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Showing content with the highest reputation on 08/04/2012 in all areas
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MODx is a great tool. No doubt. However when I compare the code and work required get things done in it versus PW, PW comes out ahead as a winner for the types of sites my shop builds. We are busy converting three content heavy sites from MODx. These were due for upgrades from MODx Evolution. There are another dozen that will be in the switch over queue before too long. I worked with MODx Revo and deployed a few sites on it, but honestly there was a lot of extra overhead and a new API to convert our custom modules (snippets) to. I could not justify the work to upgrade as I did not see enough benefits. Clients will pay for new features, just usually not for the coding required to update the backend. I felt a sense of dread, instead of excitement, when I heard the news of MODx V3. The API has completely changed once already and I was not excited to start over again, again. Not knocking MODx here, built some well performing sites with it. Even donated $. I wish the team continued success. I decided to keep looking around for a better solution. I have used EE, Drupal, Wordpress, Pyro CMS, and a few others. Each with different strengths and weaknesses. Luckily came across PW. Lurked for a while, kicked the tires, built a few mockups. Discovered that all the things I typically need to do, are simple calls to the API, and some logic coded in PHP. Everything is an extension of the API. The front end, the back end. I love the whole concept of leveraging the document tree, getting parents, siblings, children, and the whole ancestry easily through the API. This matches with the type of highly structured sites I usually build. The selector logic make it simple to pull content from wherever it lives. I can park any kind of structured content wherever I see fit. Usually the CMS interferes with the IA. Not with PW. The PW API is very clean and so is the logic. I am very productive with it so far, and it has exceeded my expectations. The content editors like the backend and find it easy to work with and publish / update content. PW has moved front and center in the shop and will be the basis for most all CMS projects going forward. No going back. Kudo's to Ryan and the forum participants, who are generously sharing here. Welcome to PW.4 points
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This module goes through all of your /site/assets/files/ directories and removes those that have no files in them. http://modules.proce...ean-empty-dirs/ Pages with file/image fields require a directory, so you should expect that some of the removed directories will be re-created by these pages. As of today, ProcessWire no longer creates directories for all pages, so this module is mostly useful to existing sites rather than future sites. I am listing it as "alpha" just because I've only tested on my own sites. Once I get confirmation from others that it also worked well for them, I will change its status to stable. Until it is considered stable, I suggest only running it in dev/test environments (not that it does anything dangerous, but just a good practice).2 points
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After Ryan's latest incarnation of Blog Profile I wanted to see if I could learn something from there to my own workflow. It turned out very nicely and this seems like a perfect template approach for me. Wanted to share it with you guys. Folder structure under templates folder: templates/markup/ templates/markup/helpers/ templates/markup/layouts/ templates/scripts/ templates/styles/ And it all begins from here: templates/markup/index.php -this is the "complete" html file, it has doctype, head and starting and ending body. There is very little "logic" here, it's more like a container. There is one very important code snippet there though: <?php if ($page->layout) { include("./markup/layouts/{$page->layout}.php"); } else { include("./markup/layouts/default.php"); } ?> Code above goes between header and footer of your site, that will be the main content. I call it layout, but the better name would be "content layout" or "inner layout" or something like that. Then the templates/markup/layouts/ folder will keep at least default.php file, but probably few others, like "threeColumns.php", "frontpage.php", "gallery.php" etc.. you got the idea. Each of the actual pw template files are then purely "controllers" - no actual markup generated there. All markup are done in files inside templates/markup/ folder and it's subfolders. This is how template file templates/home.php on one site I am building right now looks like: <?php // Carousel items $t = new TemplateFile(wire('config')->paths->templates . 'markup/helpers/carousel.php'); $t->set('carouselPages', $page->carousel); $page->masthead = $t->render(); // Tour themes $t = new TemplateFile(wire('config')->paths->templates . 'markup/helpers/items.php'); $t->set('title', "Get inspired from our <strong>tour themes</strong>"); $t->set('items', $page->featured_themes); $t->set('description', $page->themes_description); $t->set('url', $config->urls->root . "themes/"); $t->set('linkTitle', "All themes"); $page->main .= $t->render(); // National parks $t = new TemplateFile(wire('config')->paths->templates . 'markup/helpers/items.php'); $t->set('title', "Seven beautiful <strong>national parks</strong>"); $t->set('items', $page->featured_parks); $t->set('description', $page->parks_description); $t->set('url', $config->urls->root . "national-parks/"); $t->set('linkTitle', "All national parks"); $page->main .