ProcessWire Weekly #592

In the processwire.com blog this week: throttling AI bot traffic in ProcessWire

In the latest post at the processwire.com blog, Ryan covers some new features that have just been added to one of his commercial modules, Wire Request Blocker and Throttler. This module is a part of the ProDevTools module bundle, which also contains other invaluable tools, such as ProfilerPro, User Activity, API Explorer, and Sitemap XML.

Many websites these days are the feeding ground for AI bots. In this post we look at a tool for taming all the hungry crawlers and bots.

— Ryan

Said new features are related to bot control, e.g. keeping overeager crawlers — such as AI bots, which have been causing quite a bit of ruckus as of lately — at bay. To achieve this, Ryan has added two types of throttle settings to the module:

• “defined” throttles which throttle specific user agents (or IP addresses),
• and “general” throttles which throttle everything else.

If a bot (or user for that matter) hits one of these throttles, they get the "429 Too Many Requests" response code from the server. Once throttle time is over, the module will automatically refresh the page, just in case it was actually a real user.

One thing that makes this feature unique is that it doesn't require a ProcessWire site to do its job. For an example we are using the same throttle feature for our support forum, which is powered by IP.Board.

As Ryan explains in his post, the idea is definitely not to block AI bots or other crawlers completely — that'd be a bad idea — but rather to conserve the site's resources, so that actual human users can still reach it, and server load doesn't generate an unreasonably high cost. For processwire.com this means that those bots that actually follow robots.txt rules (e.g. crawl-delay) properly won't get throttled at all.

For more details about the throttling features for Wire Request Blocker and Throttler, be sure to check out the blog post by Ryan at processwire.com. Thanks!

New module: StripePaymentLinks

StripePaymentLinks is a new third party module from frameless Media KG. In a nutshell it is a lightweight for handling Stripe's Payment Links, and here's a list of what this little powerhouse of a module can do for you, as outlined in the module's README file:

• Handling the Stripe redirect (success URL)
• Creating or updating the user account
• Recording purchases in a repeater field
• Issuing access links for products that require login
• Sending branded access mails
• Rendering Bootstrap modals for login, reset, and set-password flows

Payment Links are a handy payment method for those cases where a "full" e-commerce system would be a bit much, and they are also quite simple to integrate to a website for customized workflows. That's where this module comes into the picture: it takes care of some typical integration scenarios pretty much right out of the box.

If you'd like to give this module a try, you can grab a copy from the StripePaymentLinks GitHub repository. Please note, though, that it is quite new and, at least for now, not in the official ProcessWire modules directory, so extra caution is recommended.

Big thanks to the team at frameless Media for creating this module!

Site of the week: Stacks — The Project Management Tool for Everyone

Our latest site of the week belongs to the all-in-one work and project management tool called Stacks. It is a versatile app that caters for a variety of needs: in addition to typical project management utilities, Stacks also comes with tools for document and file management, contacts, calendar for events and scheduling, and it even has built-in analytics and reporting utilities.

What's also interesting about Stacks is the way it works technically. It is an application that runs on your machine, which means that private data never leaves your hands — unless you actually need to share your work with others, in which case you can either use file sharing tools such as Google Drive, Dropbox, or Git, or set up a self-hosted open-source Stacks server for syncing your stacks with the team instantly.

At its core, Stacks is a tool that allows you to create and organize your projects, tasks, and team members in one place. You can create different "stacks" for different projects, and within each stack, you can create tasks, set due dates, assign team members, and more.

The Stacks website is a beautifully designed product site with plenty of material about the application, as well as numerous screenshots and screencasts showcasing the set of features it provides. The site also contains a comprehensive help section, reviews from customers, and information about the company and team behind the product.

As for some behind the scenes details, the front-end of this site appears to be powered by the Bootstrap front-end framework, along with some familiar third-party tools and libraries, such as Owl Carousel. In terms of ProcessWire implementation, there are no signs of familiar third-party modules here, so not much we can say about that.

Thanks to the author of the site, Cris, for sharing this project with us — congratulations, and best of luck for the app! Local-first tools like Stacks make a lot of sense in today's complicated security landscape.

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 592nd issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 20th 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!