Using the First Content Image as a News Preview in Evolution CMS

One very common editorial shortcut is to skip the dedicated preview-image TV and place the first image directly inside the article body. This snippet was written to turn that habit into something usable in listings.

What the snippet does

It first checks whether a dedicated image TV has a value. If not, it scans the resource content and returns the first <img> source it finds.

<?php
$image = isset($image) ? $image : '';
$results = $modx->getDocument($id, 'content');
$content = $results['content'];
$img = $modx->getTemplateVarOutput($image, $id);
$tvimage = $img[$image];

preg_match_all('/<img.+src=['"]([^'"]+)['"].*>/i', $content, $matches);
$first_img = $matches[1][0];

if (!empty($tvimage)) {
    return $tvimage;
}
return $first_img;

Typical listing usage

<img src="[[contentImg? &id=`[+id+]` &image=`image`]]" alt="[+pagetitle+]" />

It is not a complete media strategy, but it is a useful fallback pattern when editorial discipline is inconsistent and you still need the list view to look respectable.