ProcessWire Weekly #97

Latest core updates: ProcessWire 3.0.12 adds support for extended page names

Until now it has only been possible use ASCII characters in the names and URLs of pages in ProcessWire. That's fine for most use cases, but in some situations it's not enough. For an example, there have been various requests based on the need to include Chinese or Scandinavian characters in URLs.

ProcessWire 3.0.12, as explained by Ryan in his latest blog post, adds support for so-called extended page names – essentially non-ASCII characters in page names. The latest version of the 3.x branch adds two configuration settings for defining allowed characters:

• $config->pageNameCharset allows you to specify the character set used for page names. Currently supported values are "ascii" and "UTF8". If you want to enable the extended page name feature, set the value of this setting to "UTF8".
• $config->pageNameWhitelist contains all the characters allowed for page names. The default value includes most commonly used characters from Western and Scandinavian languages. Blank value indicates that all characters all allowed.

For more details about enabling the extended page names feature, including summary of changes required for the default .htaccess file, check out Ryan's latest blog post at processwire.com. Thanks!

Facebook Post on Page Save, a new module built and released by Dimitrios Kastrinakis

This week we're taking a closer look at a module we briefly mentioned in our previous issue: Facebook Post on Page Save – or AutoFbPost for short. In a nutshell AutoFbPost, the first module published by Dimitris Kastrinakis, makes it possible to create a new Facebook post whenever a page matching predefined criteria is saved.

In addition to ID and secret of your Facebook app – and optional page ID – AutoFbPost provides a couple of additional configuration settings for specifying when, how, and exactly what should be posted to Facebook:

• You can select the specific templates that will trigger a Facebook post
• You can define a checkbox field that will prevent a Facebook post being created
• You can define the ProcessWire fields that correspond with Facebook posts name, message, description, and image fields

Some potential use cases for this module include automatically notifying friends and followers via Facebook when new content – blog post, news article, product, etc. – is available. Alternatively you could add a template solely for the purpose of posting content to Facebook – one with absolutely no visible counterpart on your site.

For more details and screenshots, check out the AutoFbPost support forum thread. Big thanks to Diimtris for developing and sharing this module with us!

IndieAuth Module for ProcessWire, built and released by gRegor Morrill

The IndieAuth module adds support for authenticating users using the IndieAuth protocol. For those not familiar with the concept behind IndieAuth, here's a brief summary:

IndieAuth is a way to use your own domain name to sign in to websites. It works by linking your website to one or more authentication providers such as Twitter or Google, then entering your domain name in the login form on websites that support IndieAuth.

The IndieAuth module provides two functions: you can use it to authenticate users without signing them in – in which case the indieauth_domain session variable will contain the domain of the user – or you can use it to sign the user in using her own domain.

Installing the module is simple, but requires some manual steps: first of all, you'll have to add a custom authentication template or integrate the provided authentication form with one of your existing templates. The second step (only required if you want to sign users in using IndieAuth) requires adding a user-editable website field to user profiles.

We're always happy to see more great contributions for our favorite platform, so big thanks to gRegor Morrill for sharing this module with us!

Site of the week: Greater Cincinnati Behavioral Health Services

Our latest site of the week belongs to Greater Cincinnati Behavioral Health Services. GCB is a non-profit organization employing over 500 professionals providing a wide range of services related to mental and physical health.

Every program is an extension of the GCB mission: To ensure people with mental illness, addictions, and related challenges lead healthy and productive lives.

The site consists of details about the organization and their services, stories of some of the people they've helped, and so much more. There's plenty of content on this site and it's both well written, especially when it come to the stories from their patients.

From a technical point of view the site is responsive (based on the Unsemantic front-end framework, apparently) and makes use of the AIOM+ module. One particularly neat feature is the donation form: though it's based on the FormBuilder module, it has gone through a bunch of well-implemented customizations.

The site of Greater Cincinnati Behavioral Health Services was designed and built by Core Five Creative, so thanks to them for sharing it with us. For more details and background, check out the case story on their own site.

Stay tuned for our next issue

That's it for the 97th issue of ProcessWire Weekly. We'll be back with more news, updates, and content Saturday, 26th 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!