= $t->render(); $page->layout = "frontpage"; include("./markup/index.php"); This uses few "helper" markup files from templates/markup/helpers/ folder (namely carousel.php and items.php). Here is the carousel.php for your reference: <?php /* Generates the markup for the frontpage carousel */ if (count($carouselPages) < 1) return; $styles = ''; echo "<div id='carousel'><ul class='rslides'>"; foreach($carouselPages as $key => $p) { echo "<li class='c-item c-item-$key'>"; echo "<img src='".$p->image->getThumb('carousel') ."' alt='' />"; echo "<p>$p->summary</p>"; echo "<a class='button' href='{$p->link->url}'>$p->headline</a>"; echo "</li>"; } echo "</ul></div>"; Then populates the $page->masthead and $page->main properties and then set's the inner layout to "frontpage". That templates/markup/layouts/frontpage.php file is very simple on this site, but could be much more complicated if needed: <div id="masthead"> <?= $page->masthead; ?> </div> <div id="main" class="wrap"> <?= $page->main; ?> </div> Frontpage is rather unique and I could have done all the markup on the frontpage.php file also. But I do want to re-use those "carousel" and "items" components on other places as well. But if I do have totally unique stuff, where I do want to get "quick and dirty" this approach allows it. Then my template file would be something like this: $page->layout = "campaign2012"; include("./markup/index.php"); And then all the markup would be in that templates/markup/layouts/campaign2012.php Blog profile really gave me a good ideas (cleaner folder structure etc) and using TemplateFile class adds nice possibilities. This is of course just a one way to manage your templates, but hopefully someone of you finds this helpful when thinking about how you like to structure this stuff. PS: If you are just getting started with PW, then I recommend using the head and foot includes method from demo install. There is nothing wrong with that method and only more complicated sites starts to benefit from these methods introduces in this topic.2 points
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Here is the first release version of the Blog Profile! http://modules.proce...s/blog-profile/ It is now up on GitHub as well: https://github.com/r...ign/BlogProfile Below is a lot more talk about this blog profile and how it works, but if you just want to install the profile and test it, it's not necessary to read anything further unless you want to. I've simplified this a lot from where it's been. It does all the same stuff on the front-end, but the code behind the site is no longer a huge departure from the basic profile. I've rebuilt this profile 3 times trying to find the right balance between making it as flexible as possible and making it as easy to understand as possible. I think it's got a better balance now than before. It's now at a point where it does everything it always has, but the template code behind it should be a lot more accessible and easy to understand. There is no longer a separate module or API variable. Everything here just happens in /site/templates/ files. Consistent with making it simpler, I've also removed the drag-n-drop theme support. While it was cool to have, it always felt a little dirty introducing some kind of proprietary theme support that was so different from the way I'd build any other site. This thing is pretty darn simple to theme as it is (just edit a CSS file). Maybe we'll take it further in the future, but we don't have many PW site profiles out there right now (1 or 2?) and so I decided this profile needed to stay more accessible on the back-end. How the template files work In ProcessWire there are any number of ways you can use your template files. In this case, we are using our template files (in /site/templates/) to populate 3 variables ($content, $headline and $subnav) and then including an HTML file (main.inc) to output them in the right places. The $content variable represents the center (body) column, the $headline variable represents the text headline of the page, and the $subnav variable represents the navigation that appears in the left sidebar. Once one or more of these variables is populated, the template file includes the /site/templates/main.inc file. That main.inc file is just a big HTML file that outputs the $content, $headline and $subnav variables in the right places. We've made an attempt here to separate most of the logic used in the template files from the output. Most of the markup is generated from files in /site/templates/markup/. These files are included from the template files to output specific things like a blog post, comment, etc. Because a lot of output needs are similar among the various template files, we've created a file called /site/templates/blog.inc that has a few shared functions in it. If you look in any of the template files, you'll see that most of them include blog.inc as the first thing. This blog.inc file also initializes our $content, $headline and $subnav variables, mentioned earlier. Outline of /site/templates/ with this profile /site/templates/blog.inc Shared blog-specific functions included by most site templates. /site/templates/main.inc The main HTML markup file through which everything is output. /site/templates/markup/ Contains PHP files that generate markup for specific things like posts, comments, etc. This is separated from the site templates to make it simpler for you to modify the markup if you want to. This is primarily used by the blog.inc functions, but also included by a couple templates as well. /site/templates/skeleton/ This is the Skeleton CSS framework. It is identical to the one they distribute except we added a wider viewport to it. You probably wouldn't have much need to edit anything in here. /site/templates/styles/ Stylesheets used by the blog profile. The most useful one in here would probably be theme.css, which contains all the color definitions for the profile. /site/templates/scripts/ Javascript files used by the blog profile. Not much is happening in here at present.1 point