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The plan was to merge dev to the main branch today, but I’m still working through a couple of GitHub issues that I’d like to resolve or finish the conversation before finalizing the 3.0.244 main version. One example is this issue report where it was pointed out that there are some issues with UTF-8 page names. ProcessWire uses PHP’s IDN functions to manage conversion to and from the non UTF-8 version of the URL. PHP 7.4 changed the default arguments of the idn_* functions to settings that made them not work 100% for page names in a few cases, which I didn’t realize before this week. But this is not an issue that I can just fix and be done with it… There may already be page names in any given installation that are affected by the post PHP 7.4 behavior. If I were to just fix the issue, then some affected pages might no longer match when accessed directly by URL. So this had to be a carefully considered fix. What I ended up doing is fix it for any new PW installations that occur after this weekend. PW keeps track of its installation date, so can do this by way of its $config->installedAfter(“2025-01-05”) function. Existing installations will keep the imperfect behavior. Presumably it doesn’t affect that many installations since it only came to light last week and PHP 7.4 was released roughly 5 years ago. Nevertheless, existing installations that want the “fixed” behavior can get it by specifying this in /site/config.php: $config->pageNameWhitelist = 'v3' . $config->pageNameWhitelist; That essentially says to use version 3 of the page name conversion. Version 2 will also work fine, but may be slightly slower since it uses a dedicated Punycode library. And version 1 is the one that worked correctly until PHP 7.4, and still works mosts most of the time, but can produce imperfect results in some cases. Installations prior to 5 Jan 2025 use v1 by default and installations after 5 Jan 2025 use v3 by default. Chances are few (if any) will want to specify the version manually like above, but the option is there, just in case. That’s one example of why I’m waiting another few days before the dev branch merge to main. Another is that Adrian mentioned double-clicking on the “Move to Trash” button [in the page editor] makes it permanently delete the page rather than trash it. While I can’t duplicate that, despite multiple attempts, I just want to make sure there’s not something that needs fixing there. But unless any major new issues turn up, by this time next week we’ll merge to main and bump the version to 3.0.244. Thanks and Happy New Year!

Hello, Because I was in need of such a thing but there was nothing that I could find, I had to create my own. I'm sharing here, so maybe someone will find it useful. My second module, Use at your own risk, there may be some mistakes, please if you find them, let me know! Right now the module mostly works with datetime field!!! This was what I was going for actualy. Description Page Automation Module for ProcessWire Description: The Page Automation module automates various page management tasks in ProcessWire, such as copying, cloning, deleting, publishing, hiding, and more based on predefined conditions. It allows users to set triggers based on a page's field values and perform automated actions without manual intervention. The module integrates with LazyCron for scheduling periodic checks. Key Features: Perform actions like copy, clone, delete, publish, hide/unhide automatically. Configure conditions based on date/time fields (e.g., "older than 1 day"). Schedule actions with flexible cron intervals (every minute, hour, day, week, or year). Supports applying actions only to pages using specific templates. Option to assign a different template to cloned/copied pages. Logs all automated actions for easy tracking. Requirements: ProcessWire 3.x or later. LazyCron Module (it won't work without it). Setup Instructions: Install the module through the ProcessWire admin Modules upload by File upload. Configure the conditions, templates, and actions via the module settings. (Optional) Install LazyCron for time-based automation. Verify that the automation_processed checkbox field is automatically created for tracking processed pages. Once configured, the module will automatically handle repetitive page management tasks based on your specified conditions, saving time and effort. Important! Uppon install the module will create a new field "automation_processed" which you must add to the main template (template for action or make it global), if not you'll end up with a bunch of copies. This field tells the module that the page was already proccessed, so it will leave it alone. PageAutomation_preview.mp4 I hope u like it 😉 You can download it here: PageAutomation.zip

@FireWire @Jonathan Lahijani @gebeer I've created a demo module that shows how to use the new config migrations. Please note that it needs the latest RockMigrations version from the dev branch! https://github.com/baumrock/ConfigMigrationsDemo

