Introducing modmore

As a freelance MODX developer and former employee of MODX LLC, it should not be a surprise that I am passionate about MODX. Not just about the platform though - the passion within the community and its recent rapid growth is awesome, and a large part of what motivates me to build stuff for MODX. This sort of community is what makes MODX possible and is why I'm excited about the future of MODX. Unfortunately, community spirit alone doesn't pay the bills...

We all need revenue. If open source angels would fly down every night to give open source contributors some hundred dollar bills, it would make maintaining a business dedicated to open source a much easier task, but as far as I can tell they don't. When I resigned from MODX, I wanted to build myself a new business in such a way that I earn a living, while making worthwhile contributions to things I'm passionate about, like MODX.

Today I'm very excited to (finally!) present you my attempt at a solution: modmore.

So what is modmore?

To me modmore is an umbrella for a number of initiatives. All of these have one thing in common, which is enabling you to do more with MODX. They need to be awesome and provide value to the Community. Some will cost money, others are free.

Premium Extras

Premium Extras are the cream-of-the-crop. Solid tools that are well-documented and come with friendly support. modmore will provide you with those Awesome MODX Extras you wish you had six months ago, backed by support from developers involved with the development and with the best Documentation you've seen. Starting today, you can purchase single site licenses for the following Premium Extras:

• Redactor: a super sexy Rich Text Editor. It has all the features you expect from a RTE, coupled with all the flexibility you expect from MODX, and then some. With fully mediasource enabled drag-and-drop uploads, Redactor provides an awesome user experience. Developed by JP DeVries and myself, Redactor is available for € 25, so check it out!
• SimpleAB: native A/B testing (aka split testing) for MODX Revolution. Optimise conversions on your MODX websites by serving either of two (or more!) variations, and using the collected statistics to quantify the best performing variation. Your marketing teams will love its simplicity compared to other tools in the industry. SimpleAB is currently on sale (woo!) at € 49 per site and available here.

We are already working on the next releases for modmore, and we're also planning on offering bulk purchases (with a generous discount) in the near future.

Open Source Extras

While Open-Source Extras don't have the same support guarantee as Premium Extras, they are free and help you build better sites more quickly. I've been a bit busy building modmore lately, but soon you'll see increased development on a number of Open Source extras released by myself or other developers. These extras will remain Open Source as they are, but will be adopted by modmore. Extras you should expect some new releases from include HandyMan, VersionX, ImportX, ClientConfig and Formz.

Books for Everything MODX

We're still working on specifics, but together with my great friends at SkyToaster I hope to launch a Books section at some point - possibly this year. These will be short books that allow you to quickly expand your MODX skills and build better stuff. Questions we hope to answer include "What is this mode-x thing?" to "What's the best way to do this conditional in my template?" and maybe even "How do I build a component with ExtJS?". The books will be concise, written with a smile, affordable and available digitally. More about this later, but I wanted to share the good news already.

Sponsoring MODX Meetups

Local MODX meetups provide tasty beverages and snacks, but also a chance to meet other MODXers and share experiences which is really powerful. I'm a big fan of meetups, and with modmore I want to help Ambassadors all over the world organise meetups by providing sponsorships for food and venue rental. In return they are asked to feature one (or more) of our Premium Extras at their meetup and to briefly introduce modmore to the crowd. modmore has been involved in 4 meetups in April, and we'll be publishing a blog post about those real soon. Shoot me an email if you want modmore at your meetup next!

Contributing Directly to MODX

By contributing directly to MODX, modmore will be doing our bit to ensure the future of MODX is bright. This is two-fold. For starters, 10% of every sale will be donated to the MODX Open Source Project, but we will also continue to contribute with code and help the project team with development of internal applications if they need it as well. Ryan has been really pushing Revolution 2.3 lately and we're excited to be involved.

Check this blog regularly, or subscribe to the mailinglist using the subscribe widget on the right (bottom if you're on a small screen), as I'll be posting regularly about all of these initiatives and what we're up to. None of this would be possible without some sort of revenue, so I hope you'll embrace modmore and help me deliver these much-needed initiatives to the MODX Community. I'm ready for the ride, and I hope you are too!

Thank you!

Okay, so personally I consider launching modmore kinda a big deal, and when big deals happen (like the Oscars), people tend to thank other people. And really, without some of these people, I would not be here building stuff you. So thank you!

• Mom, dad, bro and friends for supporting me in this crazy idea (and now, actual business!).
• Everyone that has helped build this website / the business: Christian Seel from chsmedien (He made this wicked responsive design!!), Cal from The Working Party (awesome business+website ideas), Yee Jee Tso (mental health department, help with the copywriting and Redactor demo video) and everyone else I have bounced ideas of in the past months.
• JP DeVries for being the first developer to work with me on premium extras, on Redactor to be more precise.
• All beta testers! My goal is to put out something solid, and all the bugs reported (and fixed) in the private beta have been a huge help.

I'm not sure if I would have been doing this without all the support of the MODX community (220+ followers, 100+ likes and 175+ email subscribers.. before launch!), so thank you too!

Now.. let's get this thing going :)