Edit Files From the Manager Main Menu

Suppose you have some files on your MODX site that you edit often. I’m always hacking away at the main .CSS file, .htaccess, and sometimes a few JavaScript files. It’s a pain to keep going to the Files tab, waiting for the File tree to render, finding your file, and clicking on it. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to get there directly from the Manager’s Main Menu? It’s actually very easy to set this up, and you don’t have to write any code.

Creating the “My Files” Main Menu Item

1. Go to System (gear icon) -> Menus on the Manager’s Main menu.
2. Click on the “Create Menu” button.
3. Click on the “Parent” dropdown menu and select “Main Menu”.
4. Put My Files in the key field. Use a different name if you like.
5. Add a description (optional).
6. Leave the action empty.
7. Put core in the namespace field.
8. Click on the “Save” button.

Because the new menu item has no action and no children, it will not show up in the menu at this point.

The following steps will be repeated for each file you want to add:

1. Go back to System (gear icon) —> Menus.
2. Click on the “Parent” dropdown menu and select “MyFiles” (or whatever you called the menu item you just created). It may already be selected for you.
3. Put system/file/edit in the “Action” field.
4. Put the name of the file you want to edit in the “Lexicon Key” field (it doesn't have to be the actual filename).
5. Put core for the “Namespace”.
6. Click on the “Save” button.
7. Now, go to the Files tab and click on the file you want to add to your menu. You should see the file’s contents in the Create/Edit File panel. Go up to the browser’s address bar (where the URL is). Using the mouse, highlight and copy (Ctrl-C) everything from the first & to the end. (in other words, everything after “system/file/edit”). Be sure to include the &.
8. Go back to System (gear icon) —> Menus.
9. Right-click on the menu item you just created (Not the “MyFiles” menu item), and select “Update Menu”.
10. Paste the parameters you just copied with Ctrl-V into the “Parameters” field.
11. Click on the “Save” button.

Clear the site cache and reload the Manager page (usually Ctrl-F5). You should see your “MyFiles” menu item somewhere in the Main Menu. It’s now a dropdown menu that should contain the file you just created a menu item for. If you click on that, you should be editing your file.

Repeat the steps above for each file you want on your menu. That’s all there is to it.

In System —> Menus, you can click-and-drag the “MyFiles” item to a different location in the Main Menu and you can reorganize the files under it by dragging them up or down under the “MyFiles” entry.

It’s a little tricky to get the “MyFiles” menu item where you want it, so it make take a few tries. It’s easy to accidentally put it under another Main Menu item, so if it disappears, that’s probably what's happened. Be sure that when you drag the entry, it’s a direct child of the Main Navigation entry.

You’ll have to clear the cache and reload the Manager page any time you make a change.

Making Them All Main Menu Items

If you have a small number of files to edit, and you don’t want to bother with a drop-down list, you can make each one a Main Menu item. Just combine the two sets of steps above. For each file. just follow the first set of steps above (setting the “parent” to Main Navigation), then do the step where you edit the file and copy everything after system/file/edit to the “Parameters” field.

You can drag the menu items up or down to reorganize the Main Menu.

Permissions

There may be some users on your site who shouldn’t be able to edit the files (or see the menu items). Protecting the menu items is simple. You may have noticed the “Permissions” field when you created your menus. That field can contain a comma-separated list of permissions (or a single permission) a user must have in order to see the menu item. Adding the sources permission will restrict access to users who have the right to manage Media Sources, for example. You can use any permissions here that are listed in the Administrator Policy. You can also create a custom permission here (call it anything you like) and add it to the Administrator Policy Template.

Important! If you mess with permissions, keep two things in mind. First, be careful typing them. If you misspell a permission, not only will it not work, you won’t have that permission, and you won’t see the menu item in the menu or in the tree, so you won’t be able to fix it except by going into the database in PhpMyAdmin. Second, make sure that you have the permission you enter before adding it, or the menu item will disappear from the tree.

Removing Your Custom Menu Items

If you decide you don’t need any of your custom menu items, just go to System (gear icon) —> Menus. Right-click on a menu item you no longer want, (be careful, it’s easy to click on the wrong one) and select “Delete Menu Item”.

Coming Up

In addition to editing files, you can also create Main Menu items for editing any MODX object that can be edited in the MODX Manager (Resources, Chunks, Templates, TVs, Snippets, and Plugins).

You can also perform actions like clearing the site cache or going to the Create/Edit Users panel. The process is similar to what we’ve done in this article, but not quite the same. We’ll see how to do that in my next article.

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Bob Ray is the author of the MODX: The Official Guide and dozens of MODX Extras including QuickEmail, NewsPublisher, SiteCheck, GoRevo, Personalize, EZfaq, MyComponent and many more. His website is Bob’s Guides. It not only includes a plethora of MODX tutorials but there are some really great bread recipes there, as well.