ProcessWire Weekly #69

Latest core updates: ProcessWire 2.6.16

In his latest processwire.com blog post, Ryan introduces the latest version of the development branch, 2.6.16, and also answers a bunch of questions about the upcoming ProDrafts module. Here's a brief summary of the core updates this week:

• Page schema was modified to include a brand new "published" datetime property. This addition to the existing "created" and "modified" timestamps is useful for cases where you want to track when a page was published, not just when it was created or last modified. Potential use cases range from RSS feeds to publish dates of news items or blog posts, etc.
• Page fields now support custom label format. Before you could only choose one field to use as the label of selectable pages in a Page field, but with this update you can now use more than one field, and also define how they're displayed: "{title} - {template.label} published {publishedStr}" etc. This option can be enabled via the "Input" tab of any Page field.
• AsmSelect now optionally lets you edit selected pages. If the "link selected pages to the page editor" setting is enabled via the "Input" tab in Page field settings, page labels will open a new modal window for editing the selected page. Note that you can enable a similar feature for earlier versions of ProcessWire with the Page Field Edit Links module.

In other news, if you're eagerly waiting for the next stable version of ProcessWire, this might be of interest to you: while we don't yet have official dates a, Ryan did mention this week that the ProDrafts module is currently planned to be released in October, and that ProcessWire 2.7 will follow shortly after.

We'll keep you updated on how these plans progress. For more details about the latest core updates, and an extensive ProDrafts Q&A, check out the blog post by Ryan!

New article about ProcessWire at Tuts+: Introduction to ProcessWire

The e-learning site Tuts+ has launched an introductory article about ProcessWire, aptly titled "Introduction to ProcessWire". The article instantly sparked some buzz at Twitter, not to mention some rather heated discussion at our support forum.

Some have expressed that they like the article while others consider it too elementary or boring. The article is indeed brief and mainly explains what ProcessWire is. While it does a decent job at explaining most of the important concepts of ProcessWire, it doesn't really explain how our API works, what the backend looks like and what it's capabilities are, etc.

Regardless of the quality of said article, it's great to see an influential site like Tuts+ taking notice of ProcessWire. At the very least this could bring new users over to see what the buzz is all about, and I'm sure we can all agree that this is a good thing!

The original Tuts+ ProcessWire article, as authored by Bilal Shaheen, is available from Tuts+ under the name of Introduction to ProcessWire. There's also an official Spanish translation available: Introducción a ProcessWire.

New module by Adam Kiss: PageRenderCache

PageRenderCache is a new module by Adam Kiss. PageRenderCache provides "zero setup page rendering with caching, with simple replacements" by building on the foundation of the built-in MarkupCache module.

The module works by adding a new "renderCache" method to Page objects. This method is used for rendering pages specific template file and automatically using MarkupCache to cache the resulting markup. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, the module supports providing replacement strings as an array, automatically replacing {{tags}}.

For more details, examples, and instructions, check out the GitHub repository, and for general support, head down to the support forum thread. Thanks to Adam for sharing this very useful module with us!

New module bundle by Kongondo: FieldtypeRuntimeMarkup and InputfieldRuntimeMarkup

Module bundle RuntimeMarkup consists of two modules: FieldtypeRuntimeMarkup and InputfieldRuntimeMarkup. The module, built by Kongondo and sponsored by Andrey Valiev, adds support for displaying PHP-generated markup directly within Admin.

The value of this the fieldtype is generated at runtime, based on PHP code defined via field settings. The module has access to API variables $page and $pages, allowing you to pull content from any page on the system, including the current one. Since the value is never saved to the database, it's not searchable via the API either, meaning that this fieldtype is intended purely for output purposes.

Word of warning: while field settings are only available for superusers, this module does still execute PHP code typed in via a web interface. The implication is that in case your superuser credentials ever get into wrong hands, this can be extremely dangerous.

Thanks to Kongondo for sharing this with us, and equally big thanks to Andrey for sponsoring the module while still allowing it to be distributed as open source!

Site of the week: Fuchshuber Architekten

Our site of the week this time belongs to Fuchshuber Architekten. Based in Leipzig, Germany, their main areas of expertise include house construction, hotels and interior design, and renovations and conservation.

Their new ProcessWire site, designed and built by Medienfreunde, is one of the most beautiful ones we've seen in a while. It has both the content and photography to match its design, all the layouts feel well thought out, and as one rather specific highlight, the PhotoSwipe JavaScript gallery is a perfect fit for the image galleries.

All things considered, this site both looks and feels great. Big thanks to the folks at Medienfreunde for sharing this with us – hopefully we'll be seeing more of your ProcessWire work in the near future!

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 69th issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 12th of September. 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!