ProcessWire Weekly #607

Latest core updates and a weekly update from Ryan

This week we've got a new weekly update from Ryan, in which he covers some of his experiences with launching a new project using the recently added File Regions core feature. The long story short is that this feature will still require some additional performance optimization before it can be considered fully production-ready.

As for the latest core updates, here's a summary of what's new in the dev branch of ProcessWire at GitHub for the past week or so:

• A fix for issue #2170, where Inputfield header actions were disabled by default.
• A fix for issue #2171, where Config::versionUrls() was passed something other than a string as a parameter, resulting in a deprecation error in later PHP versions.
• Per feature request #572, Inputfield header actions now support a target property regardless of whether they are in a dropdown or not.
• File Regions are now disabled by default, and can be specifically enabled via a config option $config->useMarkupRegions = 2.
• Markup Regions will now be able to populate content more flexibly, enabling e.g. files that are loaded after the main markup to populate regions in files before it.

That's all for our core updates section this week. For more details, be sure to check out the weekly update from Ryan, and keep on reading for more news and updates. Thanks!

New module: WireWall

WireWall is a new third-party ProcessWire module, created by Maxim Alex. In a nutshell this module is, as the module's directory entry also explains, an advanced security and firewall module for ProcessWire.

Enterprise-grade security and firewall module for ProcessWire CMS with comprehensive geo-blocking, bot protection, rate limiting, VPN/Proxy detection, and city-level access control.

— Maxim Alex

Here are some of the features that this module provides:

• Country, city, and region level blocking, making it possible to block unwanted traffic based on source country, city, or region (e.g. Pennsylvania or California).
• ASN (Autonomous System Number) blocking, making it possible to block entire networks or datacenters (e.g. Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, or DigitalOcean).
• VPN, proxy, and Tor detection enabling you to block users that are attempting to somehow hide their real identity.
• Rate limiting for IP addresses creating too much traffic, along with JavaScript based challenges for suspicious clients.
• File-based caching mechanism with a vast amount of scalability, along with a UI for viewing statistics and cache status.

In terms of user experience, the module provides the ability to customize exactly what blocked clients/users actually see, or where they get redirected to. Meanwhile, as an admin, you can review actions the module has taken via wirewall.txt log file. For more details, check out the module's directory entry for WireWall, or the marketing and info website at wirewall.org.

If you'd like to give this module a try, you can clone or download it from the WireWall GitHub repository, or install it via the built-in modules manager in the admin. In case you need support or have suggestions for the author, head down to the dedicated WireWall module support forum thread.

Big thanks to Maxim Alex for creating this module and sharing it with us!

Site of the week: Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft

Our latest site of the week belongs to Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft, Hamburg's first address for all creative industries and Germany's largest municipal creative industries promotion agency.

Among other things Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft provides counseling and education for creative professionals, brokers spaces for both long-term purposes and temporary iterim use, and support the urban development of Hamburg area, and creates networking opportunities and host events. Their staff of almost 60 individuals works on a daily basis for improving the framework conditions for creative professionals.

The ProcessWire powered website of Hamburg Kreative Gesellschaft was a co-project by Hansen/2 (design), Engramm (development), and Godewind (UX). The site features a very nice and modern design, loads of information about the agency and their services, an events calendar, and a magazine section with a vast and varied selection of articles for creative professionals. All in all it is a beautiful site with plenty of quality content.

As for some behind the scenes details, the front-end of this site appears to be largely custom-built, as there are no signs of a full-blown front-end framework here. When it comes to ProcessWire modules, there are a couple that we could spot: cookie consent management module PrivacyWire, and caching and minification Pro module ProCache.

Our congratulations to Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft for their brilliant, ProcessWire powered website, as well as the whole team behind this project for a job well done!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 607th issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 27th of December. 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!