Page classes are an outstanding feature of ProcessWire and probably ranks among my favorites overall (and that's really saying something with ProcessWire). I don't remember how I lived without them, well I do, but I don't like to think about it. I wrote a response to a question asking how ProcessWire can help transition from procedural code to OOP and in the process (pardon the pun) of answering, I realized how much I've come to use, if not outright rely on, page classes in every project. I wanted to compile a few more thoughts and examples here because there may be devs who are finding this feature for the first time, and besides, why not go down the rabbit hole? Page classes have been around since ProcessWire 3.0.152 and if you're not familiar this will all make a lot more sense if you do a quick read of the feature announcement by Ryan here because this post assumes familiarity. We're also going to pick up the pace between the examples below compared to my comment in the link above. Here are a few goals that I have that page classes put solutions for within reach. You may have some of your own and I'd love to hear about those as well. Keep templates clean by restricting logic to flow operations- if statements and loops. Work with data in context, accessing data and fields closer to their source. Create "universal" methods available in every template, but also have scoped methods per-template Increase the scalability of a project, growth with limited increases in complexity. Stay DRY Embrace and extend the power of OOP in ProcessWire's DNA This seems like quite a list for one feature to handle, but rest assured, this is an example of how much power comes with using page classes. I'll continue and build on the blog example from my linked response above, and you can "follow along" with the Blog module since the templates mentioned are present out of the box. Some of the examples below are taken from production code, but please excuse any errors that I may have introduced by accident and I'm happy to update this post with corrections. Some of these things can be done other ways but they're just to illustrate, replace with your ideas and think of times that this would be useful. First up, what are some features and behaviors that everyone needs on every project? What are some universal methods that would be great to have everywhere? Let's start out by creating a "base" page class called DefaultPage. Going forward, page classes will extend this class instead of Page and benefit from having access to universal methods and properties. EDIT: I initially wrote this using BasePage rather than DefaultPage for this class name as described by the custom page class writeup by Ryan in the article above. I've changed this to now use the correct DefaultPage class name. <?php namespace ProcessWire; // /site/classes/DefaultPage.php class DefaultPage extends Page { /** * Returns all top level pages for the main navigation. */ public function navigationPages(): PageArray { $pages = wire('pages'); $selector = 'parent=1'; $excludedIds = $pages->get('template=website_settings') ->nav_main_excluded_pages ->explode('id'); // Check for excluded pages from nav defined in the "Website Settings" page count($excludedIds) && $selector .= ',id!=' . implode('|', $excludedIds); $homePage = $pages->get('id=1'); $topLevelPages = $pages->find($selector); $topLevelPages->prepend($homePage); return $topLevelPages; } } All your base page are belong to us. Right off the bat we've managed to pull complex logic usually in templates and kept our markup clean. This isn't for DRY, it's to store logic out of templates. This simple example only illustrates working with a top level page nav. We can start to appreciate the simplicity when considering how much more the navigation may call for in the future. A navigationChildren method that also accounts for excluded pages is a prime example. In our markup: <!-- /site/templates/components/site_nav.php --> <nav> <ul> <?php foreach ($page->navigationPages() as $navPage): ?> <li> <a href="<?= $navPage->url; ?>"><?= $navPage->title; ?></a> </li> <?php endforeach ?> </ul> </nav> Next up, our settings page has newsletter signup fields where users can copy/paste form embed code from Mailchimp. Our website has a "settings" page where global values and fields can be edited and maintained There are multiple textarea fields on the settings page that can each contain a different mailchimp embed code There is an embed select field that can be added to templates. The values are textarea field names so an embed can be chosen by the user. An embed select field has been added to the settings page which allows for choosing a default embed code if one isn't selected when editing a page Embedded forms should be available anywhere on any template <?php namespace ProcessWire; // /site/classes/DefaultPage.php class DefaultPage extends Page { // ...Other DefaultPage methods /** * Renders either a selected form embed, fallback to default selected form */ public function renderEmailSignup(): ?string { $settingsPage = wire('pages')->get('website_settings'); $embedField = $this->signup_embed_select ?: $settingsPage->default_email_embed; return $settingsPage->$embedField; } } Excellent. We've got some solid logic that otherwise wouldn't have a great home to live in without page classes. We can also modify this one method if there are additional options or complexity added to the admin pages in the future. Wherever we use renderEmailSignup, the return value will be either the selected or default form embed code. Let's create a folder called "components" in our templates directory that will hold standalone reusable markup we can use wherever needed, here's our newsletter signup component: <!-- /site/templates/components/newsletter_signup.php --> <div class="newsletter-signup"> <?= $page->renderEmailSignup(); ?