-boxes
          1. MIGX.Varying layout-boxes.Configurator-Version
        5. Creating Selectable and Sortable lists for MIGX
        6. MIGX.sortable resourcelist
        7. Using resource-specific mediasource and multifile-uploader with MIGX
        8. MIGX.Using Grid Inline Editing
    83. MIGXdb
      1. MIGXdb.Configuration
      2. MIGXdb.Tutorials
        1. MIGXdb.Create a basic gallery-management from scratch with MIGXdb
        2. MIGXdb.Create doodles manager with help of MIGXdb
        3. MIGXdb.Manage Child-Resources in a grid-TV with help of MIGXdb
        4. MIGXdb.Manage Events-Resources in a CMP with help of MIGXdb
      3. MigxCalendars
    84. MinifyX
    85. miniShop
      1. miniShop.Screenshots
    86. modActiveDirectory
    87. ModDef
    88. modExtra
    89. modMobile
    90. modSwiftMailer
    91. mxCalendar
      1. mxCalendar.Examples
      2. mxCalendar.Placeholders
    92. mxExtendedMenu
    93. mxFormBuilder
      1. mxFormBuilder.Create Form
      2. mxFormBuilder.Hooks
      3. mxFormBuilder.Field Types
      4. mxFormBuilder.Create Form List in TV
      5. mxFormBuilder.Fields
    94. mxHasTvs
    95. MoneyBird
      1. MoneyBird.Contacts
      2. MoneyBird.Invoices
      3. MoneyBird.NrFormat
    96. ObfuscateEmail-Revo
    97. PackMan
      1. PackMan.Roadmap
    98. PageBreaker
      1. PageBreaker.PageBreaker
      2. tpl.PageBreaker.ajax
      3. tpl.PageBreaker.navigation
    99. Peoples
      1. Peoples.PeopleGroup
        1. Peoples.PeopleGroup.userTpl
      2. Peoples.PeopleGroups
        1. Peoples.PeopleGroups.tpl
      3. Peoples.Peoples
        1. Peoples.Peoples.tpl
      4. Peoples.Roadmap
    100. PHP Tidy (plugin)
    101. phpThumbOf
    102. Polls
      1. Polls.Polls
      2. Polls.PollsLatest
      3. Polls.PollsPrevious
      4. Polls.PollsResult
    103. POI Manager
    104. QuickCrumbs
      1. QuickCrumbs.Example
    105. Quip
      1. Quip.Quip
        1. Quip.Quip.tplComment
        2. Quip.Quip.tplCommentOptions
        3. Quip.Quip.tplComments
        4. Quip.Quip.tplReport
      2. Quip.QuipCount
      3. Quip.QuipLatestComments
      4. Quip.QuipReply
        1. Quip.QuipReply.tplAddComment
        2. Quip.QuipReply.tplLoginToComment
        3. Quip.QuipReply.tplPreview
      5. Quip.QuipRss
      6. Quip.Roadmap
      7. Quip.Upgrading
        1. Quip.Upgrading to 1.0.1
    106. Rampart
      1. Rampart.hook.RampartFormIt
      2. Rampart.hook.RampartQuip
      3. Rampart.preHook.RampartRegister
    107. Redirector
    108. renderResources
    109. ResourceWatcher
    110. RezImgCrop
    111. Rowboat
      1. Rowboat.Rowboat
    112. sekFancyBox
      1. sekFancyBox & Gallery
    113. sekFormTools
      1. sekFormTools.input.autocomplete
      2. sekFormTools.input.combobox
      3. sekFormTools.input.datepicker
      4. sekFormTools.input.helper
      5. sekFormTools.input.textfield
      6. sekFormTools Advanced Examples
    114. sekSiteTools
      1. sekSiteTools.easytabs
      2. sekSiteTools.google.analytics
      3. sekSiteTools.printdiv
    115. sekUserGalleries
      1. sekUserGalleries.album.items.helper
      2. sekUserGalleries.album.items.manage
      3. sekUserGalleries.album.manage
      4. sekUserGalleries.album.view
      5. sekUserGalleries.browse.galleries
      6. sekUserGalleries.directory
      7. sekUserGalleries.image.information
      8. sekUserGalleries.search
      9. sekUserGalleries.users.gallery.manage
      10. sekUserGalleries.users.gallery.view
    116. selfLink
    117. Shopkeeper
    118. siblingNav
    119. SimpleSearch
      1. SimpleSearch.Roadmap
      2. SimpleSearch.SimpleSearch
        1. SimpleSearch.Faceted Search Through PostHooks
        2. SimpleSearch.SimpleSearch.containerTpl
        3. SimpleSearch.SimpleSearch.currentPageTpl
        4. SimpleSearch.SimpleSearch.pageTpl
        5. SimpleSearch.SimpleSearch.tpl
      3. SimpleSearch.SimpleSearchForm
        1. SimpleSearch.SimpleSearchForm.tpl
      4. SimpleSearch.Solr
    120. SiteEditor
    121. sitemapFriend
    122. Slideshow Manager
      1. jgSlideshow Snippet
      2. Slideshow Manager CMP
    123. sLink
    124. SmartOptimizer
    125. SmartTag
    126. StatCache
    127. SocialLogin
    128. SocialSuite
      1. SocialSuite.getFacebookPhotos
      2. SocialSuite.getFacebookProfile
      3. SocialSuite.getFacebookShares
      4. SocialSuite.getGooglePlusShares
      5. SocialSuite.getTwitterProfile
      6. SocialSuite.prettyNumbers
    129. spieFeed
    130. StaticSaver
    131. StoreLocator
    132. SubscribeMe
      1. SubscribeMe.Configuring API Credentials, IPN and going Live
      2. SubscribeMe.Setting up the Payment Flow
        1. SubscribeMe - Listing the Products
        2. SubscribeMe - Setting up the Payment Methods
        3. SubscribeMe - Subscription Confirmation Page
      3. SubscribeMe.User Account Management
    133. SyntaxChecker
    134. Tagger
    135. TaggingAtoZ
    136. tagLister
      1. tagLister.getResourcesTag
      2. tagLister.tagLister
        1. tagLister.tagLister.all
        2. tagLister.tagLister.tpl
      3. tagLister.tolinks
        1. tagLister.tolinks.tpl
    137. TinyMCE
      1. TinyMCE.Spellchecker
      2. TinyMCE.Table controls
      3. TinyMCE.Template
    138. Upload to Users CMP
    139. VersionX
      1. VersionX.Roadmap
    140. virtuNewsletter
    141. VisionCart
      1. VisionCart.Back-end
        1. VisionCart.Category management
        2. VisionCart.Module management
        3. VisionCart.Option management
        4. VisionCart.Order management
        5. VisionCart.Product management
        6. VisionCart.Shop management
      2. VisionCart.Front-end
        1. VisionCart.vcGetCategories
          1. VisionCart.vcGetCategories.tpl
        2. VisionCart.vcGetProducts
          1. VisionCart.vcGetProducts.tpl
        3. VisionCart.vcWayfinder
      3. VisionCart.General
        1. VisionCart.Templating
        2. VisionCart.UserManagement
      4. VisionCart.vcGetProductImages
      5. VisionCart.vcGetProductOptions
    142. Wayfinder
      1. Wayfinder Introductory Examples
    143. xFPC

