ProcessWire 2018 Roadmap

Roadmap

The ProcessWire roadmap is an evolving document that we update every year around this time. It reflects the current list of priorities for the ProcessWire project in the coming year and years ahead. During most years, we complete many (though not all) items from the roadmap. We don't limit ourselves to the roadmap either, as many items that weren't on the roadmap are completed too. The focus often depends on what resources are available in any given week, and what the most immediate needs are for current projects and clients. In that respect, we expect 2018 will be similar to years past. Meaning, we expect to cover a lot of territory with what's mentioned here, and much more.

What we did in 2017

Before we look look at our list for 2018, lets first look at what we did in 2017. We released around 40 versions of ProcessWire on the dev branch, and two versions on the 3.x master branch. We also completed these items from the roadmap:

• Introduced a new admin theme to the core (AdminThemeUikit).
• Upgrades to our image/photo tools and client-side image resize support.
• Improved file/image fields with improved tagging support.
• Tools for exporting and importing pages.
• Added drag-drop image support in CKEditor.
• Introduced more multi-language fields.
• Added support for markup regions.
• Continued upgrades to Pro modules.
• Added repeater support in ProDrafts.

Beyond what was on the roadmap, we also added the following in 2017:

• Improvements to admin theme navigation (like page tree in dropdowns).
• Most of the Pro modules received significant version upgrades.
• Moved ProcessWire.com to run on AWS (more)
• Published upgrades to our core API reference site.
• Added a lot of new core API methods and hooks.
• Continued major upgrades to our Repeater fields.
• Released new ProFields module: FieldtypeFunctional.
• Released new Login for Facebook and Login Register modules.
• Released new ProFields module for managing Fieldsets: FieldtypeFieldsetGroup.
• Added a new core module for managing Fieldsets: FieldsetPage.
• Introduced significant upgrades to the core Role editor.
• Major improvements to our Password field.
• Major upgrade to our installer.
• Upgrades to management of user profile screen.
• Added support for more field/template context configuration.
• Introduced major upgrades to the software that powers our support forum and store (IP.Board, thanks to Pete).
• And much more... see our blog posts over the last year for all the details.

Plans for 2018

In 2018 we have the following priorities. Several are carried over from last year, while others are newly added.

open_roadmap2018

• Release ProcessWire 3.1. The scope of ProcessWire 3.1 is essentially the same as the current 3.x dev branch (currently at version 3.0.88).

• Begin work on ProcessWire 3.2, which is where many of the additions outlined in this roadmap will appear.

• Begin redesign and rebuild of processwire.com. When working on this, attention will shift from core updates to this project, and we hope to get started on this one soon. The modules directory and cheatsheet site are part of this as well.

• Replace the classic site profile with the Uikit-based Regular site profile. This site profile also demonstrates markup regions, which was a big focus in 2017.

• Add support for predefined crops in our image tools. While this capability is already available with 3rd party modules, it's been one of the more common requests in the core, and we think it makes sense.

• Add support for custom properties in file/image fields. Currently just description and tags are supported, but it's clear there is strong interest in supporting more here, so we look forward to adding this.

• Add support for image actions. Many of these have already been added, which you'll see in ProcessWire 3.0.88 (now available) and newer.

• As always: continued performance and security optimization to the core, and continued improvements and optimizations to core API variables and functions.

• A front-end JS $pages API still remains a priority, though likely as something outside of the core. Though if there is strong interest, this may very well end up in the core too.

• Continued improvements to our new admin theme, AdminThemeUikit. Some have requested more layout options so we're likely to pursue that too. Our goal for this admin theme has always been that others will be able to take it and run with it in terms of making it their own, so we'll likely make structure changes to make it simpler and simpler to modify.

• Continued coverage of feature requests from our processwire-requests repository, and of course ongoing resolution of issues in our processwire-issues repository.

close_roadmap2018

Beyond the core, there are plans to release upgrades for most of the Pro modules, as well as several non-Pro modules, like LoginRegister, ProcessWireUpgrade and others. We'd also like to hear from you all about what you'd like to see in 2018 for ProcessWire, and in the years ahead. Have a great weekend and enjoy the ProcessWire Weekly which also recently posted a great 2017 recap in issue 190. Thanks for reading!

Comments

• 

  gmclelland

  • 7 years ago
  • 90

  Processwire is amazing! So many things added/improved each year. Looking forward to 2018.

  Since you asked...I still would like to see an easy way to replace files in image and file fields. https://github.com/processwire/processwire-requests/issues/49

  It might also be nice to have a dedicated paginated admin page to search and filter all files uploaded on the website. That way you can search a file by name or see the largest files filtered by extension.

  Just curious...Would the front-end JS $pages API you mentioned be read only, or could you add/update pages as well? I could see this being used by people that want a JAMSTACK website frontend hosted completely on a CDN like https://www.netlify.com where Processwire serves as the back office backend.

  Reply

  • 

    szabesz

    • 7 years ago
    • 50

    "...a dedicated paginated admin page to search and filter all files uploaded on the website."
    +1 Especially if it has (mass) file management features too, like renaming, replacing, deleting, downloading (single files, selected files ZIPped up), cleaning up orphaned files. There are loads of possibilities here, I think.

    Great Idea, Gmclelland !

    Reply

• 

  pwFoo

  • 7 years ago
  • 70

  ★★★★★

  A front-end JS $pages API still remains a priority, though likely as something outside of the core. Though if there is strong interest, this may very well end up in the core too.

  Would be awesome!!!

  Reply

• 

  Noel

  • 7 years ago
  • 30

  ★★★★★

  Thank you Ryian!

  This sounds great!

  I'm especially excited for the file updates! We are building a sharing platform and these changes could become handy very much.

  One probably small feature I would greatly appreciate: Images uploaded to a file-field are not behaving consistent (PageFile) with images uploaded to an image-field (PageImage) making handling of images from a file-filed difficult. Would be great if images added to a file-filed have the same methods etc as a regular image like crop etc.

  Also looking forward to the js implementation of page. Altough the amazing graphql plugin (https://processwire.com/talk/topic/15397-graphql-for-processwire/) probably goes a long way…

  Just a tough: Maybe involving the community in the creation of the redesign of processwire.com would boost the speed and scope of the project and probably unite the community even more. I myself would be willing to support at some places…

  Reply

• 

  Lowfour

  • 7 years ago
  • 60

  I would love to see an easier way to use Processwire as a backend platform for front-end JS frameworks like vue.js. I am working with it building my own API, but it would be great if you could do a bit like laravel, get JSON output directly from a query. Or at least a simple method to do it.

  Reply