ProcessWire Weekly #174

Latest core updates: FieldsetGroup is now available as a part of the ProFields bundle

In this week's post at the processwire.com blog Ryan talks about the second Fieldset module that has been in the development lately, FieldsetGroup. The first one, of course, was FieldsetPage, which was added to the core just last week.

In a nutshell FieldsetGroup is a viable alternative to regular Fieldset and FieldsetPage fields alike. It provides similar benefits as FieldsetPage, but with a notable difference: unlike FieldsetPage, FieldsetGroup doesn't need an extra page to store its content.

Whether this is a good thing or a drawback depends on the use case. You can't have same field in a FieldsetGroup field and the parent page itself, but on the other hand having fewer pages means potentially better performance, particularly in large scale use. In most cases you can likely achieve same results with both modules, though.

Ryan has opted to release FieldsetGroup as a part of the commercial ProFields bundle, the main reason being that it has the potential to require more support work than its Page-based cousin. That being said, whether FieldsetGroup remains a part of the ProFields bundle or makes its way to the core in the long run remains to be seen.

For more details about FieldsetGroup, and some notes about what to expect during the next few weeks in terms of processwire.com blog posts and core updates, be sure to check out Ryan's weekly post. Thanks!

New module: Markup Sitemap

Markup Sitemap is a new module by Mike Rockett. In essence this is an upgraded version of another third party module, Pete's Markup Sitemap XML. The main benefit of Markup Sitemap, compared to it's predecessor, is multi-language support, but there are also some additional benefits, such as displaying select image fields in the sitemap.

If you've never heard of Markup Sitemap XML either, it's probably worth noting that both of the sitemap modules are intended to work as automatically as possible. Generally speaking you don't have to do anything except install the module, and it'll populate an XML sitemap at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml – but you can also specifically exclude specific pages from the sitemap using custom fields provided by the module.

If you have any questions about this module or would like to hear more about this module, you should visit the Markup Sitemap support forum thread. Please note that this module is still in beta, so some minor glitches and unrefined fatures may appear.

Site of the week: Bee Green Recycling & Supply

Our latest site of the week belongs to Bee Green Recycling & Supply, a family-owned landscaping and recycling company based in Oakland, California. Their ProcessWire powered website was designed and built by Solution Innovators, a South Windsor, Oakland based company with focus on cost-effective design and development services for small businesses.

The design of the Bee Green Recycling & Supply website is quite modern, and a lot of attention has been paid to details. Visually the site has a clear theme, combining bee-related shapes and elements with green and "earthy" colours, both of which make a lot of sense in this context. Feature wise there's a lot going on here: in addition to regular content pages there's also a blog, a full-blown product catalog and shop feature, a blog, and some custom features such as an easy-to-use material calculator tool.

As far as we can tell, this site doesn't use a common front-end framework, and there are few traces of third party modules either – in fact the only one we spotted was the Email Obfuscator. JavaScript libraries used include jQuery, Slick, Superclick, Columnizer, and a few others. In any case the overall feeling we get about the implementation of this site is that Solution Innovators prefer to do things in their own way – and based on what we've seen, this approach seems to work out quite well for them.

Big thanks to the folks at Solution Innovators for sharing this site with us, and congratulations to the client, Bee Green Recycling & Supply, for having such a great site!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 174th issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 16th 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!