ProcessWire Weekly #70

Latest core updates: ProcessWire 2.6.17

The latest post at the processwire.com blog introduces another all-new feature for the development branch: bookmarks for the admin interface. Bookmarks already apply to a variety of features in the admin:

• Page tree bookmarks allow you to bookmark individual pages in the page tree, and later re-open the page tree from that specific position with a single click.
• Page edit bookmarks are much like page tree bookmarks, except that clicking the bookmark opens the page editor for the bookmarked page.
• Page add bookmarks are similar to existing page add shortcuts feature, except that they can be defined simply by selecting a parent page.
• Page find bookmarks add bookmark support for Lister and ListerPro, so that each bookmark is essentially a combination of filters of your choice.

For more details, screenshots, and instructions on getting started with your own bookmarks, check out Ryan's blog post at the processwire.com blog.

In other news, the next development version after 2.6.17 is scheduled for two weeks from now. Instead of a new core version, there's something else (equally interesting) coming up next week, so I'd definitely keep an eye out for that!

New module: MultiValue Textformatter by Roland Toth

MultiValue Textformatter is a new Textformatter module for ProcessWire, built by Roland Toth and released under the MIT license. MultiValue Textformatter introduces a custom syntax for defining key + value pairs, which are converted into variables accessible with the object notation in your template files.

For an example, this is what the syntax could look in your admin view for an imaginative textarea field called "social_links" using the TextformatterMultiValue module:

@ url ::: title ::: target
Facebook = https://facebook.com/mycompany ::: Follow us on Facebook ::: _blank
Linkedin = https://www.linkedin.com/mycompany ::: NULL ::: _blank
Email = #contact ::: Contact

This is how you would use the defined values in your template files:

<?php
foreach ($page->social_links as $i) {
  echo "<a href='{$i->url}' target='{$i->target}' title='{$i->title}'>{$i->name}</a>";
}

There are actually more options than this, and for a comprehensive introduction we'd suggest taking a look at the GitHub page of the module. For questions and comments you should head down to the related support forum thread.

Big thanks to Roland for sharing this module with us, looks like a very useful tool for quickly mocking up data structures!

Weekly ProcessWire forum highlights and online resources

Here's a collection of various support forum highlights and other online resources we thought you might want to check out. As always, please let us know if there's anything else you can think of that should be here.

• Google Cloud Platform now offers an easy way to set up ProcessWire via the Bitnami ProcessWire Stack. This seems like a very interesting option if you're looking into getting new ProcessWire sites up and running quickly. Thanks to Raymond Geerts for the tip!
• Field inheritance made easy. Thanks to Benjamin Milde for sharing this neat trick with us; it's an excellent example of how simple extending existing modules (including, but not limited to, Fieldtypes) really is.
• Are you an IFTTT user already? If you are, check out the very handy ProcessWire Blog News recipe by Nico Knoll – and if not, perhaps it's time to get started!
• ProcessSlider module introduced in ProcessWire Weekly #68 is now available as an alpha release from GitHub. Definitely worth checking out.
• FieldtypeCommentsRatings is an alternative to the built-in comments fieldtype, the main difference being the addition of a neat star rating field. Looks very nice already, and we're looking forward to seeing it in the modules directory!

If you're interested in real-time ProcessWire news, discussions, and updates, there are always interesting discussions going on at the support forum. Since we're only able to include a tiny selection of those in our weekly updates, head down to the forums for more action!

Site of the week: Gekko Field Marketing

Gekko Field Marketing is a UK-based field marketing company. In their own words, they offer a full range of services, helping to create more opportunities to connect consumers with brands.

999 Design Group Ltd is responsible for the new site of Gekko Field Marketing, not to mention their brand communication and visual identity altogether. They've done a pretty awesome job too: the visual identity feels refreshing, and the site has a very nice and modern feel to it. Both are simple yet effective, just the way we like it.

Some of the highlights of the site include a responsive mobile-first design, the neat expertise wheel feature, a well functioning prev/next navigation for various content types, and a nice touch of custom styling for the embedded Google Maps views. It's the little details that make the site feel so alive and compelling – definitely a job well done!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 70th issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 19th of September. As always, ProcessWire newsletter subscribers will get our updates a few days later.

Thanks for staying with us, once again. Hope you've had a great and productive week, and don't forget to check out the ProcessWire forums for more interesting topics. Until next week, happy hacking with ProcessWire!