Discuss.Getting Started

This is a user-contributed Extra. If you find issues or would like more info or help, please contact the author.

After the installation of Discuss, you will likely want to throw your own style in it right away. Now, before you get going, grab yourself a coffee, you've got some learning to do.

Ready? Okay. Discuss is big. No really, it is. Even though you may not expect it, forums are complicated! This getting started guide will help you make sense of the various moving parts and how to make Discuss your b.. er how to make it your own. Here's what we'll discuss:

Discuss Controller(s)

If you installed Discuss with the demo data, you will see that we use one resource with a blank template and possibly the simplest yet most powerful snippet call in the world:

[[!Discuss]]

This resource is essentially what routes every request to your forum (including print pages, xml feeds etc) to Discuss, which does all kinds of magic with it. This saves having to set up individual resources and templates for every different view (controller), and makes it easier to maintain.  

What Discuss does internally is basically look at the url for the request, which might be something like this:

http://forums.modx.com/thread/32480/discuss-native-threaded-forum-for-modx-revolution

.. and Discuss than takes it apart to find out what you're really looking for. In this specific case, it will find that we're looking for a thread which has an ID of 32480 and it adds the alias for search friendly URLs. So it will basically hand over processing of the current page to the "thread" controller, which looks at the ID and more and does the hard lifting of showing that page. This routing process happens on every request, and it will point to any of the over 30 different controllers. 

Each controller needs a template too. Most controllers are wrapped by the "wrapper.tpl" template (exceptions are the xml controllers), which is then filled with the controller-specific template. These are also file based, and by default, these are named exactly the same as the controller (for example, the thread/unread controller has a template named thread/unread in the core/components/discuss/themes/<theme_name>/pages/ directory). That said, it is possible to use a different template file through the Manifest (more on that really soon), so it may not always be the same depending on the theme.

