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When we released ProcessWire 3.0.200 one of the biggest differences from prior master/main versions was that PW now only includes 1 profile: the site-blank profile. This means there's probably going to be more people starting with it than before. Yet it is so minimal that I thought it deserved a bit of a walkthrough in how you take it from nearly-nothing to something you can start to build a site around. Everyone will have a little bit different approach here, which is one reason why the blank profile is a useful starting point. In this new post, here are some steps you might take when starting a new site with the blank profile— https://processwire.com/blog/posts/starting-with-the-blank-profile/

You need to get out of habitual thinking when comparing Processwire with Wordpress. From the beginning, Wordpress was never made for 1) websites 2) safety. And so, all through the years tons of spaghetti plugins were made for Wordpress to make things work. Processwire has a completely different Architecture because it is made both a cms and a cmf with safety in mind to make websites and apps without the need for essential plugins.

The ProcessPageList module now has a configuration setting where you can select pages that should not be shown in the page list. For example, maybe once you've set up your 404 page, you don't really need it to display there anymore, except maybe in debug mode. Or maybe you don't ever need the "Admin" page to display in the page list. This new feature lets you do that, and for any page that you decide. Next, a "Usage" fields has been added to the "Basics" tab in the Field editor, just like the one in the Template editor (requested feature #445). This shows you what fields are using the template. It's essentially the same information that you'll find in the "Actions > Add or remove from templates" feature, but easier to find, especially for people newer to PW. That's all for this week, I hope you have a great weekend!

Hi I am completely new to ProcessWire and I am not a developer. I do have some basic understanding about HTML, css, etc and a bit of Python, but I am not a developer at all. I am loving it from what I am reading about what ProcessWire can do, and it's amazing! I was wondering if any could advise if a non-developer like myself can learn to use ProcessWire without development experience? Or should I just start with PHP, or a specific framework that you'd recommend which would help me understand ProcessWire and code my projects? Thank you so much!

That's a good Blog post! I really want to read a part two, (and maybe three?). ? Also very useful for new starters, I believe.

AndZyk, I found the solution. For whatever reason, the file compiler option was deactivated in config.php, so the templates were not compiled...

Sorry, my mistake. I had placed the hooks in the products template. Now they are in _init.php and are applied properly. Thanks again @kongondo!

Thanks @kongondo for reviewing my setup. The non-existent page ID is from an accidentally deleted product.

Hi @Gary and welcome to the forum! If you tell us more about your skills in general we can provide better answers... Are you familiar with PHP? With HTML/JS/CSS? How did you find PW? Why are you using it? ...

Alright, i think i've figured it out. The location of the layout file is wrong. According to the docs it's supposed to go into "templates/views/layouts", but according to the boilerplate it's actually in "templates/layouts". Putting it in there makes it work. Didn't expect that.

OMG what is this gem I hadn't seen! Thanks @Gideon So!

Hey @Thromisios welcome to the forum ? In my opinion: ProcessWire is perfect for this scenario! Why I think that: ProcessWire has a very active and friendly community that will always be there to help (that's very important when learning something new). I used other systems before ProcessWire and in their forum you never knew if you would get an answer or not. Terrible. In the PW forum you'll almost instantly get great answers or even ready to use code snippets or even modules ? ProcessWire hides a lot of complexity in the beginning. That makes it easy to use and you can come very far by using a few very basic concepts. Often it's just using fields together with the API. On the other hand ProcessWire is capable of so much more. That's all hidden under the hood and once you grow, you can start exploring more and more of it's features. In other systems you'll have to learn a lot upfront just to get simple things done. For example with other PHP frameworks you'd have to build the admin interface for your users completely from scratch (not all systems of course, but there are many where you have to do so). Hooks are such a brilliant concept that not every system has. Most of the time when you want a small customization of your system/program/website that means a small snippet of code. In other systems you often need to understand the whole OOP model to extend the correct class or you need to build a plugin or an extension. In ProcessWire you hook into the correct spot (if you don't find that the forum will help) and you add some simple lines of PHP and you get what you want. We have Adrian's great TracyDebugger which is such a huge help while developing. Just a simple dump of a variable is so much more helpful than doing a var_dump(). Other systems might have similar tools, but there are for sure systems that don't have anything like that. For me it was an eye opener in many cases. For the last part you can head over to my signature link "afraid of hooks?" A simple example could be: <?php // send me an email when the client adds a new blog post $wire->addHookAfter("Pages::added", function($event) { $page = $event->arguments(0); // only execute this hook for pages of type "blog-post" if($page->template != 'blog-post') return; // send mail $mail = new WireMail(); $mail->to('your@mail.com'); $mail->from('robot@yoursite.com'); $mail->subject('New blog post at yoursite.com'); $mail->bodyHTML("Url of the new post: ".$page->httpUrl()); $mail->send(); }); Good luck and have fun ?

Hi @Thromisios Welcome to the PorcessWire community. I came from non coder background, too. I first started learning ProcessWire basics by following this tutorial. Gideon

Thank you very much @Andy! will do so!

Hello @Thromisios First, I would refer you to the ProcessWire documentation - https://processwire.com/docs/start/ And then, look through the sections of the forum: https://processwire.com/talk/forum/8-getting-started/ https://processwire.com/talk/forum/13-tutorials/ https://processwire.com/talk/forum/6-faqs/ Next, I would look at the sections of the forum and documentation that raise more questions for me. And of course https://www.php.net/ when you don't understand how PHP works. Good luck with your adventures.

A quick codepen to get you started: https://codepen.io/3fingers/pen/JjEPWZP