ProcessWire Weekly #252

Latest core updates

This week Ryan and Netcarver have continued their work covering the issues in the processwire-issues repository, and although there's no version bump for this week, there have in fact been numerous fixes and minor improvements applied to the dev branch. Feel free to review the full commit log for the past week for more details, but here are some highlights:

• Repeaters now include proper support for front-end editing.
  Previously this has been limited to superusers due to various permission related difficulties, but those have now been resolved, and now all users with the permission to edit content can finally benefit from the combination or repeaters and the built-in front-end editing feature.
• Adjusting name of a new page with a hook no longer produces a warning.
  Although not quite as prominent as the repeater front-end support, this is also noteworthy: previously if you changed the name of a new page automatically using a hook you would see a warning in the admin about the old name already being in use. Now you only see this issue if the name was actually changed by the core due to duplicate naming issues.
• New method Sanitizer::minLength($value, $minLength, $padChar, $padLeft).
  This is the only real addition this week, and a relatively minor one for that matter. The Sanitizer::minLength() method essentially guarantees that a string matches the provided minimum length. By default the method returns blank string in case of failure, but you can provide an optional pad char (string) to append or prepend to the string as well.
• Minor updates and fixes to the admin interface, PHPDoc comments, and more.
  This week there have been some smaller fixes and improvements here and there, to resolve some small quirks, browser issues, and PHP version specific problems. Overall the impact of these is likely to be quite small, but a quirk is a quirk, and a consistent user experience is all about ironing those pesky issues out.

What's up next?

As Ryan mentions in his weekly update at the support forum, current plan is to keep working through the issues repository, and then hopefully move on to the requests repository and take a closer look at existing pull requests. We should be seeing a version bump by next week, so stay tuned for that as well.

This week Ryan has also unveiled some of his plans regarding the latest addition to the Pro modules family – ProMailer. This module was originally planned as just an addition to the ProDevTools package, but as the project has been getting bigger and gaining momentum, it now looks like it'll also be released as a stand-alone Pro module.

For more details on Ryan's latest plans, and particularly the ProMailer Pro module, be sure to check out the weekly status update at our support forum. Be sure to add a reply if you have any feedback for Ryan or the team, or any suggestions on where we should focus next. Thanks!

Sneak peek into the Dashboard Notes module from Kongondo

Sometimes we cover briefly modules that are not technically released yet, or are still in an early beta or alpha testing stage. In this case the module in question is available for early-bird testing as an alpha version – so please keep in mind that it probably shouldn't be installed on a production site quite yet.

Now, the module in question is called Dashboard Notes, and in a nutshell it allows you to add notes visible on their own page in the Admin. Though it is inspired by a module called WP Dashboard Notes, some of you may be more familiar with similar stand-alone tools such as Google Keep.

Here's the current feature set of Dashboard Notes:

• Manage note text and background
• Replying to notes (optional feature)
• Prioritized notes (low, normal, high)
• Notes can be locked for editing
• Notes can be sorted by date, title, or priority
• Note visibility can be defined using user IDs, roles, or permissions.
  • By default all notes can be viewed by users with access to this module (dashboard-notes permission).
• Global note settings for defining default colors, date format, dimensions, permission to edit or delete notes from other users, maximum depth of (nested) replies, maximum characters in note preview before text is truncated, and more.
  • Note settings can only be accessed by users with the dashboard-notes-settings permission.

Though in an early state, feature wise Dashboard Notes is pretty far already. According to Kongondo, we're talking about 90% completeness level so far, although PR's – especially related to the display side of the notes – would be more than welcome.

Feel free to give Dashboard Notes a try by downloading or cloning it from the Dashboard Notes GitHub repository. If you have any suggestions, feature requests, or questions, be sure to visit the Dashboard Notes development board at our support forum.

Big thanks to Kongondo for your work on this module – the module is looking really nice already. Keep up the great work!

Site of the week: Corse e Strada

Our latest site of the week belongs to Corse e Strada, a company that specializes in the restoration of rare Italian race cars and iconic GT cars. Some of the cars are added to their personal collection, while others are then sold to other car enthusiasts. The company also provides high-quality permanent storage for classic and luxury cars.

We approach Italian competition cars and classic GT’s not merely as objects but as Projects. With unparalleled attention to chassis, mechanics, electronics, body and interior we bring each car back to its original and period correct condition. Cars like these need the love of real enthusiasts. Only then do they shine, growl and perform true to their Italian DNA.
— Corse e Strada

The Corse e Strada website was developed by Just goe, and it's essentially a showcase of their collection of iconic cars. From the full-screen video background of the home page to the fancy image galleries and details fly-out bars on the car pages everything you see on this site just works. The design is simple, and relies largely on the photography, but at the same time the site is quite usable, and there are some attention capturing smaller details, animations and such, here and there.

Overall the Corse e Strada website is a really beautiful piece of work, and if you've got a thing for classic cars – or any sort of design for that matter – you'll no doubt enjoy browsing it. I did, and I'm not even that much into the car thing. The site is based on the Bootstrap front-end framework, yet one could say that it doesn't really look like a typical bootstrap site at all. The responsive aspect is splendidly implemented, and the site is also usable and accessible to the point that we really don't have anything negative to say.

Big thanks to Just goe for sharing this project with us, and congratulation to the folks at Corse e Strada for their splendid ProcessWire powered website. Brilliant work from everyone involved in this project – and absolutely stunning work with the car restorations as well. It's clear that Corse e Strada truly love what they're doing!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 252nd issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 16th 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!