ProcessWire Weekly #226

Latest core updates (ProcessWire 3.0.112) and more about the Verified URL Fieldtype

In the latest post at the processwire.com blog Ryan talks a bit about the latest release of ProcessWire, 3.0.112, which is now available via the dev branch at GitHub. He also goes into a lot more detail regarding the Verified URL Fieldtype – a new addition to the commercial ProFields module bundle – which we briefly introduced last week.

What's new in ProcessWire 3.0.112?

ProcessWire 3.0.112 is a minor release with some behind the scenes improvements and bug fixes:

• ProcessPageClone core module has been refactored, along with the related hooks and language support.
• Several improvements were made to the PagesNames class, which is made accessible via the $pages->names() method.
• The WireHttp class has also received some small improvements, but the API it provides remains unchanged.

Proper introduction to the Verified URL Fieldtype

Most of Ryan's post this week is dedicated to introducing the latest addition to the commercial ProFields module bundle, Verified URL Fieldtype. In a nutshell this is an extended version of the built-in URL fieldtype, with support for ...

• Automatically and periodically checking if the contained URL returns a valid HTTP code, and optionally returning an empty value if the URL seems broken.
• Fetching the title of the page that the URL points to. Useful for both automatic link texts and stuff like identifying certain expired domains ("domain for sale").
• In the case that the target URL is a redirect to yet another URL, Verified URL can grab the destination URL and store it in the "redirect" property of the field.

This fieldtype includes extensive configuration settings: you can, among other things, choose how often URLs are checked, how often error URLs should be re-verified, how many attempts to do before considering the URL permanently broken, and whether to update the stored URL in the case of a 301 (permanent) redirect.

For an extensive introduction to the features mentioned briefly above, usage examples, some screenshots, and details regarding the configuration settings provided by the Verified URL fieldtype, check out Ryan's latest post at the processwire.com blog.

New project lead announced for the Padloper e-commerce module

Padloper, in case you haven't yet heard of it, is easily the most extensive e-commerce solution for ProcessWire: this commercial third party module built by Antti Peisa was released back in 2015, and has since then been used on a number of ProcessWire web shops.

Just this week in the Future of Padloper forum thread posted at the Off Topic section of our support forum (although we'd argue that it's definitely On Topic) Kondongo – long time ProcessWire user, module developer, and moderator of our support forum – announced that he'll be taking over the Padloper module, and also the official Payment Gateway modules (Payment base class, Payment PayPal, and Payment Stripe).

The announcement includes extensive details about what this means for the Padloper module, what are the short and long term plans regarding this module, and how the owner change will affect the pricing and licensing of the module. To summarize some of the key points:

• There will be a new major version of the module, Padloper 2, and this version will include – among other things – a completely reimagined admin backend. The current plan is to release this version in 4 to 6 months.
• While Padloper has always been a great tool for developing e-commerce solutions, a common request has been for an extensive front-end toolkit. Under the new project lead a separate plug-n-play shop module and related site profile are now on the roadmap.
• Existing Padloper users will have full access to support and related services until Padloper 2 is released. After that all support for the old version will cease, and it will only receive security updates.

For more details remember to check out Kongondo's announcement at the ProcessWire support forum. As for me, I'm thrilled to hear that this amazing module has found a new and enthusiastic owner, and I'm eagerly waiting to see Padloper – and with it the e-commerce support in ProcessWire – taken to a whole new level!

New module: Remove Blocks Textformatter by Robin Sallis

Remove Blocks is a brand new third party module developed by Robin Sallis. This module adds support for the equivalent of PHP comment tags to any textarea field: content (text as well as markup) placed within specific delimiter tags will only ever be visible in the admin – i.e. for content editors only.

Delimiters used by this Textformatter module are customizable, but default to {{ and }}. It's probably worth noting that since Remove Blocks works with both regular plain text and markup, you should avoid custom delimiters that could get HTML encoded, such as < or >.

Use cases for this Textformatter include placeholders for content yet to be added ("add campaign dates here"), other notes for content editors ("this section needs beefing up"), or commenting out a section of content because you either plan to release it on a later date, or because it's no longer needed – but might still come in handy in the future.

Big thanks to Robin for sharing yet another useful module with us – thanks, and keep up the great work!

Site of the week: Pigtail Pundits

Our latest site of the week belongs to Pigtail Pundits – a digital marketing agency based in Mumbai, India. Pigtail Pundits have been in the market of providing digital and marketing experiences for their clients since the late nineteens, and have worked with some pretty major clients, including Harley-Davidson India, Nat Geo Traveller India, and Hilton Hotels & Resorts.

The newly revamped website of Pigtail Pundits is a lot of things, but boring is definitely not one of them: from the bright and bold design to the content brimming with personality, it's one of those sites that you probably either love or hate. As Unni Khrisnan writes in the Pigtail Pundits case story posted at the showcase section of our support forum:

Extreme reactions, we felt, are far better than neutral ones. That was a risk that we decided to take knowing the consequences.
— Unni Khrisnan, Pigtail Pundits

Behind the scenes the Pigtail Pundits website is powered by ProcessWire (obviously) and includes commercial third party modules Form Builder and ProCache. The front-end is powered by Bootstrap front-end framework. For more details about how and why this site came to be, be sure to check out the case story mentioned above.

Big thanks to Unni Khrisnan and the Pigtail Pundits for sharing their work with us and trusting ProcessWire – and, of course, for taking the time to provide us with a splendid case story!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 226th issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 15th 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!