> </div> Great! We've kept logic out of our code. We can render the field, and we can account for an empty value with a fallback. Unfortunately this is pretty limited in that it only handles a specific field, and it's implementation isn't as flexible as a component should be. We can fix that, and here are some new requirements to boot: Some templates may have multiple embed select fields which may or may not have a value Each embed select field is now paired up with a text field to add some content that appears with each form embed, think "Sign up for our newsletter today!" We want to render our mailchimp form embeds using the same component file, but handle different fields Sounds like a tall order, but it's a challenge easily overcome with page classes. We're going to introduce a new method called renderComponent that will be global, reusable, and very flexible. We're also going to make use of another very great ProcessWire feature to do it. Back to our DefaultPage class: <?php namespace ProcessWire; // /site/classes/DefaultPage.php class DefaultPage extends Page { // ...Other DefaultPage methods /** * Renders a file located in /site/templates/components/ with optional variables */ final public function renderComponent(string $file, ...$variables): string { $componentsPath = wire('config')->paths->templates . 'components/'; return wire('files')->render($file, $variables, ['defaultPath' => $componentsPath]); } /** * Renders either a selected form embed, fallback to default selected form */ public function renderEmailSignup(?string $embedSelectField = null): ?string { $settingsPage = wire('pages')->get('website_settings'); $embedField = $this->$embedSelectField ?: $settingsPage->default_email_embed; return $settingsPage->$embedField; } } We've done a couple of things here. We've updated renderEmailSignup to accept a field name, so now we're flexible on exactly which field select we'd like to check for a value on before falling back to default. We've also created a renderComponent method that is going to be super useful throughout the rest of our ProcessWire application. Our renderComponent receives a file name located in the components directory and any number of named parameters. You could change the $variables parameter to an array if you'd like, but I'm a big fan of the great features we have now in PHP 8+. Here's our refactored component file: <!-- /site/templates/components/newsletter_signup.php --> <?php if ($embedField): ?> <div class="newsletter-signup"> <?php if ($text): ?> <h2><?= $text; ?></h2> <?php endif ?> <?= $page->renderEmailSignup($embedField); ?> </div> <?php endif ?> And let's hop over to our (abbreviated) home page template: <body> <!-- ...Sections full of great content --> <section class="signup-call-to-action"> <?= $page->renderComponent('newsletter_signup.php', embedField: $page->embed_select, text: $page->text_1); ?> </section> <!-- ...Your awesome template design --> <section class="page-end-call-to-action"> <?= $page->renderComponent('newsletter_signup.php', embedField: $page->embed_select_2, text: $page->text_2); ?> </section> <!-- Your footer here --> </body> I don't know about you, but this is looking really good to me. The number of things we've accomplished while having written so little code is remarkable: Because we used wire('files')->render(), the entire ProcessWire API is available within the component, so now our renderEmailSignup method is too. The variadic function parameters (or array if preferred) let us pass an arbitrary number of variables to any component file, unrestricted future flexibility Variables are scoped to each component! There's no reference to template fields in our component that could break if changes are made No more PHP includes, we don't have to juggle paths or constantly repeat them in our code, nor rely on declaring variables before including a file. ProcessWire will throw an exception if we try to render a file that does not exist which makes locating issues very easy We'll also see an exception if we try to reference a variable in our component that wasn't passed which can also help troubleshooting. Notice that the renderComponent is final. We want that behavior to remain consistent everywhere we use it and not overwritten either intentionally or by accident on our inheriting page classes. We want to eliminate any confusion between templates by knowing it will always do the same thing the same way. We can explore other uses too, perhaps a renderPartial for files in /site/templates/partials where we store files like site_header.php. As mentioned above however, if a variable is expected in the rendered file but not included in our render method, we'll see an exception. Let's use site_header.php as an example because we're sure to run into situations where variables may or may not exist: <?php namespace ProcessWire; // /site/templates/partials/site_header.php ?> <!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="UTF-8"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"> <title><?= $page->title; ?></title> <meta name="description" content="<?= $metaDescription ?? null; ?>"> <?php if ($includeAnalytics ?? true): ?> <script> // All that Google Analytics jazz </script> <?php endif ?> </head> <body class="<?= $bodyClasses ?? null; ?>"> <header> <?= $page->renderComponent('site_nav.php', includeEmailButton: true); ?