ProcessWire Weekly #64

Latest core updates: system-wide AJAX-driven inputfields, conditional hooks, new CKEditor, and more!

In his latest blog post Ryan walks us through the latest development version of ProcessWire, 2.6.11, which introduces a very interesting bunch of new features. Please note, though, that the updates introduced this time were pretty big; extra caution is advised!

• AJAX-driven Inputfields, in a nutshell, mean that fields can be closed by default, and loaded only when they're really needed. This is particularly useful when combined with inputfields that require heavy operations behind the scenes. Another very nice use case are tabs and fieldsets: the whole tab/fieldset can be loaded asynchronously when opened, often making the editing experience a lot faster!
• Conditional hooks are a way to define conditions on which hooks should be triggered. Ryan's blog post has more examples, but here's a simple condition that would trigger a hook method only after the "order_status" field of a Page using the "order" template was changed: $wire->addHookAfter('Page(template=order)::changed(order_status)', function($event) { ... }). Pretty neat, huh?
• Two updates for the Family settings of templates: new "one" option for "can this template be used for new pages?" makes it easy to create templates that can be used for one page only, and the "allowed templates(s) for children/parents" settings can now display whether selected templates also need to be configured similarly (in which case the template name functions as a link to the Family settings of said template).
• Usage field on template settings Basics tab displays a Lister displaying all the pages using current template. This feature makes use of the new AJAX-driven Inputfields, and thus it is only loaded when needed.
• Page Autocomplete input was updated to have a simpler format when used for selecting one page only. The screenshot in Ryan's blog post displays the new format in action.

In other news, the built-in CKEditor Inputfield has just been updated to CKEditor 4.5.1, Admin Theme Reno received some updates, and a couple of minor bugs were fixed since last week's updates. All in all this week's updates were pretty big and, as we mentioned earlier, should be tested carefully!

As always, this is just a summary of the latest core updates. Don't forget to check out the latest processwire.com blog post by Ryan for more details.

New module: Admin Page Tree Multiple Sorting by David Karich

Admin Page Tree Multiple Sorting is a module that adds a neat new feature to ProcessWire's Admin. By default children of each given template are sorted either manually via drag-and-drop, or by one named field (in ascending or descending order). Admin Page Tree Multiple Sorting introduces the ability to sort pages based on multiple field values instead.

Sort settings are defined as simple yet powerful configuration strings in the form of template: field1, field2, -field3 etc. For an example, blog: -created, -modified, title means that all children of pages using the "blog" template are automatically sorted by fields "created" (descending), "modified" (also descending), and "title".

Thanks to David Karich of FlipZoom Media Inc. for sharing this module with us. Very much appreciated!

New module: Textformatter Normalize UTF8 by Bea Dav

Textformatter Normalize UTF8 is a new textformatter module by Bea Dav. What this module does is that when applied to any given text field, it runs the value of the field through the Normalizer component of the Patchwork UTF-8 library, which in turn normalizes given text by converting it to the NFC normalization form.

If all of this sounds unfamiliar and/or terribly confusing, there's a more thorough description in the forum post introducing the module. For most users it's probably enough to know that if you validate your content using the W3C HTML5 validator and see the "text run is not in Unicode Normalization Form C" error, this module will fix the issue for you.

Thanks to Bea for another very handy module!

Support forum highlights of the week

Here are some of the latest posts and threads from our support forum that you folks might want to check out, in no particular order:

• First of all, a very thorough and helpful tutorial post from Can regarding WireCache and it's potential use cases. Worth checking out whether or not you're already familiar with WireCache, also known as the $cache API variable.
• Pierre-Luc has just updated his ProcessWire install script, adding some very neat interactive features. Don't forget to check out the screencast, which pretty much explains it all. Setting up ProcessWire won't get much easier than this!
• We've always enjoyed stories about people finding out about ProcessWire and realising that it is the right system for them. Here's a little story from a recent ProcessWire convert. Welcome aboard, Rick – hope you enjoy the ride!
• Finally, a friendly tip for uninstalling the Page Link Abstractor module after upgrading to ProcessWire 2.6. Actually, as you can see, this one is mostly discussed at GitHub, but it might come in handy for some users out there either way :)

There's always something going on at our support forum, and while most discussions unsurprisingly revolve around ProcessWire, we've also got separate forum sections set up for general development topics (the dev talk forum area) or just about anything (the pub).

Don't miss all the fun, sign up today!

Site of the week: The Viceroy Fine Dining

Our site of the week this time is The Viceroy Fine Dining, a site for an authentic Indian restaurant located in the historic city of Dunfermline in Scotland.

The Viceroy claims to offer "generous portions and unforgettable tastes in a relaxed, sophisticated atmosphere". That's something we'll just have to take their word for, but when it comes to the site itself, it does indeed give an impression of a relaxed and sophisticated atmosphere.

Stylistically the site is both modern and classic at the same time, and we're really liking the use of colours and what appear to be real images of the restaurant and it's staff (not just another bunch of stock photos). The responsive aspect is well handled to the point that we enjoyed browsing the site on mobile perhaps even more than on a larger screen.

This site was put together by David Johnson, a digital designer and front-end coder from Glasgow, Scotland. Thanks to David for sharing this site with us, and congratulations to The Viceroy for having such a great site!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 64th issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content next 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!