ProcessWire Weekly #384

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In the 384th issue of ProcessWire Weekly we'll cover the latest core updates, introduce a new module called Session Allow, and highlight a new site of the week. Read on!

Welcome to the latest issue of ProcessWire Weekly. In this issue we're going to dive into the latest core updates, as well as a new module developed by Ryan: Session Allow. Last but not least, we're also going to highlight the revamped site of the German electronic avant-garde/dark wave band Deine Lakaien. Stay tuned for more details.

Thanks to all of our readers for being here with us again, and as always, any feedback is most welcome – please don't hesitate to drop us a line if there's anything in your mind you'd like to share with us.

Latest core updates: ProcessWire 3.0.185

In the latest weekly update Ryan covers a couple of topics: weekly core updates, and a brand new non-core module called Session Allow. We'll focus on Session Allow in a bit, but first off here's a summary of what's new in the core (dev branch) since last week:

  • A fix for an issue where certain page find operations were not working properly after last week's mid-version updates.
  • A fix for an issue where $pages->findJoin() was returning empty values instead of actual content for file/image fields.
  • A fix for an issue where ProcessPageLister wasn't taking current user's language into account, instead falling back to the default language.
  • New $database->renameColumn() and $database->renameColumns() methods, used for renaming either a single column, or multiple columns at once.
  • New $database->getServerType() method that returns the type of the (MySQL) database server used behind the scenes: MySQL, MariaDB, Percona, etc.
  • New $getNumberOnly option for $database->getVersion(), and an option for $database->getColumns() to get the type as used in CREATE TABLE.

... and a few relatively minor core updates. Essentially just a bit of code cleanup for the Modules class, and some small documentation improvements for the WireMail class.

For more details, be sure to check out the weekly update from Ryan, published via the ProcessWire support forum. Thanks!

New module: Session Allow

Along with the core updates, Ryan also introduced a brand new non-core module he's been working on. The module in question is called Session Allow, and it makes it quite simple to decide whether a session should be started based on predefined rules:

  • Should a session be enabled or disabled by default?
  • Should a session be automatically started if a login cookie is detected?
  • Allow or disallow a session if URL matches specified value (literal URL, wildcards, and regex are supported)
  • Allow or disallow sessions for specified hostname(s)

The module also provides a handy test tool for checking if your rules actually do what you expected them to do.

A screen shot of the Session Allow module config screen with all the (currently) available options.

It's probably worth noting that while the built-in $config->sessionAllow option also allows one to decide whether session is allowed, this approach can get complicated, and there's also the issue of execution order. When this method runs, much of the API is still not booted up, which means that you have a rather limited set of tools available.

Please note that Session Allow is currently considered an early beta release. As such, some extra caution is definitely recommended. Be sure to test things properly before installing the module on a live site.

Thanks to Ryan for sharing this module with us!

Site of the week: Deine Lakaien

Our latest site of the week belongs to Deine Lakaien, which is a German band formed in 1985 by Ernst Horn and Alexander Veljanov.

After more than three decades the band is still going strong. In fact, they released their latest album just this year, describing it as "by far the most elaborate studio album" in the entire 35-year history of the band.

The Deine Lakaien website has been recently rebuilt and reimagined by the full service web agency TBA-Berlin. The site features a gorgeous design consisting of manily black and white graphic elements and overall dark tones combined with various, neatly laid out views: there's a discography with publication year filters, a biography introducing the band and their lineup, news and concerts, and more. This site is the full package, with pretty much everything one might expect from a well-thought-out band site.

As for behind the scenes details, the front-end of the site is powered by the Uikit front-end framework, along with a number of JavaScript libraries, including Vegas background slideshows and Shariff social media sharing buttons. Third party modules used on this site include ProCache, the commercial, all-inclusive caching and minification solution.

Thanks to the folks at TBA-Berlin for sharing this project with us, and congratulations to Deine Lakaien for their newly revamped website. Great work from everyone involved!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's all for the 384th issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 25th 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!

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