The 638th issue of ProcessWire Weekly brings in all the latest news from the ProcessWire community. Modules, sites, and more. Read on!
Welcome to the latest issue of ProcessWire Weekly! In this week's issue we're going to kick things off by checking out a new weekly update from Ryan, as well as some fresh core updates in the dev branch.
In other news we are going to introduce a new third party module for polls and quizzes: Pulse, created by Maxim Semenov. Maxim is also the guest in the latest processwire.com blog post, in which Ryan asks him about how he's managed to be so productive lately — and much more. Definitely worth checking out.
As always we've also got a new site of the week to highlight. This week that site belongs to the Houston based contemporary American restaurant and bar, The Dispatch. Based in the Magnolia Hotel Houston, they have been named Houston's "Best Hotel Bar" by the Houston Press.
Thanks to all of our readers for being here with us again, and as always, any feedback is most welcome – please don't hesitate to drop us a line if there's anything in your mind you'd like to share with us. Enjoy our latest issue and have a great weekend!
Weekly update from Ryan, and an interview with Maxim Semenov
This week we have a new weekly update from Ryan, in which he shares some details about his travels from past few weeks — to Amsterdam, Oslo, Copenhagen, Aarhus, Stockholm, and Visby, so quite a trip through Northern Europe.
Another topic Ryan covers in his post is the latest post in the processwire.com blog, in which he interviews one of the most active module developers in our community both recently and all-time: Maxim Semenov. Not only has Maxim released a very impressive number of modules in a seemingly fast pace, they are often quite big in scope. As a matter of fact, in this issue we're covering one of his new modules as well (Pulse).
In the blog post you can learn a bit more about who Maxim is and what his background is, how he works, what he's up to right now, and so on. A lot of the post revolves around AI assisted development, so especially if that is something you're interested in, this post is a definite must-read!
And now for some core updates...
Meanwhile, when it comes to core development, there's an interesting security related topic covered in Ryan's post as well; one that affects not just us, but actually quite a large chunk of content management systems in general:
Almost all existing CMSs (even including WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and yes ProcessWire too) have a security oversight where if you upload an uninstalled copy of the CMS to a web accessible location, whoever accesses it first can own it. That's not usually a problem, as you typically load the installer in your browser shortly after you upload/download it to an http accessible location. But not always. What about those instances where you place a copy of a CMS somewhere and forget, or get distracted, and a bot or someone else manages to access it before you?
— Ryan
In response to this potential issue, as of this writing the latest dev version, 3.0.270, now has a new activation token requirement in the installer. This applies automatically to any environment in which the database is not local (e.g. localhost, 127.0.0.1, etc.) — a design decision meant to avoid unnecessarily extra hassle for local development etc.
3.0.270 also adds a minor but still quite handy update that detects when the main admin page is renamed in page editor and redirects automatically to it after save, rather than bluntly displaying a 404 page.
That's all for our core updates section this weke. For more details, as well as a more thorough reporting from Ryan's recent trip, be sure to check out the latest weekly update from Ryan at the processwire.com support forum. Thanks!
New module: Pulse
Pulse is a new third-party ProcessWire module created by Maxim Semenov. With Pulse you can create quizzes and polls, and embed them on your site using shortcodes (e.g. [[pulse:poll name="my-poll"]]). Here's what this module provides right out of the box:
- Polls with live results, multi-select, "other" option, and duplicate protection.
- Quizzes, with a graded mode with pass/fail thresholds, a personality mode which reveals the winning outcome at the end, and an exam mode that features timers, limited attempts, and certificates.
There is also a full-featured admin interface, which makes it simple to manage polls and quizzes, check out basic stats, import and export content, etc. And, last but not least, the module also has cache (incl. ProCache) compatibility and proper security (CSRF protection, honeypot and rate limiting, server-side scoring) built-in.
If you'd like to give Pulse a try, you can clone or download the module from the Pulse GitHub repository, or install it via the built-in modules manager in admin. If you have questions for the author or require additional assistance, head down to the Pulse forum thread at the ProcessWire support forum.
Big thanks to Maxim for creating this module and sharing it with us!
Site of the week: The Dispatch
Our latest site of the week belongs to The Dispatch — a signature restaurant, bar, and lounge located inside the Magnolia Hotel Houston. Situated in the historic former Houston Post-Dispatch newspaper building, The Dispatch features a full bar, a billiards room, and a cozy library space.
The Dispatch website features a nice and modern design, plenty of information and tons of photos from the restaurant, an easy-to-use menu section, an events calendar with multiple ways to browse items, and of course key contact details. It's not a huge site by any means, but still has just about everything one might expect from a well-thought-out restaurant website.
As for some behind the scenes details, the front-end of this site is powered by the Uikit front-end framework, while some of the site's features are embedded from third parties; this includes a menu management solution from SinglePlatform and cookie consent solution from OneTrust. When it comes to non-core ProcessWire modules, a couple that we could spot in action include ProCache and FormBuilder.
Our congratulations to The Dispatch for their new, ProcessWire powered website!
Stay tuned for our next issue
That's it for the 638th issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 8th of August. 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!
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