MODX TV Parameters Configuration: Types, Output, Common Mistakes

Configuring TV (Template Variables) Parameters in MODX

TV parameters are extra fields for MODX resources. They allow adding arbitrary data to pages: images, prices, dates, dropdowns, galleries, text blocks. Each TV is attached to one or more templates. According to the official documentation, TV parameters extend resource functionality, simplifying content management (Wikipedia).

We often encounter this scenario: the client adds products manually, and to output the price and photo they have to edit the template each time. TV solves this — configure the fields once, and the editor fills the needed data. One of our clients, an online store with 500+ products, required fields: price, SKU, weight, category, multiple images. Without TV, the editor spent 10 minutes per product; with TV, 30 seconds. Time savings of 95%, and content creation sped up by 40%. With proper TV setup, editors work 3–10 times faster than without. This is especially critical for projects with hundreds of products where every extra click is wasted time. Our clients save on average $2,000 per year in editor time. Setup cost for 15 TVs is $750, and our turnkey TV setup service starts at $500.

Choosing the Right TV Type

Each task has a fitting type. There are 15 base TV types in MODX, but for 80% of projects 5–7 are enough. For short text — Text, for multiline — Textarea, for list selection — Listbox. For prices use Number, for dates — Date, for images — Image. If you need a gallery — better use MIGX or a JSON-based TV. TV types differ not only in input but also in output: Checkbox can store comma-separated values, while for multiple selection Listbox Multi is more convenient. It's important to correctly configure input and output parameters — otherwise the editor sees something unexpected. We'll break it down in practice.

Typical Mistakes in TV Configuration

TV Types and Their Use Cases

How We Configure TV: A Real Case

Consider an online store. Needed fields: price, SKU, weight, category (dropdown), images (gallery). We use FastTab for grouping into tabs. The 'Product' tab contains price (Number), sku (Text), weight (Number). The 'Category' tab — category (Listbox single, source from DB). The 'Gallery' tab — MIGX with fields image (Image), alt (Text). Configuration takes 3–5 hours, including testing output in the template. Our step-by-step process:

1. Analyze content structure and determine required TV fields.
2. Choose appropriate input types for each field.
3. Create TVs and attach them to the correct templates.
4. Group TVs using FastTab into logical tabs.
5. Configure output in templates using modifiers and snippets.
6. Test all fields and document for editors.

Result: editor fills a product in one minute instead of an hour.

TV Output Examples in Templates

[[- Basic output ]]
[[*product_price]]

[[- With formatting ]]
[[*product_price:number_format=`0,.`, ` `]] ₽

[[- Conditional output ]]
[[*product_image:notempty=`<img src="[[*product_image]]" alt="[[*pagetitle]]">`]]

[[- With phpthumb ]]
[[*product_image:phpthumb=`w=800,h=600,zc=1`]]

[[- File link ]]
[[*product_brochure:notempty=`<a href="[[*product_brochure]]" class="btn">Download brochure</a>`]]

[[- Using Chunk as tpl ]]
[[*product:notempty=`[[$productCard? &value=`[[*product]]`]]`]]

When outputting TV values, you can use Chunks as tpl for formatting. For example, [[$productCard]] with a placeholder for the TV value. Use a tpl MODX TV chunk for consistent formatting.

Programmatic Access to TV

// Get TV
$resource = $modx->getObject('modResource', $resourceId);
$price = $resource->getTVValue('product_price');
$image = $resource->getTVValue('product_image');

// Set TV
$resource->setTVValue('product_price', 1500);

Organizing TV with FastTab

FastTab allows grouping TV fields into tabs in the resource editor:

• Tab 'SEO': seo_title, seo_description, seo_robots
• Tab 'Product': product_price, product_sku, product_weight
• Tab 'Gallery': gallery (MIGX)
• Tab 'Content': hero_image, hero_text, features_json

