ProcessWire Weekly #381

Introducing ProcessWire 3.0.184, our latest master/main version

The highlight of this week is definitely that we now have a new master, or main, version of ProcessWire available. After a year of development, ProcessWire 3.0.184 was released on Friday, and contains numerous new features, fixes and improvements. There's a very long list of updates available via the latest blog post at processwire.com.

Some highlights from the new master version

To be honest there's some much new stuff in this version that it's hard to decide where to even start, but here are some of the feature additions in this new version that we've found most influential so far:

• URL/path hooks enable one to hook into any URL and handle the request with a custom function. This is essentially a cleaned up and way more powerful version of what we've been doing before by hooking into the pageNotFound response.
• $pages->findRaw() provides a way to query ProcessWire content in a very efficient way, fetching data exactly as it exists in the database and returning an array. While limited in some ways, this approach provides a significant performance boost compared to regular $pages->find().
• There are now a couple of new ways to edit and store data: InputfieldTextTags provides a Selectize JS based UI for managing tags, and FieldtypeDecimal adds support for the MySQL DECIMAL data type.
• Thanks to efforts of Bernhard Baumrock, the default admin theme shipped with ProcessWire, AdminThemeUikit, is now fully customizable. By this we mean that one can simply add a drop-in stylesheet file, in which they can redefine settings and modify all style-related aspects of the theme.
• Likely mostly interesting for the sysadmins in our midst is that ProcessWire now has built-in support for separate reader/writer database instances. In a nutshell this means that your site has the ability to utilize read-only replicas for a more cloud-friendly (not to mention cost-friendly) end result in large scale use.

... and much, much more! 3.0.184 is a massive update over our previous master version, 3.0.165, with numerous feature additions and improvements both under the hood and for the Admin user interface.

ProcessWire 3.0.184 has been a true community effort

One more thing we'd like to highlight about the new master version is the way it was developed. While ProcessWire has always been a community effort in many ways, we have been somewhat wary of directly merging pull requests, for various reasons.

3.0.184 is a different story: it contains loads of code contributions introduced via GitHub pull requests. This is obviously just one way to contribute, but it's also something we've seen users request numerous times over the years, so this new route definitely makes sense. One bonus benefit of this is that GitHub understands such contributions as well: our list of contributors is now quite a bit longer than it was just a few days ago.

In addition to direct code submissions, this version also includes features implemented based on feature requests — which, just for the record, continues to be a great way to contribute. Even if you don't know how to — or simply don't have time to — implement something yourself, please don't let that stop you from sharing your idea with others!

For a detailed list of updates included in ProcessWire 3.0.184 master/main version be sure to visit the processwire.com blog. A massive "thank you" to everyone who helped make this version reality — ProcessWire would not be the same without your efforts!

New module: ITRK-Service for ProcessWire

ITRK-Service for ProcessWire is a new third party module that, in a nutshell, automates the transfer of imprint, data protection declaration, and terms and conditions from IT-Recht Kanzlei to the local ProcessWire installation.

Once installed, this Process module provides an interface to the service offered by IT-Recht Kanzlei for their customer. Said interface is then used to update specified legal texts automatically in order to keep them up to date and legally valid in the long term. Comprehensive documentation for this module can be found from the .pupit GmbH website (in German).

Thanks to the folks at .pupit for sharing this project with us!

Site of the week: Vlasenko Design

Our latest pick for the site of the week title is Vlasenko Design — the personal website of Vsevolod Vlasenko, multi-talented digital art director, photographer, and surfer from Prague, Czech Republic.

This site is essentially a designer portfolio featuring some really neat projects, a photo gallery, and a to-the-point biography of the author himself. The works featured here really speak for themselves, so be sure to check them out; the typography related items in particular are quite a treat!

The front-end of this site, which was built by Andy Khit, is based on the Uikit front-end framework. The site is multilingual (available in English and Russian), and as a fun little detail features a quirky cat-themed loading animation. As for third party modules, we could spot only one: Cookie Management Banner by Adrian Jones.

Big thanks to Andy and Vsevolod Vlasenko for submitting this site project to our sites directory. Splendid work altogether!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's all for the 381st issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 4th 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!