ProcessWire Weekly #631

Latest core updates

This week there's no version bump for the core, but there are quite a few updates nevertheless. These updates are primarily bug fixes, along with some housekeeping type work. Here's what was fixed in the dev branch this week:

• Nested repeater items were being unpublished incorrectly, and multi-language repeater values were lost on save.
• Fieldset deletes could affect unrelated fields when the companion close-field reference was stale or corrupted.
• PNG transparency was being lost in WebP generation, and concurrent image resizing was filling logs with (harmless) rename errors.
• WireCache was throwing errors in certain edge cases, and pages with session activity could be incorrectly cached by the browser's back/forward cache.
• Fieldtype companion classes (like RepeaterField) were triggering "Cannot redeclare class" errors, and PagesExportImport wasn't being found when instantiated directly.
• Admin dropdown menus were going transparent when clicking an empty space inside them, and partial adminIcons config was triggering warnings.
• PagePathHistory redirects did not work properly with UTF-8 multi-language page names, "forgot password" lookup wasn't finding certain users, and trash restoration was failing for pages with sort=0.

In addition to aforementioned fixes, all the unused Font Awesome 6 directories were removed in order to trim the core's download size.

In other news...

Ryan also has a weekly update posted at the support forum, in which he talks about a new project he's been working on. That project is called Rambler, and it is a language model being built in PHP. As Ryan explains in his post, he is building Rambler as a way to actually learn about what is happening behind the scenes when he interacts with existing AI tools.

The new model (and future ProcessWire module) is called Rambler. Currently it rambles on, often incoherently, hence the name Rambler. Though it'll get more coherent as time goes on, no doubt (hopefully!). Rambler uses zero machine learning libraries, no black boxes, and in fact has no dependencies at all. It's just pure PHP implementing the same mathematical foundations that power modern AI systems like GPT, at least that's the goal.

— Ryan

The long-term plan is to eventually release Rambler as a standalone project, and as a ProcessWire module. If the idea of a language model built in PHP sounds interesting, definitely go check out the weekly update for more details.

That's all for our core updates section. For more details, be sure to also check out the weekly update from Ryan at the processwire.com support forum. Thanks!

New module: Ally

Ally is a new third-party ProcessWire module created by Maxim Semenov. Ally — the name of which originates from a11y, or accessibility, if that wasn't obvious — is a self-hosted accessibility widget. It is powered by the MIT licensed JavaScript accessibility widget Sienna.

Once installed and enabled, the Ally module adds a widget to your site that lets users adjust various aspects of the user interface to better suit their needs:

• Font size adjustment
• Dark, light, and high contrast modes
• High or low saturation, monochrome mode
• Dyslexia-friendly font option
• Highlights for links and headings
• Letter spacing, line height, bold text
• Reading guide, stop animations, big cursor
• 53 languages available, auto-detected from html element lang attribute or the browser language setting

The widget itself is configurable, e.g. you can adjust the position and size and other relevant variables. And what is also great about this module is that it has no external dependencies, loads nothing from a third-party CDN, etc. The entire JavaScript bundle is hosted on your site, which means that no data leaks to any third parties while using it.

If you'd like to give Ally a try, you can install it via the built-in modules manager in the admin, or clone or download it from the Ally GitHub repository. In case you have any questions or require additional assistance, head down to the Ally support thread.

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

New module: Replace Microsoft Protected Links

Replace Microsoft Protected Links is a new textformatter module for ProcessWire created by the Australian Antarctic Division. There is also an optional companion module called Format Microsoft Protected Links that does the same, except on permanent basis during page save.

In a nutshell this module replaces Microsoft protected links within field content with regular links. Such links are not intended for public consumption, but they can quite easily creep into page content when e.g. copying content from Microsoft apps to your website. And they are not just "weird links" — turns out they can leak information.

As we operate in Microsoft heavy corporate environment, we've noticed more and more strange looking links getting pasted into our site. These are Microsoft protected links and are a 'intercept' link that attempts to check the link is legit before letting the user proceed to the original URL.

[...] The issue is, these links leak data in the URL parameters, including the email address of who has copied the link!

— Australian Antarctic Division

This module is available via the TextformatterMicrosoftProtectedLinks GitHub repository, and can also be installed it via the built-in modules manager in the admin. In case you have questions for the author, head down to the Replace Microsoft Protected Links support forum thread.

Big thanks to the Australian Antarctic Division for sharing this module with us!

Site of the week: SF-Caravan ry

Our latest site of the week is that of SF-Caravan ry, the umbrella organization for the recreational vehicle hobby in Finland. Their website was recently redesigned and relaunched by the team at Vitec Avoine.

Founded in 1964, SF-Caravan ry has 80 member associations with more than 60,000 individual members. They act as the national interest group and umbrella organization, promoting camping tourism and recreational vehicle hobby, and their newly relaunched website aims to be an extensive source of information for those interested in camping and caravanning in Finland.

Multi-stage and pioneering work has been carried out in Finland since 1964. Over the years, the organization's activities have evolved from familiar gatherings to professional, planned and well-managed activities that aim to have a broad impact on the development of camping tourism and the tourist vehicle industry, in addition to caravanning activities.

— SF-Caravan ry

The SF-Caravan website has been around for quite a while, and for a considerable time it has also been powered by ProcessWire. The latest iteration has just been launched, and among other things it has a new and modern design, a block based content editor for creating rich content, specialized views for member associations and membership benefits, an events calendar, a web shop, and an active discussions forum.

As for some behind the scenes details, the front-end of this site has been custom-built, and is no full-blown front-end framework at play here. The site does make use of third-party JavaScript utilites, though — Bartender, Swiper, and boringmenu.js, just to name a few. Meanwhile, some of the ProcessWire modules used on this site include Wireframe, SearchEngine, Pro modules FormBuilder and ProCache, and the cookie consent and async asset loading solution PrivacyWire.

Our congratulations to both the client, SF-Caravan ry, as well as the team behind this project at Avoine!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 631st issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 20th of June. 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!