ProcessWire Weekly #617

Latest core updates: ProcessWire 3.0.257

In his latest weekly update at the support forum, Ryan talks about version 3.0.257 of ProcessWire, available now via the dev branch at GitHub. Probably the biggest feature in this version is an alternative version of the PageFinder class, the part of core that does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to e.g. $pages->find().

Introducing new, experimental version of PageFinder

As Ryan explains in his post, this new version is based on the ideas suggested by AI coding tool Claude Code, though the code is still human-made. This new version is still experimental, and as such Ryan has split it into a new version that can currently be enabled by setting a config flag:

$config->PageFinder('version', 2);

Version 2 of PageFinder may become the default version at some point, but for now we are experimenting with it. This is, after all, a very critical part of the core, and swapping it with a new version would be a pretty big deal — to put it mildly.

That being said, version 2 of PageFinder seems to perform better for some queries than version 1. We have yet to identify the exact situations where it results in major benefits, so for the time being you should consider this an experimental feature: feel free to give it a try, but keep in mind that it might not work perfectly in all situations.

That's all for our core updates section this week. Be sure to check out the weekly update from Ryan for more details, including some observations about using AI tools, and Claude Code in specific, for software development. Thanks!

New module: Grok Imagine

Grok Imagine is a new third-party ProcessWire module created by Maxim Semenov. In a nutshell Grok Imagine is a module that generates images via AI tool, more specifically Grok, or the X AI service, directly from the admin.

In order to use Grok Imagine, you need to install the module, register an account at x.ai, set your x.ai API key via the module's settings page, and select the image fields that you want to enable Grok image generation for. You can also (optionally) set up a system prompt, which tells Grok what to generate, e.g. Professional photo of %title%, white background. %fieldname% refers to field value from active page.

The module allows you to define the model and resolution used for image generation, image aspect ratio, and various other settings — check out the Grok Imagine modules directory page for more details.

If you'd like to give this module a try, you can install it via the built-in modules manager in the admin, or clone or download the module's source code from the GrokImagine GitHub repository. If you have any questions or suggestions to the module's author, head down to the Grok Imagine support forum thread.

Thanks to Maxim Semenov for creating this module and sharing it with us!

New module: Banana Imagine

Banana Imagine is a new third-party ProcessWire module, created by Maxim Semenov. This module is a lot like the Grok Imagine module introduced earlier, and allows you to generate images directly from within an existing Pageimage field in the admin. The main difference between Banana Imagine and Grok Imagine is that this module uses Google Gemini (Nano Banana) for image generation.

The overall setup and usage for Banana Imagine is essentially the same as for Grok Imagine: install the module, create Google AI Studio account, add your API key in the module's settings page, and configure enabled fields. Again similarly to Grok Imagine you can set up a system prompt, that behaves as your default prompt for generating new images.

Generated images are stored using ProcessWire's own image management features, using clean names that combine the page ID with current timestamp. The module can automatically generate multiple variations of the same image, enabling you to choose from a variety of end results, keeping the ones that actually work for your use case.

If you'd like to give this module a try, you can install it via the built-in modules manager in the admin, or clone or download the module's source code from the BananaImagine GitHub repository. If you have any questions or suggestions, head down to the Banana Imagíne support forum thread.

Again big thanks to Maxim Semenov for creating this module and sharing it with us!

Site of the week: Münsterland

Our latest site of the week is called Münsterland. Managed by non-profit Münsterland e.V. this site is an info portal for the region of Münsterland in northwestern Germany, providing useful information for tourists, locals, and those interested in moving to the area alike.

As a cycling, castle and equestrian region, Münsterland also offers you numerous leisure activities: More than 100 castles, manor houses and other magnificent buildings, beautiful picnic spots, natural landscapes, cultural events and museums invite you to take a trip.

Created by DREIKON, the Münsterland website is an information portal with a vast amount of content, grouped into the topics of economy, work, tourism, culture, and an about section for the Münsterland e.V. organisation. The design of the site is pleasant, not so much flashy as straightforward, clean, and user-friendly. The site is multilingual, available in German, Dutch, and English, and there is a handy accessibility toolbar with options for larger text size, more readable font, high contrast or greyscale mode, etc.

As for some behind the scenes details, it looks like the front-end of this site is custom-built, without a full-blown front-end framework. There are, though, some familiar third-party utilities on the JavaScript side, such as Flickity carousel, and on the ProcessWire side we could spot at least one familiar non-core module: ProCache.

Our congratulations to both Münsterland e.V. and the team behind this project at DREIKON — great job from everyone involved in this project!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 617th issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 14th of March. 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!