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This was the first full site I built with Processwire. We launched it several months ago, but I immediately got swept up in another project, and forgot to post it. In case the name didn't clue you in, it's a site for my bother's company. http://www.renobuilding.com

This is a fun question to answer, so thanks for asking it. It really gets down to much of the motivation behind the system. For me it really comes down to time. Time is the most important thing to me. I'm getting old and need to focus on the things that give me more time, and that's what it's all geared around. For others, it's money. But time is money. Either way, you have to ask: "what is saving me time?" That's all you need to know to answer the question. But here's the long version: How much time does it save you to use a template engine vs. PHP API? I would suggest that using a template engine saves you zero time (maybe even costs time) vs. using a clean PHP API like in ProcessWire. Ultimately you are just typing different characters with a template engine, in about the same quantity, to do the same thing (example). Nor is a template engine performing any heavy logic, thinking or processing behind the scenes… it's mainly just substituting one thing for another. It's not saving you any time or mental/logical energy. It's this whole abstraction layer taking up space that isn't contributing anything to the bottom line. So the benefits of a template engine aren't very clear, relative to using something like ProcessWire's API. And I don't think it matters whether you know PHP or not, as the learning curve is identical between PHP and a template engine, for accomplishing the same things. The only difference is that PHP will go much farther, when/if you want it to. Then look at the amount of time it would take you to construct raw DB queries (or through some abstraction layer like ActiveRecord). A simple selector that you write in a few seconds translates to a rather long and complicated SQL query that might have taken quite some time to create and optimize manually. Whether in ProcessWire or somewhere else, to create the SQL query, you would have had to maintain internal knowledge of the database, tables involved, indexes, left and right joins, orders, grouping, limits, security and much more… So I would suggest that ProcessWire's selector syntax is saving HUGE amounts of time (and thus cost) by abstracting away a whole lot of technical details and optimization. At the same time, it's part of a larger system that has also abstracted away the complexities of DB design and optimization, and brought it all into the context and thinking of a website. You don't need to know anything about databases or indexes, or that they even exist. I would also suggest that ProcessWire gives one the impression that they can easily pluck data from anywhere in their site as if it was already in memory… and in the context of a website, not a database. In terms of time and cost savings, is there any comparison between this and a template engine?

I recently had to setup front-end system to handle logins, password resets and changing passwords, so here's about how it was done. This should be functional code, but consider it pseudocode as you may need to make minor adjustments here and there. Please let me know if anything that doesn't compile and I'll correct it here. The template approach used here is the one I most often use, which is that the templates may generate output, but not echo it. Instead, they stuff any generated output into a variable ($page->body in this case). Then the main.php template is included at the end, and it handles sending the output. This 'main' template approach is preferable to separate head/foot includes when dealing with login stuff, because we can start sessions and do redirects before any output is actually sent. For a simple example of a main template, see the end of this post. 1. In Admin > Setup > Fields, create a new text field called 'tmp_pass' and add it to the 'user' template. This will enable us to keep track of a temporary, randomly generated password for the user, when they request a password reset. 2a. Create a new template file called reset-pass.php that has the following: /site/templates/reset-pass.php $showForm = true; $email = $sanitizer->email($input->post->email); if($email) { $u = $users->get("email=$email"); if($u->id) { // generate a random, temporary password $pass = ''; $chars = 'abcdefghjkmnopqrstuvwxyz23456789'; // add more as you see fit $length = mt_rand(9,12); // password between 9 and 12 characters for($n = 0; $n < $length; $n++) $pass .= $chars[mt_rand(0, strlen($chars)-1)]; $u->of(false); $u->tmp_pass = $pass; // populate a temporary pass to their profile $u->save(); $u->of(true); $message = "Your temporary password on our web site is: $pass\n"; $message .= "Please change it after you login."; mail($u->email, "Password reset", $message, "From: noreply@{$config->httpHost}"); $page->body = "<p>An email has been dispatched to you with further instructions.</p>"; $showForm = false; } else { $page->body = "<p>Sorry, account doesn't exist or doesn't have an email.</p>"; } } if($showForm) $page->body .= " <h2>Reset your password</h2> <form action='./' method='post'> <label>E-Mail <input type='email' name='email'></label> <input type='submit'> </form> "; // include the main HTML/markup template that outputs at least $page->body in an HTML document include('./main.php'); 2b. Create a page called /reset-pass/ that uses the above template. 3a. Create a login.php template. This is identical to other examples you may have seen, but with one major difference: it supports our password reset capability, where the user may login with a temporary password, when present. When successfully logging in with tmp_pass, the real password is changed to tmp_pass. Upon any successful authentication tmp_pass is cleared out for security. /site/templates/login.php if($user->isLoggedin()) $session->redirect('/profile/'); if($input->post->username && $input->post->pass) { $username = $sanitizer->username($input->post->username); $pass = $input->post->pass; $u = $users->get($username); if($u->id && $u->tmp_pass && $u->tmp_pass === $pass) { // user logging in with tmp_pass, so change it to be their real pass $u->of(false); $u->pass = $u->tmp_pass; $u->save(); $u->of(true); } $u = $session->login($username, $pass); if($u) { // user is logged in, get rid of tmp_pass $u->of(false); $u->tmp_pass = ''; $u->save(); // now redirect to the profile edit page $session->redirect('/profile/'); } } // present the login form $headline = $input->post->username ? "Login failed" : "Please login"; $page->body = " <h2>$headline</h2> <form action='./' method='post'> <p> <label>Username <input type='text' name='username'></label> <label>Password <input type='password' name='pass'></label> </p> <input type='submit'> </form> <p><a href='/reset-pass/'>Forgot your password?</a></p> "; include("./main.php"); // main markup template 3b. Create a /login/ page that uses the above template. 4a. Build a profile editing template that at least lets them change their password (but take it further if you want): /site/templates/profile.php // if user isn't logged in, then we pretend this page doesn't exist if(!$user->isLoggedin()) throw new Wire404Exception(); // check if they submitted a password change $pass = $input->post->pass; if($pass) { if(strlen($pass) < 6) { $page->body .= "<p>New password must be 6+ characters</p>"; } else if($pass !== $input->post->pass_confirm) { $page->body .= "<p>Passwords do not match</p>"; } else { $user->of(false); $user->pass = $pass; $user->save(); $user->of(true); $page->body .= "<p>Your password has been changed.</p>"; } } // display a password change form $page->body .= " <h2>Change password</h2> <form action='./' method='post'> <p> <label>New Password <input type='password' name='pass'></label><br> <label>New Password (confirm) <input type='password' name='pass_confirm'></label> </p> <input type='submit'> </form> <p><a href='/logout/'>Logout</a></p> "; include("./main.php"); 4b. Create a page called /profile/ that uses the template above. 5. Just to be complete, make a logout.php template and create a page called /logout/ that uses it. /site/templates/logout.php if($user->isLoggedin()) $session->logout(); $session->redirect('/'); 6. The above templates include main.php at the end. This should just be an HTML document that outputs your site's markup, like a separate head.inc or foot.inc would do, except that it's all in one file and called after the output is generated, and we leave the job of sending the output to main.php. An example of the simplest possible main.php would be: /site/templates/main.php <html> <head> <title><?=$page->title?></title> </head> <body> <?=$page->body?> </body> </html>