The Discuss Manifest

In an effort to make an easy to maintain, theme-specific and super flexible theming solution, Discuss themes need a manifest. This manifest contains information on controller-specific javascript and css to load, but it also lets you change a number of controller-specific options and it even features a chunk-like approach for common markup (like sidebars) we reference to as modules. 

The Manifest is a single file which is attached to a theme and is located in the main directory of a theme, for example the manifest for the default theme is at core/components/discuss/themes/default/manifest.php. It is indeed a PHP file but if you don't know PHP, don't run away yet! It's really easy to understand what is going on and we'll guide you through how to do it later on and we will also provide a full spec of the options you can use. 

In a nutshell, the manifest allows you to define:

  1. The global CSS and JS to load. You don't have to define this in the manifest (could just do it in the wrapper.tpl itself), but any file you add here will be injected into the output on most pages (xml pages are the exception again).
  2. CSS and JS to load on specific controllers only, such as the print controller, home, thread/reply etc. 
  3. Options to apply to specific controllers.
  4. Modules (we'll cover these later).

While the manifest brings you lot of opportunity, as a best practice it should be advisable to limit the amount of dynamically assigned CSS and JS files either globally or for specific controllers. 

The general structure of the manifest is a big multi-dimensional PHP array. Whoah, lot of big words there. It's basically a three level deep collection of keys and values, written in PHP. Here's a somewhat simplified excerpt:

$manifest = array(
    'global' => array(
        'css' => array(
            'header' => array(
                'index.css',
                'forums-styles.css',
                'jquery-ui-1.8.16.custom.css',
            ),
        ),
        'js' => array(
            'header' => array(
                'jquery-1.6.2.min.js',
                'jquery-ui-1.8.16.custom.min.js',
                'forums.js',
            ),
        ),
    ),
    'print' => array(
        'css' => array(
            'header' => array(
                'print.css',
            ),
        ),
    ),
    'home' => array(
        'js' => array(
            'header' => array(
                'forums.home.js',
            ),
        ),
        'options' => array(
            'showBoards' => true,
            'showBreadcrumbs' => true,
            'showRecentPosts' => false,
            'showStatistics' => true,
            'showLoginForm' => false,
            'bypassUnreadCheck' => true,
            'checkUnread' => true,
            'showLogoutActionButton' => false,
            'hideIndexBreadcrumbs' => true,
            'subBoardSeparator' => '',
        ),
    ),

);
return $manifest;

We'll see we are defining a variable $manifest as an array, with a first element called "global" which in turn defines an array. In this second level, we have two items: css and js. They both define the third level of the array which in this case defines files (relative from the assets/components/discuss/themes/theme_name/css or js/ directory) that should be loaded in the header of the page on every controller. In the case of js, we can also tell it to register it in the footer by replacing "header" with "footer" or adding that as another item in the array, and we can even define "inline" for js which wraps whatever you put there in a <script> tag in the header of the page. This can be useful for when your theme needs certain configuration options from settings or Discuss. 

Below the global definition, we will see a print and a home controller in which we can also define css or js in the same way as with the global, but you will also find the "options" array in the home controller's bit. This contains a bunch of options that either have a true or false value, or a string value such as the subBoardSeparator option shown in the excerpt above. These are the options you will want to change to adjust behaviour of the controller. So when you're looking at the controllers documentation, keep that in mind.

Themes

Theming in MODX revolves around the core/components/discuss/themes/theme_name/ directory and a matching assets/components/discuss/themes/theme_name/ directory for files that need to be directly accessible (js, css and images). The core theme directory contains a "chunks" and "pages" directory by default. These files contain the html, into which content will be injected with placeholders. If you have developed a site using Wayfinder or getResources before, this concept shouldn't be entirely new for you. To choose a theme, change the discuss.theme setting to the name of the directory you want to use. If it doesn't exist, it will default to "default". 

The files in the "pages" directory all end in .tpl, and mostly correspond directly with the name of a controller, such as "board" or "thread/new". These are basically the content of the individual controllers and contain the markup specific to what controller is requested.

The special "wrapper.tpl" and "print-wrapper.tpl" are used as outer wrappers to the controller wrappers depending on the request. 

Next, the files in the "chunks" directory are used for smaller bits of html and they all end in .chunk.tpl. For example the "board/disboardli.chunk.tpl" file contains the html that is used to loop over individual boards and "category/discategoryli.chunk.tpl" contains the markup for categories. Email templates can also be found here, in the "emails" subfolder. 

We'll go in deeper into creating custom themes in a different tutorial.

Suggest an edit to this page on GitHub (Requires GitHub account. Opens a new window/tab).