ProcessWire Weekly #328

Latest core updates: ProcessWire 3.0.165

In his latest weekly update at the support forum Ryan briefly introduces the latest core version, ProcessWire 3.0.165. In total this version is 16 commits ahead last week's 3.0.164, and these commits bring in a bunch of small tweaks and improvements, as well as a few — relatively minor — bug fixes:

• Fix for a Markup Regions issue where pw-optional region wasn't released if the template file had no regions.
• Fix for an issue where email field couldn't be made unique due to existing data, yet expected error messages didn't show up either.
• New Notice class flag Notice::allowMarkdown for enabling basic markdown support in notice messages.
• Code improvements and new or improved PHPDoc comment blocks for various built-in fieldtypes and inputfields, as well as the core Sanitizer class.
• Minor improvements and optimizations for the PageFinder class.

In other news...

In the weekly update Ryan also mentioned that the modules.processwire.com site is finally about to get a long-awaited facelift, which will bring it to the same level as the main processwire.com website. This section works as expected, so this hasn't been a priority, but compared to our main site it is indeed starting to feel a little... dated :)

I’ve been talking about it for a long time, but it seems like it may finally be a good time to re-do the modules.processwire.com site. It all works just fine, but just needs an update, consistent with the rest of processwire.com.

— Ryan

You can find more details about the weekly updates at the support forum thread. If you have any feedback you'd like to share regarding the latest core updates or the modules directory refresh, be sure to post a comment there as well. Thanks!

New module: FormBuilder reCAPTCHA Inputfield

FormBuilder reCAPTCHA Inputfield is a new add-on for the commercial FormBuilder module. Developed by Ryan, this module is available from the FormBuilder support forum for existing FormBuilder customers.

Most of you are no doubt already familiar with reCAPTCHA, the bot mitigation solution from Google. With this module installed, you can add reCAPTCHA fields to your forms to fend off annoying spam bots. While reCAPTCHA requires user intervention and thus isn't as user-friendly as some of the other spam filtering methods — such as the honeypot field, which is invisible to end users — it's also considered to be rather effective.

If you'd like to hear a bit more about this module you can find some details from the FormBuilder support forum (existing FormBuilder customers). FormBuilder questions (pre-sales) can also be submitted via the processwire.com contact form.

New module: Wireframe Renderer Blade

Wireframe Renderer Blade is an optional renderer add-on for the Wireframe output framework. Developed by Maurizio Bonani, this module integrates with Wireframe, adding support for the Laravel Blade templating engine.

Enabling this module is pretty simple: just install it like any other third party module, and then instruct Wireframe to start using it. Latter part typically happens during the Wireframe init call in the bootstrap file (wireframe.php):

$wireframe->init([
    'renderer' => ['WireframeRendererBlade', [
        // optional settings array. defaults:
        // 'views' => '/site/templates/views',
        // 'cache' => '/site/assets/cache/WireframeRendererBlade'
    ]],
]);

Once you've instructed Wireframe to use the Blade renderer module, all views, layouts, partials, and component views are rendered using Blade view files (.blade.php). If the Blade file can't be found, Wireframe will automatically attempt to fall back to a regular PHP view file (.php), making it easy to migrate an existing site to use Blade templates.

Blade provides native support for layouts and includes (partials), and you can add your own custom directives and if directives with hooks. Localization is also available, though requires a bit of code, as outlined in the Wireframe Renderer Blade GitHub repository.

Check out the GitHub repository for this module for more examples and details about working with and extending Blade. Big thanks to Maurizio for developing this module and sharing it with us!

Site of the week: Ökumenischer Stadtpilgerweg Villingen App

Our latest site of the week is the Ökumenischer Stadtpilgerweg Villingen App — a progressive web app (PWA) designed to introduce the visitor to the ecumenical city pilgrim trail in Villingen, Germany.

The concept behind this freely available web app — which can be installed locally on a smartphone or a tablet — is to provide a map for pilgrims to follow. The features of the app include live navigation support, and it provides historical background information about each location, as well as some notes regarding things to focus on and related religious quotes.

The ecumenical city pilgrim trail in Villingen, Germany is a small trail through the city where you can visit churches and other places of interest. This Progressive Web App is a small website to guide visitors through these places and give additional informations. You can install it on your smartphone or tablet and walk the trail with it.

— Andreas Scheffczyk, designconcepts GmbH

This project was developed by designconcepts GmbH. The PWA aspect was realized with help from the Workbox JavaScript libraries, while the map itself is based on Leaflet and styled with Mapbox. ProcessWire modules used on this site include Repeater Matrix and ProCache, Map Marker (Google Maps), Markup Sitemap, ProcessWire Upgrade, TOTP two-factor authentication, and Tracy Debugger.

Thanks to Andreas and the folks at designconcepts for sharing this project with us, and congratulations to the client for their new and really useful-looking application. If you have questions about this project, be sure to visit the showcase forum thread!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's all for the 328th issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 29th of August. 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!