> </header> Problem: solved. By using nullsafe ?? operators, we can call $page->renderPartial('site_header', description: 'The ultimate Spice Girls fan page.'); and never get errors for variables that may not be included when calling renderComponent, such as includeAnalytics, which now also has a default value of 'true'. Nice. We haven't even gotten to our actual page classes yet... Our templates are about to receive superpowers. Let's take our blog to the next level. In my comment on the other thread, I created a specific example of adding a readTime method to our blog posts, let's go one level higher to our blog.php template. We'll populate some methods up front and then talk about what we've done: <?php namespace ProcessWire; // /site/classes/BlogPage.php class BlogPage extends DefaultPage { /** * Get latest blog posts, optionally with/without pinned post, optionally in blog category */ public function latestPosts( int $limit = 3, bool $includePinnedPost = true, ?int $categoryId = null ): PageArray { $selector = 'template=blog-post'; if ($categoryId) { $selector .= ",blog_category={$categoryId}"; } $posts = wire('pages')->get($selector); if ($includePinnedPost) { $pinnedPost = $this->getPinnedPost(); if ($pinnedPost) { $posts->remove($pinnedPost); $posts->prepend($pinnedPost); } } return $posts->slice(0, $limit); } /** * Gets an optional pinned post if set/chosen * pin_blog_post A checkbox to indicate whether a post should be pinned * pinned_post A InputfieldPage field to choose a blog post */ public function getPinnedPost(): ?Page { if (!$this->pin_blog_post) { return null; } return wire('pages')->get($this->pinned_post); } } On our main blog page a user has the ability to choose whether a blog post is "pinned". A pinned post will always remain the first post anywhere a list of posts is needed, something like a big company announcement that the client wants to keep visible. These two methods alone have given us awesome abilities. For our main blog page, when someone visits our blog page, the most recent or pinned post is presented at the top, followed by the next two most recent posts, followed by two rows of 3 posts, for a total of 9. Let's assume that we've already created the BlogPostPage.php with the readTime method from my previous example. Here's our blog.php template <?php namespace ProcessWire; echo $page->renderPartial( 'site_header.php', bodyClasses: 'blog-page', metaDescription: $page->blog_description ); $posts = $page->latestPosts(9); $firstPost = $blogPosts->first(); ?> <section class="main-post"> <article> <img src="<?= $firstPost->blog_image->url; ?>" alt="<?= $firstPost->blog_image->description; ?>"> <h1><?= $firstPost->title; ?></h1> <?= $firstPost->summary; ?> <span><?= $firstPost->readTime(); ?></span> <a href="<?= $firstPost->url; ?>">Read More</a> </article> </section> <section class="recent-Posts"> <?= $page->renderComponent('blog_preview_card.php', blogPost: $posts->get(1)); ?> <?= $page->renderComponent('blog_preview_card.php', blogPost: $posts->get(2)); ?> </section> <section class="past-posts"> <?php foreach ($posts->slice(3, 6) as $post): ?> <?= $page->renderComponent('blog-preview_card.php', blogPost: $post); ?> <?php endforeach ?> </section> <?= $page->renderPartial('site_footer.php'); ?> So first off, we've really started to use our renderComponents method and component files. We also implemented a renderPartial as speculated upon above. Each does a similar thing, but having separate methods makes everything clear, handles paths, but still has a similar interface when calling them. A big thing to notice here is that at no point have we added any markup to our page classes, and no business logic to our templates. If we need to find anything, we know where to look just by glancing at the template. Ultimate maintainability. Here's our blog_preview_card.php component: <?php namespace ProcessWire; ?> <!-- /site/templates/components/blog_preview_card.php --> <article class="blog-preview-card card"> <img src="<?= $blogPost->blog_image->url; ?>" alt="<?= $blogPost->blog_image->description; ?>"> <h2><?= $blogPost->title; ?></h2> <div class="blog-summary"> <?= $blogPost->blog_summary; ?> </div> <span class="blog-read-time"><?= $blogPost->readTime(); ?></span> <a href="<?= $blogPost->url; ?>">Read More</a> </article> I am liking how well this is working out! Page classes have done a ton of heavy lifting here: We're using our renderComponent method to it's maximum potential and it's payed off in spades Our template couldn't be cleaner or more easily maintainable BlogPostPage.php has taken care of all of our needs as far as delivering the PageArray of posts and all our template does is output the data as needed Our "card" component will render the same thing everywhere and we can update how that looks globally with changes to one file If you don't think this can get more awesome, or think this post is already too long, I have bad news for you and you should stop reading now. Still here? Let's create a BlogPostPage class and add a method: <?php namespace ProcessWire; // /site/classes/BlogPostPage.php class BlogPostPage extends DefaultPage { // ... Other page methods, like readTime() public function relatedPosts(int $limit = 3): PageArray { return wire('pages')->get('template=blog')->latestPosts( limit: $limit, includePinnedPost: false, categoryId: $this->blog_category?->id ); } } The BlogPage::latestPosts method is really flexing it's muscle here. We've used it in two different places for different purposes but requesting similar data, blog posts. If you noticed, we're also specifying a category for this blog since we have a page select field that references a blog category. That was a parameter that we included back in our BlogPage::latestPosts() method. So, blog posts have a "You might also be interested in..." section with posts in the same category as the that one that a visitor has just read. With page classes this couldn't be easier to add, so let's use the relatedPosts method we just created in BlogPostPage.php in our blog-post.php template: <?php namespace ProcessWire; // /site/templates/blog-post.php echo $page->renderPartial( 'site_header.php', bodyClasses: 'blog-post', metaDescription: $sanitizer->truncate($page->blog_summary, 160) ); ?