ProcessWire Weekly #250

Latest core updates

For the past month Ryan has been pretty busy with his client projects, so we've been getting less frequent updates in the form of blog posts or forum posts. That being said, quite a bit has happened in terms of core code again this week – here's a summary of what's new or changed based on the commit log at GitHub:

• Support for children.custom_field=value selector queries.
• Multi-language improvements and fixes for Lister and ListerPro.
• __debugInfo() improvements for Selector and Selectors classes.
• Pageimage::render() method, the shortcut method for rendering img tag markup for a Pageimage object, now accepts optional "class" and "alt" parameters.
• PaginatedArray::getPaginationString(), used to render "1 to 10 of 50" type of strings from paginated arrays in ProcessWire, now supports an optional zeroLabel setting, which is displayed if no items were found.
• A few other minor fixes and improvements, such as a fix for an issue affecting some multi-language features on the Windows platform, usability improvement for logged in view-only users, improved markup filtering for the translation live search, a layout fix for the datepicker for InputfieldDatetime – and so on.

For the full list of changes this week, check out the commit log for the dev branch. As some of these features are indeed all new features, we'll no doubt hear more about them in Ryan's upcoming blog posts, so stay tuned for that.

In the meantime you're welcome to grab the dev branch and play with it – considering all the minor improvements and fixes it's been getting lately, it should be quite stable, and perhaps even more so than our current master branch.

New module: PushAlert Notifications

Our first module for this issue is called PushAlert Notifications. In a nutshell this third party module adds the ability to send push notifications, and receive information about sent notification, via a ProcessWire powered website.

The key features that this module enables:

1. Create a field of type FieldtypePushAlert that you can add to a page template. This is a multi-input field widget that enables you to send notifications from your page in the admin Page Edit and monitor statistics - Attempted, Delivered, Clicked, etc.
2. Send notifications from a page template directly using the API, e.g. to ProcessWire users who have a specific role and have subscribed to notifications.
3. Capture subscriptions on your website front end.

PushAlert Notifications does it's magic by integrating the PushAlert service to your site, and as such requires a free or paid PushAlert account to function. While setting up the module, you'll need to register on their site, and familiarise yourself with their API and the limits it has. Based on their current pricing, you will get the basic features for up to 3000 subscribers for free, while paid plans support larger audiences and extra features.

There's a detailed guide for setting the module up and working with it at the PushAlert Notifications GitHub repository, so be sure to check that out if you're considering this module. If you have any questions or require additional support, visit the PushAlert Notifications thread at the ProcessWire support forum.

Big thanks to Prue Rowland for sharing her work with us – this is a brilliant module, and will no doubt find it's way into many future projects!

New module: TinyBar

Next up is a tiny admin bar module for ProcessWire, known simply as TinyBar. If you're familiar with the AdminBar module, this module will likely feel familiar as well. These modules share similar features, and as such it's no surprise that TinyBar was indeed inspired by AdminBar.

When installed, this module adds a green bar to the top section of your site, visible only for authenticated users. This bar contains a few helpful navigation links: "browse", "pages", "edit" (current page, if user has edit access and page isn't locked), "new page" (adding new page under current page, again if allowed for current user), and "logout". Additionally, the bar displays the version of the ProcessWire installation itself.

In case you're looking for a simple admin bar experience, this module is worth checking out. You can install it via the built-in module installer, or clone or download it directly from the TinyBar GitHub repository. If you have any questions, be sure to visit the TinyBar support forum thread.

Thanks to Anssi Laitila for sharing this module with us!

Site of the week: Backcountry Snowcats

Our latest site of the week belongs to an operation called Backcountry Snowcats, who provide remote backcountry powder skiing and snowboarding adventures in British Columbia, Canada.

This site was built by VentureWeb, who describe themselves as "the digital agency of adventure". They have indeed worked with many interesting, adventure-themed brands, and Backcountry Snowcats is no exception. The entire look and feel of this site is in line with that theme, and it's filled with amazing, snowy photographs that perfectly set the mood for a snowy adventure. In addition to the images, there's also plenty of quality content for anyone interested in taking a trip to the chilly mountains at western Canada.

According to the description of the site at our sites directory, this site was originally built on top of a static site generator, and later migrated to ProcessWire. While this is definitely something we'd love to hear more about, that's all we know so far. In terms of tech stack, this site doesn't use a full-blown front-end framework – at least as far as we can tell – and the only third party module visible on the front-end is EmailObfuscation.

Congratulations to the folks at Backcountry Snowcats – as well as the agency behind the implementation, VentureWeb – for a well-deserved site of the week title, and big thanks for sharing this project with us. Great job, everyone!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 250th issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 2nd 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!