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What is a Resource?

A resource is a representation of a page in MODX. There are different types of Resources, such as documents, weblinks, symlinks, actual files, or many other things. The default Resource type is a Document, and simply represents a webpage on your site.

There are 4 total types of Resources, and they are Documents, Weblinks, Symlinks, and Static Resources.

Each Resource also has a unique ID, or "Resource Identifier". This lets MODX know what Resource to fetch when you are loading a webpage. Also, when you're wanting to link between Resources, you should always use the ID to do so. That way MODX will generate the link and you will not have to worry about changed aliases, content types or anything - MODX will change your links also. Please see the Linking to Resources section below for more information on how to do this.

Managing Resources

Resources are shown in the Resources tree in the left-hand navigation of the manager. To edit one, simply click on the page you would like to edit. You can alternatively right-click the Resource and click 'Edit Resource'. This will load the Resource Edit page:

The content of the Resource can then be edited in the large content field in the bottom area. Other fields related to each Resource can also be edited via the tabs on the top of the page.

Resource Fields

Resources come packaged with a list of predetermined fields by default. They are:

General Resource Fields

Name Description
id The ID of the Resource.
template A reference to the Template that this Resource is using
published If the Resource is Published, or viewable on the front-end.
pagetitle The title of the Resource.
longtitle A longer title of the Resource.
description An extended description of the Resource.
introtext Also called 'Summary', an introductory excerpt of the Resource's content. Useful for blogs or searching.
alias The URL alias to use, if your site is using Friendly URLs. A Resource with alias 'home' and Content Type 'html' would render 'home.html' if it isn't a Container.
parent The Parent Resource's ID.
link_attributes Used with menu building snippets to add attributes to links, etc. Can be repurposed for other needs.
menutitle The title to show for the Resource when displayed in a menu.
menuindex The order index of the Resource in a menu. Higher order means later.
hidemenu Also called 'Hide from Menus', if set, this Resource will not show in most Menu or Navigation snippets.
content The actual content of the Resource.

Settings Resource Fields

Name Description
isfolder Labeled as 'Container', this specifies whether or not the Resource renders with a / in Friendly URLs instead of its suffix.
searchable If the Resource is searchable.
cacheable If the Resource is cacheable.
createdby The ID of the user who created the Resource.
editedby The ID of the last user to edit the Resource.
deleted If the Resource is deleted or not.
deletedby The ID of the user who deleted the Resource.
publishedby The ID of the user who last published the Resource.
createdon The date the Resource was created.
publishedon The date the Resource was published.
editedon The date the Resource was last edited.
pub_date The scheduled date for a Resource to be published.
unpub_date The scheduled date for a Resource to be unpublished.

Using Resource Fields

Resource fields can be accessed from anywhere by using the Template Variable syntax, ie:

[[*pagetitle]] // renders the pagetitle.
[[*id]] // renders the Resource's ID
[[*createdby]] // renders the ID of the user who created this Resource

They can also have Output Filters "Input and Output Filters (Output Modifiers)") applied to them:

// Renders a limited version of the introtext field.
// If it is longer than 100 chars, adds an ...
[[*introtext:ellipsis=`100`]]
// Grabs the user who last edited the Resource's username
[[*editedby:userinfo=`username`]]
// Grabs the user who published the Resource's email
[[*publishedby:userinfo=`email`]]

Accessing Resource Fields in a Snippet

Grabbing the Resource Fields in a Snippet is quite easy; MODX provides you with the Resource object in any Snippet, via the $modx->resource reference. For example, this example Snippet will return the current page's pagetitle reversed:

/* output the current Resource's pagetitle */
$output = $modx->resource->get('pagetitle');
return strrev($output);

Linking to a Resource

In MODX, links to Resources are dynamically managed via "Link Tags". They look like this:

[[~123]]

where '123' is the ID of the Resource to link to. You can put these tags anywhere, and MODX will dynamically render the URL for the Resource.

You can also get the Link Tag by dragging a Resource from the left tree into the content panel.

Also see Named Anchor.

Adding URL parameters in your Link Tag is quite simple in Revolution. Let's say we have Resource ID 42 that resolves to a URL of 'store/items.html'. We want to add a 'tag' parameter to the URL, with a value of 'Snacks' and a 'sort' parameter of 'Taste'. Here's how you'd do it:

[[~42? &tag=`Snacks` &sort=`Taste`]]

This would render as:

store/items.html?tag=Snacks&sort=Taste

Note that those are backticks instead of apostrophes.

You can specify the scheme for a Resource in your tag:

[[~123? &scheme=`https`]]

Would render the URL using 'https' instead of the scheme indicated by the current settings (i.e. system or context settings).

The available schemes are:

Name Description
-1 (default) URL is relative to site_url
0 see http
1 see https
full Renders the link as an absolute URL, prepended with site_url
abs Renders the link as an absolute URL, prepended with base_url
http Renders the link as an absolute URL, forced to http scheme
https Renders the link as an absolute URL, force to https scheme

See Also

  1. Content Types
  2. Named Anchor
  3. Static Resource
  4. Symlink
    1. Using Resource Symlinks
  5. Weblink