ProcessWire Weekly #149

Latest core updates: ProcessWire 3.0.56

In the latest post at the processwire.com blog Ryan talks a bit about the latest version of ProcessWire, 3.0.56, and then goes on to introduce some pretty awesome additions for Admin Theme Uikit. Just to get things started, here are some of the highlights from ProcessWire 3.0.56, currently available via the dev branch at Github:

• Improvements to the front-end locale support plus two new local related methods: $languages->setLocale() and $languages->getLocale().

• Some cleaning up and refactoring for ProcessPageList, and also some minor improvements to the page editor breadcrumb feature.

• Addition of new <region> and <pw-region> tags to the markup regions feature. These are identical in function and there's more discussion about them here.

This week's additions to Admin Theme Uikit are a couple of new sidebars, though these are very different from the old sidebars you probably have seen in some of the earlier posts – in fact they are more of an alternative to the existing masthead navigation than just an addition to it:

• There are two of them, one on each side of the screen. One is a bit more feature rich, providing full access to different admin areas: pages, setup, access, etc. The other one is a regular page tree, no more and no less.
• You can enable or disable these sidebars via module settings, and once enabled, their visibility can be toggled with just one click, and you can resize them as you see fit just by dragging them to the width of your liking.
• Perhaps most notably these new sidebars actually stay in place as you navigate the admin, edit pages, and so on. This feature alone makes them exceptionally useful, and a major improvement over any earlier versions.

We realise that some of this may sound a bit vague, but don't worry: luckily Ryan has prepared a little screencast for us, showcasing the new sidebars in action. See for yourself how effortless navigating the admin area can now be:

For more details about these weekly updates – and particularly the Admin Theme Uikit sidebar features – don't forget to check out Ryan's latest post at the processwire.com blog, and for discussion about this version, head down to the support forum. Thanks!

New module: GitHub Connect

Continuing from where we left last week, GitHub Connect is the third of the four recently published ProcessWire modules by Bea Dav. As the name suggests, the GitHub Connect module provides an easy way to query data from GitHub by using a bunch of API calls:

<?php

// init the module and set a default repository
$github = $modules->get('GithubConnect');
$github->setRepository('owner/repository');

// get details about the selected repository
$repository = $github->getRepositoryInformations();

// fetch contents and other details about the README file
$readme = $github->getReadme('repository');

// fetch a list of repositories belonging to an organization
$repositories = $github->listRepositoriesByOrg('organization');

The modules directory page linked above includes more details about all the methods this module provides – there are plenty of more than just those mentioned here. The return values for each method are properly explained in the GitHub API docs.

In addition to the API calls mentioned above, this module also supports a "predefined autofill" feature. In a nutshell this means that by enabling certain import features and creating a set of fields and templates, the module can automagically fill in local fields with values from GitHub.

For more details and instructions, check out the modules directory page for GitHub Connect. If you have any questions or need help setting things up, there's also a dedicated support board for this module. Thanks to Bea for sharing this with us!

New module: Twig Extensions

What we have here is last one of the four modules recently published by Bea Dav: Twig Extensions. Designed as an addition to two existing modules, Template Engine Factory and Template Engine Twig, Twig Extensions adds support for... well, Twig extensions.

The extensions in question are found from Twig Extensions Repository: Debug, Intl, Text, Array, and Date. Each provides one or more new features you can use in your template files, and some of them – such as the date and time formatting and comparing ones – can be quite helpful indeed.

For more information about this module, check out the modules directory page and the dedicated support forum thread. Once again big thanks to Bea for sharing your work with us – it's very much appreciated!

Site of the week: Redwell Primary School

Our latest site of the week belongs to the Redwell Primary School, a primary school on the northern edge of Wellingborough. They are the lead school in the 5 Wells Teaching School Alliance and according to their site they place strong emphasis on traditional values: friendship, happiness, patience, respect, responsibility, kindness, ambition, independence, self-belief, honesty, and bravery.

While one might not describe it exactly as a flashy site, this responsive site definitely boasts a clean and sympathetic design, the typography is user-friendly, and there are also some very nice little features, such as an off-canvas navigation menu for mobile users and a Google Translate dropdown for a real-time multilanguage support.

The public-facing part of the site is powered by Uikit front-end framework – which, for various reasons, has recently gained momentum among ProcessWire users. Either way Uikit is a great framework, though, and this site is yet another proof for that. Other than the front-end, there's not much we can say here: this is one of those ProcessWire sites where one can't really tell anything specific about the implementation from the outside.

The Redwell Primary School site was built by Paul Sivers of Keywave Media Solutions Ltd, a family owned web design and development company also based in Wellingborough. Our congratulations to both the client and those behind the implementation for this wonderful site – and thanks for sharing it with us!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 149th issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 25th of March. 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!