Checking TV Filled Status

// In a snippet — check before output
$tvValue = $resource->getTVValue('important_field');
if (empty($tvValue)) {
    $modx->log(modX::LOG_LEVEL_WARN, "TV important_field empty for resource {$resource->id}");
}

What's Included in Turnkey TV Setup

• Analysis of content structure and TV types
• Creation and attachment of TVs to templates
• Grouping via FastTab into tabs
• Output configuration (modifiers, snippets)
• Testing and adjustments
• Documentation for editors
• 3-month warranty on revisions

Timelines and Pricing

Creating and configuring 10–20 TVs for a project, with attachment to templates and FastTab grouping — 3–5 hours. Full turnkey cycle — from 2 to 5 days. Pricing is individual — we'll assess your project after getting acquainted with the task. Typical investment for a project with 15 TVs is $750.

Contact us for a consultation on your project. Order TV setup and speed up your editors' work.

Headless CMS: Strapi, Directus, Sanity, Contentful, Drupal

Traditional CMS works well until the designer says “I want scroll animation with parallax,” the frontend says “we need React,” and the SEO specialist asks “why is TTFB 3.4 seconds?” At that point, monolithic architecture starts to hinder everyone. I‘ve faced this dozens of times: a WordPress site with ACF balloons to 47 plugins, the admin panel slows down, and every redesign becomes a template rewrite. Headless CMS separates content management from presentation. Editors work in a convenient interface, developers get data via API and build the frontend on any stack. Sounds simple. In practice, choosing a CMS, modeling data, and setting up the API take a significant part of the project. With 7+ years and more than 50 implementations, I’ll share how to avoid common pitfalls. Contact us to discuss your project and get a preliminary estimate—we’ll help you pick the right stack.

What are the key benefits of headless CMS over monolithic?

Monolithic CMS (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal in classic mode) mixes backend and frontend. Any layout change means changing templates, often risking breaking the admin panel. Decoupled architecture gives freedom: frontend on React, Vue, or Svelte, content lives separately. Result: improved load speed (LCP often drops from 4–6 s to 1–1.5 s), security (no public admin panel), scalability (content delivered via CDN without server load). Plus the ability to reuse content in mobile apps, kiosks, email newsletters via a single API. A client we recently helped saw LCP improve from 6.2 s to 1.1 s — a 5.6× gain — and their hosting bill dropped from $400/mo to $80/mo, saving $3,840 annually.

How to choose a headless CMS for your project?

No universal tool exists. The choice depends on team, content complexity, and infrastructure. Let’s break down the key options.

Strapi — open-source, self-hosted, Node.js. Suitable for teams needing data control and API customization. Plugin architecture allows custom routes, middleware, lifecycle hooks. REST and GraphQL out of the box. Deploys in about an hour — three times faster than Drupal. Weakness: versions v4 and v5 are incompatible, migration is painful. Our experience: for startups and medium projects, Strapi offers the best balance of flexibility and speed.

Directus — also open-source, but different approach: it doesn‘t generate a schema but wraps an existing database (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite) into a REST/GraphQL API. If you already have a database, Directus connects without migrations. Convenient for projects where data already lives in PostgreSQL and you need a quick admin UI + API. Saves up to 30% integration time.

Sanity — cloud CMS with real-time editor. Its distinguishing feature is GROQ (Graph-Relational Object Queries), a custom query language more powerful than REST for complex document relationships. Portable Text for structured content. Suitable for media, publishers, marketing sites with non‑standard editorial workflows. Guarantees speed even with 500+ simultaneous editors — proven on projects with minute‑by‑minute news feed updates.

Contentful — enterprise cloud CMS. Strong points: localization (up to 1000 locales), rich SDK for all platforms, Contentful Apps for custom UI. Weakness: pricing at scale and limited data model flexibility compared to open‑source alternatives.

