ProcessWire Weekly #451

In the 451st issue of ProcessWire Weekly we'll share the latest weekly update from Ryan, check out the updates in ProcessWire version 3.0.209, and more. Read on!

Hello there, and welcome back to the latest issue of ProcessWire Weekly. It's still 2022 while I'm writing this, but it may be well into 2023 when you're reading it — either way, Happy New Year!

In this issue we'll check out the latest update from Ryan, and take a closer look at the updates introduced by the latest development version of ProcessWire, 3.0.209. In other news we've got a fresh list of highlights to share, and of course a new site of the week.

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. Enjoy our latest issue and have a great weekend!

Latest core updates: ProcessWire 3.0.209

The topics covered in the latest weekly update from Ryan include latest ProcessWire core development news, as well as a few observations about a chatbot that — among many other things — also seems to know quite a bit about ProcessWire development.

This week one of my clients pointed me to https://chat.openai.com/ which is really quite interesting. It's an artificial intelligence that you can chat with, and it knows quite a lot about ProcessWire and how to code in ProcessWire.

— Ryan

After giving this project a try, I concur: the OpenAI ChatGPT bot is very impressive, and could already be used to get work done faster. For an example, in a quick test it was able to provide mostly functioning code for a simple ProcessWire module, and with some additional instructions it could fix almost all issues from the original version.

What's new in ProcessWire 3.0.209

Moving on to core development news, version 3.0.209 of ProcessWire is now available via the dev branch at GitHub. Here's what's new since last week, summarized from the weekly commit log:

  • Fix for issue #1658 where module name starting with two capital letters caused errors on the modules page in admin.
  • Fix for issue #1651 where the syntax used by Inputfield::addClassString() to identify the element to add the class for could conflict with actual classes, such as those used by the Tailwind framework.
  • Fix for issue #1299 where Image Sizer was having issues with certain types of GIF animations, which — in PHP 8 or later — could cause errors in the admin.
  • Fix for issue #1600 where custom image fields in nested Repeaters were not saved.
  • Updates to template edit screen to provide detailed instructions if user tries to add a template with a name consisting of only digits (which is intentionally not allowed to avoid template name and ID conflicts, as detailed in issue #1588).
  • Minor updates and optimizations for core classes, updates and typo fixes for core code comments, and PHP 8.2 compatibility updates.

That's all for our core updates section this week. For more details, be sure to also check out the weekly update post from Ryan at the support forum. Thanks!

Weekly forum highlights, tutorials, and other online resources

For this week we've gathered a list of support forum highlights and other useful and hopefully interesting resources. As always, please let us know if there's anything important we've missed, so that we can include it in one of our future issues.

  • TemplateTester is a new module by BitPoet, currently available as a beta version from GitHub. This module allows you to specify an alternate template file to use for a template, and activates only for authenticated users, users with edit access, or users with a specific role.
  • Another brand new module is called ImageDownload, created by Mats Neander. This module adds a separate download link to images in fields using the built-in image inputfield (InputfieldImage).
  • Next up we've got a splendid new tutorial from gebeer, labeled "Infinite Scroll without a single line of Javascript". Technically there's JavaScript involved, but htmx library is the one handling all that, so you're not required to write any — either way, the end result is really neat, so definitely check this tutorial out!
  • While it is not strictly about ProcessWire itself, it is still worth checking out: the latest issue of PHP Annotated at the PhpStorm Blog is now out. Topics covered include the release of PHP 8.2, the achievements of the PHP Foundation during the first year since it was founded, and more.

While we're on the topic of PHP 8.2, if you'd like to learn more about it but don't enjoy reading long blog posts (I feel you!) the phpannotated YouTube channel — hosted by Brent, the author of the stitcher.io blog — has a very nice video covering all the big updates. I'll drop the link to that video below, but there's plenty more at YouTube.

If you're interested in ProcessWire news, discussions, and updates, there's always something going on at the support forum. Since we're only able to include a tiny selection of all that in our weekly updates, head down to the forum for more.

Site of the week: Active Abroad

Our latest site of the week belongs to Active Abroad GmbH — an agency with a modest promise to "make your dream of a stay abroad come true".

Active Abroad GmbH helps au pairs, demi pairs, camp counselors, language students, volunteers, and those who just wish to work abroad. They are able to step in at the very beginning of your journey, helping with planning and organization, as well as with all required arrangements going forward.

The website of Active Abroad was created by the Freising, Germany based marketing agency Kasper Communications GmbH. The site has a clean and modern design, with plenty of variety between pages, suggesting that it's being powered by a page builder behind the scenes. As for the content, there's plenty of information here, and the testimonials — of which there are a lot — are a particularly nice addition.

Taking a quick peek behind the scenes, it appears that this site was crafted without a full-blown front-end framework, but does include a few third party dependencies, such as PhotoSwipe JavaScript image gallery and the flatpickr date picker. As for third party ProcessWire modules, there are none here that we could spot.

Big thanks to the folks at Kasper Communications for sharing this project with us, and our congratulations to the client, Active Abroad GmbH, for their splendid, ProcessWire powered website!

Stay tuned four our next issue

That's all for the 451st issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 7th of January. 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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