ProcessWire Weekly #545

New module: FrontendAutoReload

FrontendAutoReload is, in a nutshell, a developer tool that keeps track of files in your templates directory (/site/templates/) and notifies the browser when something has changed, triggering an automatic reload. This is achieved by creating an endpoint on your site using URL hooks, and then polling said endpoint using JavaScript.

For safety reasons the module is only active if debug mode is enabled, and even then only for superusers. The module isn't configurable via admin, but provides a set of methods for customizing its behaviour, as well as accessing configured settings:

// Get an instance of the module:
$far = $modules->get('FrontendAutoReload');

// Set polling interval (2 seconds):
$far->setInterval(2):

// Set excluded directories:
$far->setExcludedDirectories(['/assets', '/vendor']);

// Set excluded file extensions:
$far->setExcludedExtensions(['md', 'bmp']);

// Output JavaScript used for polling:
echo $far->renderScript();

There are also public getters for aforementioned properties, as well as the endpoint, which (at least as of this writing) is not directly configurable.

This module is not available via our modules directory, at least for now, but you can give it a try by cloning or downloading the source code from the FrontendAutoReload GitHub repository. As always with modules that are notin the modules directory, extra caution is recommended; only use it if you know what you are doing.

Thanks to André Herdling, aka digitalbrick, for creating this module!

New module: FieldtypeSketchyDate

FieldtypeSketchyDate is a brand-new module created by BitPoet. This module stores an imprecise date — which, in the context of this module, is defined as a date that might contain a full date, or a combination of year and month, or just a month.

The native date fields in ProcessWire are intended for storing full dates and regardless of how you actually use stored data, stored values will always include year, month, and day. This module, in turn, allows you to store both complete and incomplete dates: you can only store year, or year and month, which may be preferable for some use cases.

Stored values can be searched using equally loose comparisons: as the README for the module explains, searching with 2024/03 would return all dates from 2024/03/01 to 2024/03/31 — as well as all dates that were entered just as 2024/03.

If you'd like to give this module a try, you can clone or download the module's source code from the FieldtypeSketchyDate GitHub repository. Please note that this module is currently at alpha stage in terms of stability; at the very least you should test carefully before installing it on a production site. You can read more about the module's current limitations from the README in the GitHub repository.

Thanks to BitPoet for creating this module!

Site of the week: El Tony Mate

Our latest site of the week is a showcase for El Tony Mate, a mate tea made from Argentinian natural ingredients. El Tony was created by Swiss intelligentfood Schweiz AG, together with their development and production partners in Switzerland, Europe, and Argentina.

Freshly brewed mate tea from Argentina with natural ingredients and 100% vegan. El Tony Mate is everyone's darling: an energy booster for bookworms, an extra kick for dancing nighthawks and a refresher for bathing beauties.

— El Tony Mate

The El Tony Mate website was designed and developed by Nuél Schoch and showcased in their portfolio. Content wise this site has all that you'd expect from a solid product website, such as information about the product line, as well as the core values of the company behind the production of El Tony. That being said, what really makes this site pop is the visual design — gorgeous graphics combined with a animated elements and video material. It is a truly gorgeous site all around.

As for behind the scenes details, the front-end of this site appears to be built with the Bootstrap front-end framework with quite a few customizations on top of it. The site is multilingual, available in a total of five languages, and as for non-core modules there's at least one familiar one here: cookie consent solution PrivacyWire.

Our congratulations to intelligentfood Schweiz AG, El Tony Mate, and of course the creator of the site, Nuél Schoch, for this brilliant, ProcessWire powered website. Splendid job from everyone involved in this project!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 545th issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 26th of October. 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!