After installing MODX: What next?

Introduction

After installing MODX using the instructions found in Installing the ModX content management system on OpenResty you might be wondering what you should do next.

I like to update a few of the settings in the backend before getting started on anything else. This helps set up certain items that might come in useful.

First steps

First of all login to your new MODX installation by visiting yourdomain.com/manager in your favourite web browser. Once you have logged in click on the cog icon in the bottom left - hand corner then click on 'System Settings'.

Editing the MODX settings

We don't need to edit most of these settings just yet as some are specific to certain use - cases, some are already set to required values and some are not needed at this stage.

The settings can be found over multiple pages. Scroll down to the bottom and use the arrow buttons to navigate through all settings pages to find the ones below or simply to look though to see what is available.

Clicking on the small '+' sign to the left of a setting displays a short description of what it does.

The settings to alter

I normally change 'Use Friendly URLs' and 'Use Strict Friendly URLs' to yes. If you have installed MODX using the guide I linked to above this should already be set for you anyway but it is good to tell MODX you require this too. This feature allows for the use of more search engine friendly URLs.

Occasionally, such as when updates are available or you forget your password, MODX can send out emails. However, in order to do this it needs to know the email settings necessary to send email.

For this reason I like to alter SMTP Authentication, SMTP Auto TLS, SMTP Hosts, SMTP Password, SMTP Port, SMTP Secure, SMTP User and Use SMTP. These settings will be found in your email providers control panel or help files.

In a later tutorial I will show you how to set these up using an email delivery service you can sign up to for free.

Next, I always like to change the Manager Date Format setting to how I like to see dates displayed in the backend. This one is personal preference and you may choose to leave this one alone.

Next, I will change the Session Cookie HttpOnly, Session Cookie Samesite and Session Cookie Secure values to make cookies much more secure right from the start.

Lastly I will change the Site name setting, which is arguably the most important of all. This is going to be the name of your site and will appear in the title tag of your site. This means it will appear in Google searches and on the title bar of your web browser.

One last setting that you might wish to change at some point is the Site Status setting. Setting this to Yes means that people, including you, can view the site in their browser. Setting this to no means that the site can no longer be viewed in a browser.

This may come in useful if you are making edits to a site structure etc and don't want people to see them until they are ready.

Bear in mind that it is usually better to have a local copy of your site, develop in that and then copy over to the live site.