ProcessWire Weekly #568

Latest core updates

This week there are a few new updates in the dev branch of ProcessWire at GitHub. Here's a summary of what's new since last week:

• A fix for issue 2053, where the PageArray::not() method had incorrect behaviour description in the code comments.
• A fix for issue 2056, where InputfieldWrapper core class had a minor PHP deprecation issue with null treated as string.
• A fix for issue 2057, where $page->if() returned the "yes" condition value as a callable if it was a Page or similar object.
• A fix for issue 2058, where Inputfield modules added to InputfieldPage's inputfieldClasses were not available in "Add Field".
• Additional updates for the admin login page, and the addition of a "for" attribute for visually hidden inputfield labels for improved accessibility.

That's all for our core updates section this week. 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.

• To kick things off we've got a new post for anyone using or interested in checking out the PAGEGRID page builder for ProcessWire: PAGEGRID Developer Walkthrough! This post contains a couple of video tutorials, one for overall developer introduction and another about creating a custom block for PAGEGRID.
• While we're on the topic of page builders, another post we'd like to highlight is from FireWire, who has created and shared a collection of page builder buttons, and just expanded this collection with a few new ones. This button bundle was created for Rock Page Builder, but can be just as easily used with Repeater Matrix, and of course any custom solution using similar approach.
• Moving on to weekly tips and tricks, first one we'll throw in is a handy little hook from Robin Sallis, making it possible to sort child pages while still preventing edit access on the parent page. This may not be a super common need, but has been covered a few times, so may come in handy at some point.
• Another tip is from Jonathan Lahijani: using the "download" attribute of link element for custom file names. This is a well-supported HTML feature, but likely something that not a whole lot of developers knew was possible, and one use case — as Jonathan points out — could be providing download links for files using their original, unsanitized names; something you wouldn't normally be able to do.
• For those using the SearchEngine module to implement a site search feature, if you've ever wondered how to implement an AJAX powered search, there are now a couple of alternative solutions: one based on the htmx library, and another using vanilla JavaScript and SearchEngine's built-in JSON rendering mode.
• Last but not least, there's an updated version of the TheaterSeating module available, so check it out if this sounds like something that might be of interest to you. This is a module that provides an easy-to-use seat reservation system with plenty of customization options.

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: INQUEST digital archive

Our latest site of the week is the INQUEST archive. This is a project covering events and milestones from the first 40 years of INQUEST, a UK based charity providing support for families involved in state related deaths.

The INQUEST archive website was created by Millipedia and consists of a considerable amount of material, including a timeline of the cases and milestones for the INQUEST project, individual case profiles, as well as interviews of key figures involved with the organization. The subject is heavy, but that's also part of the reason why it is worth archiving for future reference. This site does great job at exactly that.

This site features some interesting and useful features — including the timeline, which can be filtered using various search criteria — along with bold and user-friendly visual design and user interface. Meanwhile some of the non-core ProcessWire modules used on this site include Tracy Debugger, commercial ProCache, RockFrontend (used for AJAX routing), and the PDF fieldtype.

For more details, be sure to check out the case story at the support forum, which sheds some light on the nuances. And let's not forget the case story for the INQUEST archive project at the Millipedia website either, as it has a slightly different take on the topic.

Thanks to the folks at Millipedia for sharing this project with us, congratulations to the client, INQUEST, for their new, ProcessWire powered digital archive — and thanks for all their work so far!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 568th issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 5th of April. 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!