Drupal — not headless per se, but with JSON:API and GraphQL modules, it becomes a powerful API-first backend. Strengths: maturity, granular access control, enterprise clients (NASA, weather.com). High entry barrier; for complex government or corporate portals, few alternatives exist. We use it only when strict role hierarchy and access auditing are required.

Consequences of poor content modeling

Content modeling is critical. Mistakes at this stage are costly. A typical problem: a body field of type rich text for everything. Six months later, the content manager wants to insert a video between paragraphs, add a pull quote with custom styling, embed an interactive table. Rich text can‘t handle that. Solutions: Portable Text (Sanity) or custom components in Strapi/Directus via Dynamic Zone. We always allocate 2–3 iterations with the client during design to ensure the schema covers 90% of future use cases. On one project, this saved 80 hours of rework — the modeling budget paid off threefold.

How we build projects on headless CMS

Frontend for headless CMS almost always uses Next.js (App Router) or Nuxt. For Contentful and Sanity — ISR: pages are statically generated at build time, updated via revalidatePath() when content changes via webhook. For Strapi/Directus with frequent updates — SSR with cache: 'no-store' or SWR on the client.

Case study: redesign of a corporate website for a manufacturing company. Previous site: WordPress with ACF, 200+ pages, 4 languages. Problems: TTFB 3.8 s, editors complained about slow admin. Migrated to Strapi (self-hosted, PostgreSQL), Next.js App Router. Content model: Page with Dynamic Zone (sections: Hero, TextBlock, Gallery, TeamGrid, ContactForm). Localization via Strapi i18n plugin + next-intl on frontend. Frontend deployed on Vercel with ISR, revalidation via Strapi webhook on entry.publish. According to the client: TTFB dropped from 3.8 s to 180 ms (static with CDN) — a 21× improvement. Editors got a clean interface without 47 plugins. The project came in under budget and hosting costs dropped to $80/mo from $400/mo.

Implementation process broken into stages:

1. Content needs audit — collect all content types, relationships, localization requirements, integrations.
2. Data schema design — create models, fields, validation, access roles. Document in Swagger/OpenAPI.
3. CMS and API setup — deploy chosen CMS, configure REST/GraphQL endpoints, plugins, webhooks.
4. Frontend development — connect Next.js/Nuxt, configure ISR/SSR, section components, routing.
5. Content migration (if legacy) — automated loading via API or scripts.
6. Testing — check API endpoints, regression, load testing, Core Web Vitals.
7. Deployment — configure CDN, SSL, CI/CD, monitoring.

How long does implementation take?

The standard path includes all stages. Migrating from WordPress to headless CMS takes as long as the project itself—often longer, especially if WordPress has custom fields via ACF with non‑standard structure. Our typical timelines:

Cost is calculated individually after a brief. Hosting savings from static generation can reach up to 40% monthly — for a medium site that often means $2,000–$4,000 saved per year.

Non‑obvious considerations when choosing a headless CMS

• Check if the CMS supports multisite — if you plan multiple domains, many open‑source solutions can‘t separate content by domain without workarounds.
• Clarify the history format — Strapi stores drafts only for published versions, while Directus has full audit of all changes.
• Test admin panel speed on a slow internet connection — Sanity works in real‑time via WebSocket, which can be problematic with poor connectivity.
• Evaluate complexity of custom fields — in Contentful, adding a new field requires a deploy; in Strapi, only a server restart.
• Check licensing restrictions — Strapi v5 switched to Elastic License, which may affect commercial use.

What is included

• Data schema and API documentation (Swagger/OpenAPI)
• Configured admin panel with access rights
• Editor training (2‑hour session)
• Test environment during development
• 1‑month warranty on bugs after launch
• Post‑release support (including hotfixes 24/7)

Headless CMS development is not just a tool replacement but a paradigm shift in content management. We help make this transition without downtime or data loss. Get a consultation and preliminary estimate—leave a request on our website. Order headless CMS implementation with guaranteed results.