The /our-experience/ page shows the first project from each child page. foreach($pages->get("/our-experience/")->children as $project) { $image = $project->child->images->first()->size(286,190);; echo "<a href='{$project->url}'><div class='thumb'>"; if ($image) { echo "<img src='{$image->url}' width='286' height='190' alt='{$image->get('description|name')}'/>"; } echo "<h5>{$project->title}</h5>"; echo "</div></a>"; } Here's how I grabbed the prev/next images and titles in Processwire: if ($page->prev->id) { $prev = $page->prev()->child()->images->first()->size(250,175); echo "<a href='{$page->prev->url}' class='sub-nav-left'><div class='arrow'>←</div><img src='{$prev->url}' /><br />{$page->prev->title}</a>"; } if ($page->next->id) { $next = $page->next()->child()->images->first()->size(250,175); echo "<a href='{$page->next->url}' class='sub-nav-right'><div class='arrow'>→</div><img src='{$next->url}' /><br />{$page->next->title}</a>"; } A little bit of jQuery handles the animation: $('.sub-nav-right').hover(function() { $(this).stop().animate({ right: '0' }, 300) }, function() { $(this).stop().animate({ right: '-280' }, 400) }); $('.sub-nav-left').hover(function() { $(this).stop().animate({ left: '0' }, 300) }, function() { $(this).stop().animate({ left: '-280' }, 400) }); Edit: GAH! The code editor is a nightmare. Hopefully you get the idea.

Just beautiful!

Hi renobird, wow looks great! It has some clear, cheerful, structured ... cool i love that. I´m a little bit interested in your configuration? In the area "our Exprerience" you have some subareas for the separate groups (for each group one page). Are the different projects (entries) on this pages in PW subpages from the groups or how did you solve this? Second question, the last and next (at the left and right) fly in of the Experiences are really cool - could you tell me with which technique you realise it?? Thanks for sharing it!

Arjen, I dont't know if already know about this, but maybe you can apply for the mailchimp inegration-fund and get some money out of your efforts: http://mailchimp.com/about/integration-fund/

Tom, Lovely work as always. Regards Marty

Thomas, I just today implemented something similar and remembered the logic from your post. Simple and great solution. I made few modifications - most notably I save the related pages into page field also. I also run this code only once per page, since this is part of the import script. Here is how I modified your code: foreach($page->tags as $tag) { $related_pages = $pages->find("template=article, tags=$tag"); foreach($related_pages as $related) { if($related->id != $page->id) $related_id[$related->id]++; } } arsort($related_id); // We limit it to three related pages at max $related_id = array_slice($related_id, 0, 3, true); foreach($related_id as $key => $val){ $rp = $pages->get($key); $page->related_articles->add($rp); }

Okay, I'm sold on that