Add modular page - creating files vs using Admin

I've got a modular page template set up in my theme with a couple of modules.

When I create a modular page manually by creating the required files in my user/pages folder, everything works fine. Obviously this way I'm setting up the modular structure myself manually in modular.md.

When I try to create another modular page using Admin instead of dealing with the files, there seems to be a missing feature...

1. I create the top level page as a modular page.
2. I use the 'Add' button top right to add 2 modules to it, being careful to match the names of the modules I have.
3. I add content to these modules.
4. But when I view the page (after clearing the cache), it's empty.

When I look at the top level page's frontmatter in advanced mode, all the structure I would expect to see is not there. I'm referring to this:

content:
items: '@self.modular'
order:
    by: default
    dir: asc
    custom:
        - _text2col
        - _text1col

So I had to paste it manually and save, and then the page rendered its content correctly.

This seems odd - it seems that Admin is not updating the modular page's modular.md when you add modules? Surely it should do that?

As with my earlier post, I'm probably being a noob and missing something obvious!

NB. I'm using 1.7rc20.

No-one?

There has to be a way of creating a new modular page using existing modules, without leaving the Admin console or editing files...

When I look at the top level page’s frontmatter in advanced mode, all the structure I would expect to see is not there. I’m referring to this:

Are you in Advanced mode (like you stated), or Expert mode?

I have never built a modular page in the Admin before. I actually have just crafted my first modular page (it's a WIP), so I thought I would give this a try. I see that I need to switch it to Expert mode when viewing the top level page.

It auto-generated this front matter for me:

title: test22
content:
    items: '@self.modular'
body_classes: modular

@zigpress,

I’m not sure what the point is of the “order: custom: etc”

A few reasons I can think of:

• Ordering by 'Folder numeric prefix' is only one way to order collections. See ordering options.
• Collections can be defined dynamically in both PHP and Twig and on any set of pages. You then need more options then 'Folder numeric prefix'
• Not everybody is using Admin...
  If not using Admin, would you then rather rename all page folders, or set the order in frontmatter?

All good points - my perspective on Grav is whether I can build sites for clients with it - and they would be using Admin exclusively - no file editing for them (their heads would explode).

@zigpress, That's a fair reason for using Admin...

Did any of you encounter modules ordering issue on Admin? There's no way I can make it work purely on Admin side.

No, I haven't seen that particular behaviour.