ProcessWire Weekly #531

Weekly update from Ryan

The latest weekly update Ryan is a relatively brief one, yet at the same time touches a topic that is obviously extremely important for us all: the future of ProcessWire. While the next step seems quite clear, what comes after that is still largely up to debate.

Short term and long term: what's in store for ProcessWire?

In the short term our plans are clear: right now we're focused on getting our next stable release out. At the time of this writing the estimated timeline for this is September 2024. As always plans and timelines may need to be adjusted, so this is not a strict deadline we're setting, but we are definitely getting very close to a new stable release.

After that, as Ryan explains in his post, we are going to focus on our next big milestone — ProcessWire 3.1, or perhaps even 4.0. For now this version has one goal, which is full support for PHP 8. That will likely also mean finally dropping support for PHP 7.

While that alone is a rather big step, what else is going to be in our next major release is still up to debate, and that's exactly what this week's update is all about: discussing what ProcessWire's next major release should look like. What is your idea of the next generation of ProcessWire — what are we missing and how could that be remedied?

Some of the ideas brought up so far in the weekly update forum thread include a more flexible admin area for custom client work, more core-level web application framework features, improvements to custom page classes, and a global media manager. Some of these have been discussed for quite a while now, while some are new additions.

Do you have thoughts about what the next evolution of ProcessWire should look like? Head down to the forum and let us know! As always there are no bad ideas, and we're interested in hearing your feedback. Help us make ProcessWire the best version of itself.

New module: Custom Logs

Custom Logs is a brand-new third party module created by Robin Sallis. This module is a splendid addition to the logs view of ProcessWire's admin, adding support for log file specific data structures. In a nutshell this module lets you define log file structures as configuration strings in the module's config screen and then displays them using this format in the admin logs viewer.

Here's an example of what a log file specific configuration string might look like:

visits: {url}URL, IP Address, User Agent, {url}Referrer

And here's how you would store a row of data in the custom log file:

$modules->get('CustomLogs')->save('visits', [
    $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] ?? '',
    $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] ?? '',
    $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '',
    $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] ?? '',
]);

When you view the log file in the admin, Custom Logs will automatically render each configured column (URL, IP Address, User Agent, and Referrer) as separate table column, making it a whole lot easier to consumed compared to plain old log files where the data was all stored as a singular text blob in one column.

Check out the modules directory entry for Custom Logs for more details. If you'd like to give this module a try, you can clone or download it from the CustomLogs GitHub repository, or install it via the built-in modules manager in the admin. In case you have any questions or suggestions, head down to the Custom Logs support forum thread.

Big thanks to Robin for developing and sharing this very useful module with us!

New module: Logs JSON Viewer

Logs JSON Viewer is another new third party module created by Robin Sallis. This is a very handy utility module that introduces a full-featured JSON viewer for the logs section of ProcessWire admin (ProcessLogger).

ProcessLogger itself doesn't know (or care about) what the rows stored in your log files contain: they could be plain text, CSV data, or something else — such as JSON. That being said, JSON is indeed a very handy option in case you need to store structured data in your log files. With Logs JSON Viewer, any rows that contain JSON data become much more user-friendly, with collapsible object hierarchy, a built-in search feature, and more.

If you'd like to give this module a try, you can install it via the built-in modules manager in ProcessWire admin, or clone or download the module's source code from the LogsJsonViewer GitHub repository. If you have questions or suggestions, be sure to visit the LogsJ JSON Viewer support forum thread.

Thanks to Robin Sallis for creating this module and sharing it with us!

Site of the week: Kuhnen & Wacker

Our latest site of the week belongs to Kuhnen & Wacker, a globally oriented intellectual property law firm based in Freising and Munich, Germany.

With a respectable 45+ year history, Kuhnen & Wacker (or K&W for short) is a global, ISO certified company with a team of experts specialized in numerous fields of trademark and patent law: chemistry, pharmaceutics and biotech; information and communication technology; mechanical engineering, physics; electrical engineering; legal, trademark and design; and medical engineering.

The website of Kuhnen & Wacker was created by the team at one of the most prolific agencies in the ProcessWire sites directory, typneun Designagentur. In addition to a truly gorgeous design and various interesting, animated visual effects, this multilingual site also features plenty of quality content, currently made available in three languages: German, English, and Japanese.

As for behind the scenes details, the front-end of this site appears to be custom-built, without the help of a full-blown front-end framework. There are some familiar third party dependencies here though, including the ever-popular carousel plugin slick and the lottie-player web component for handling embedded animations. As for third party ProcessWire modules and such, there are none visible on the front-end of the site.

Big thanks to the folks at typneun Designagentur for sharing yet another interesting project with us — and our congratulations to the client, Kuhnen & Wacker, for their new, ProcessWire powered website!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 531st issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 20th of July. 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!