ProcessWire Weekly #206

Latest core updates: ProcessWire 3.0.99

The latest version of ProcessWire, 3.0.99, includes a bunch of new customization settings for AdminThemeUikit:

• New styling for <select> elements.
• Ability to adjust input sizes globally or per-field (uk-form-small and uk-form-large).
• Ability to specify input width per-field (for cases were you might not want full-width).
• Ability to minimize the styling of input elements per-field.
• New option to use percentage-based widths globally, rather than Uikit uk-width based widths.
• New live preview of column width (when AdminThemeUikit fieldset is open).
• Improved AdminThemeUikit module configuration options.
• Other code-level improvements to our AdminTheme base class and AdminThemeUIkit.

Additionally there's a brand config new setting called noHTTPS, which lets you disable all HTTPS requirements on your site. While this isn't something you'd want to enable on a production server where you already have HTTPS configured, for your development or staging server - where you may not have an SSL certificate installed - this option is quite handy indeed.

For more details regarding the latest core updates, check out the weekly post from Ryan at the processwire.com blog. Thanks!

New module: RockForms

RockForms, a new module from Bernhard Baumrock, is a tool for creating fast, secure, and flexible front-end forms for ProcessWire.

Instead of competing head-on with our existing form modules, such as FormBuilder and Simple Contact Form, RockForms walks its own path by combining NetteForms from the Nette library with an easy to use – yet flexible – API for creating forms programmatically. Features provided by the RockForms module include ...

• Both client and server-side form validation using same rules: no need to define separate rules depending on the context
• Built-in CSRF protection and a honeypot solution for keeping spammers at bay
• Custom actions and success messages, and a helper for creating pages from submitted forms
• Easy integration with Analytics tools thanks to a GET param set after a successful form submission, and a built-in prevention for duplicate form submissions
• Uikit form renderer, and support for adding more renderers in the future

For more details regarding RockForms and API usage examples, don't forget to check out the RockForms support forum thread. Big thanks to Bernhard for sharing this project with us – keep up the great work!

New module: LibreOffice Online Editor

Another really interesting new project for this week is the LibreOffice Online Editor. In a nutshell this module, which was created by BitPoet and is as of this writing still at alpha stage, integrates a full-blown office document editing interface into ProcessWire Admin.

Oh, and in case you're wondering how on earth that might work, this actually requires spinning up a new Docker instance running the free Collabora CODE server behind the scenes. In my opinion this is both interesting and ingenious – in part because the end result provides a surprisingly intuitive user experience:

Main features of the LibreOffice Online Editor:

• Allows you to edit office documents within a modal window, without ever leaving the ProcessWire Admin.
• Supports a number of common office document formats: DOCX, ODT, PPTX, XLSX, etc.
• The editor can be enabled on a field by field basis, and template context is also supported.

As you can probably guess by now, compared to most third party modules this one does require a bit more work in order to get it up and running. You need to set up Docker and a Collabora CODE image, among other things. Don't worry, though: if you've got a server capable of running this kind of setup, BitPoet has provided rather detailed step by step instructions on setting up the module and it's dependencies.

For more details and a very informative GIF animation of this module in action, be sure to check out the LibreOffice Online Editor dedicated support forum thread.Huge thanks to BitPoet for this module – it's a really interesting project, and once again something that we're absolutely thrilled to get our hands on!

Site of the week: Tapis Corp

Our latest site of the week belongs to a New York based company called Tapis Corp. Since its inception in 1977 Tapis Corporation has provided superior aircraft interior fabrics, and we continue to lead the industry in innovative design and implementation.

The ProcessWire powered website of Tapis Corp is the handiwork of nibiri, and – in addition to really beautiful overall design – it features a number of neat features, ranging from detailed product pages and a nicely implemented shopping cart feature to a tagged and categorized news area. All in all the whole site feels great to use, and has a rather particular "high end" look and feel to it, which one can't help but admire.

What we can tell about the behind the scenes stuff is limited to two very familiar commercial modules – ProCache and FormBuilder. The front-end of the site, on the other hand, is based on the Bootstrap front-end framework, and the bulk of the static files get served directly from Amazon CloudFront CDN. As a cherry on top of the cake all traffic to this site is routed securely via HTTPS.

Our congratulations to Tapis Corp for their wonderful new website, and big thanks to Macrura from nibiri for sharing this project with us – great job, as always!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 206th issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 28th of April. 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!