ProcessWire Weekly #165

Latest core updates: ProcessWire 3.0.66 and a new ProFields module

In his latest post at the processwire.com blog Ryan introduces ProcessWire 3.0.66, which is a minor update to the previous 3.0.x versions, and a brand new addition to the commercial ProFields module family called Functional Fields.

ProcessWire 3.0.66

ProcessWire 3.0.66 is the latest dev version of ProcessWire, and mainly includes minor fixes, tweaks and improvements. Perhaps most notable new feature is the $files->find() method, used for recursively finding a list of matching files from a specific path.

Functional Fields

The bulk of this week's post is dedicated to the latest addition to the ProFields module bundle, Functional Fields. In a nutshell this is a new fieldtype that makes it very easy to turn any "static" piece of content in your template files, such as a phone number or an address, into a "field-like" dynamic – or functional – content, editable via page editor.

While you could always use separate fields for each of these items, Functional Fields is a handy shortcut for making small pieces of content editable just by wrapping them in one of three predefined functions:

__text('your text');
__textarea('your text');
__richtext('<p>your text</p>');

There's actually a lot more to this fieldtype, but we'll let Ryan explain the details. All in all this module is a completely new concept when it comes to ProcessWire fields, and we're sure that it'll come in handy for many ProFields users out there!

For more details about the latest updates and an in-depth guide to getting started with Functional Fields ProField module, don't forget to check out the weekly processwire.com blog post by Ryan. Thanks!

New module: FieldtypeColor

FieldtypeColor is a brand new fieldtype and inputfield bundle, built and released by Christoph Thelen. As the name suggests, this module is used for selecting and storing color values.

Though FieldtypeColor is by definition rather similar to the ColorPicker module, there are some notable differences too. Perhaps most importantly FieldtypeColor supports multiple inputfield types:

1. HTML5 color input
2. Text input expecting a 24bit hexcode string (RGB)
3. Text input expecting a 32bit hexcode strings (RGB + alpha channel)
4. Spectrum Color Picker

Overall FieldtypeColor feels like a slightly more modern choice compared to it's spiritual predecessor, but both modules are obviously still viable options. Either way, it's good to have some alternatives, just in case.

Big thanks to Christoph for sharing this module with us!

New module: Markup CKEditor Inputfield for FormBuilder

Markup CKEditor is an add-on module for FormBuilder, the commercial tool often used for embedding user created forms on ProcessWire sites. In a nutshell this module adds support for embedding HTML content created with CKEditor into FormBuilder forms.

Markup CKEditor fields can be edited via form settings using a CKEditor RTE, and as such they are great for storing detailed form filling instructions, links to external resources or documents, and any other content that cannot be easily conveyed with plain text.

Big thanks to Robin Sallis for creating this handy module and sharing it with us. We can definitely see plenty of valuable use cases for this module!

Site of the week: flipzoom; Media

Our latest site of the week belongs to a German full-service digital marketing agency flipzoom; Media. Some of you may also recognize them as the developers of the popular AIOM+ ProcessWire module.

When we call flipzoom; Media a full-service digital marketing agency, we really do mean full-service: from web design and custom software development to hosting, SEO and competition analysis, creating and managing online content, they've got it all covered — and they do print and advertising design too.

The website of flipzoom; is a beautifully designed single page site packed with content. Each section has its own, distinct design, but at the same time everything fits perfectly together. The layout is obviously responsive and the site works nicely on all sorts of screens and devices, and though there are some animations and effects here and there, none of that feels distracting or out of place in any way.

Behind the scenes this site makes use of the commercial ProCache module. The front-end is powered by the Foundation front-end framework, and as far as noteworthy CSS and JavaScript libraries go, there are a few: picturefill polyfill used to improve browser support for responsive images, lazysizes used to lazy-load images only when needed, and Iconic Font – a free set of icons from iconmonstr – for handling most icon needs.

Big thanks to David Karich of flipzoom; Media for sharing this awesome site with us – and congratulations for a well deserved site of the week title. Keep up the great work!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 165th issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 15th of July. 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!