> <!-- The page hero, blog content, stuff, etc. --> <section class="related-posts"> <?php foreach ($page->relatedPosts() as $post): ?> <?= $page->renderComponent('blog_preview_card.php', blogPost: $post); ?> <?php endforeach ?> </section> <?= $page->renderPartial('site_footer.php'); ?> We've just added a related posts feature in *checks stopwatch* seconds. This project is going so fast that you can already hear the crack of the cold beer after a job well done. One more example, and I'll let you decide if this is too much, or feels just right. We want a blog feed on our home page. So before we go to the home.php template, let's do what we do (surprise, it's a page class): <?php namespace ProcessWire; // /site/classes/HomePage.php class HomePage extends DefaultPage { // Other HomePage methods... public function blogFeed(int $limit = 3): PageArray { return wire('pages')->get('template=blog')->latestPosts(limit: $limit); } } At first glance, this might seem like a bit much. Why create a method in our page class that is so short and simple? We could just call $pages->get('template=blog')->latestPosts(3) inside our template and get away with it just fine. Here's why I think it's worth creating a dedicated page class method: This creates yet another example of predictability between templates It promotes thie philosophy I like of page classes talking to page classes It's likely that we'll have other more complex methods in the HomePage class, keeping them together feels right and helps with uniformity- we always know where to look when seeing custom methods If we need to make a change to the BlogPage::latestPosts() method that affect how other page classes call that method, we don't have to root around in our templates to make any changes. It's pretty nice to see that thus far we have only ever referenced the $page object in our templates! There aren't any calls to $pages because our template is really about doing one thing- rendering the current page without caring about other pages. That's not to say that we can't, or shouldn't, use other ProcessWire objects in our templates, but it's still impressive how much we've been able to scope the data that we're working with in each template. I truly love the page classes feature in ProcessWire and even though this is a deeper dive than my other post, this really is still just scratching the surface because we can imagine having more complex behavior and other benefits. Here are some from my experience: Handling AJAX calls to the same page. Choosing how and what type of content is returned when the page is loaded is really nice. This can be done with hooks, but I really like page classes handling things like this in-context. Working with custom sessions between one or more pages. Creating a trait that shares session behavior between page classes is a great way to extend functionality while keeping it scoped. Adding external API calls and whatever complexity that may entail Provides the ability to add significant complexity to our templates in the admin yet little to no additional complexity in template files. The basic "pinned post" and form embed features are just the start As you can imagine, this makes replicating code you use often between projects trivial Page classes provide a home for logic that otherwise would be stuck in a template, or relegated to a messy functions.php file. No more functions.php ever. We met every single goal I listed here at the beginning Every single template thus far only uses if statements and loops DefaultPage could have a "bootApplication" method if needed that does things for every page and is called in ready.php. This is also a great way to create a "bootable" method in all of your page classes where bootApplication could call a bootPage method in your page classes if it exists. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Hope you find this useful! If you have any questions, corrections, use cases, or things to add, the comments below are open and I'd love to hear them!

I use a mixture of calls to run various initializing code, depending on what to initialize, e.g., copied from a Product page's custom class: /* * Called when the page is requested on the frontend. * Called from _init.php via include_once(config()->paths->templates . 'path/to/this/_init_once.php'); * so that it only runs once per request: * page()->requested(); */ public function requested() { $this->request_ws = "\ProcessWire\RqtProduct"; parent::requested(); } /* * When initialization of object properties is required right from the beginning. */ function __construct(Template $tpl = null) { parent::__construct($tpl); $this->factsAy = new Arrayy([]); } public function ___loaded() { parent::___loaded(); // Either building a structured array of all product data and caching it in a variable or reading that from memory. if (empty($this->facts)) { $this->encodeFacts(); } else { $this->factsAy = Arrayy::createFromJson($this->facts); } } /** * Product page specific hooks. This method is called from site/init.php from my custom loop * that runs for each frontend template based page. * if (in_array($templateName, config()->noneFrontendTemplates)) { * if ($templateName === "user") call_user_func_array("{$namespace}{$className}::initiate", []); // UserPage needs special treatment. * continue; * } * if (class_exists($namespace . $className)) call_user_func_array("{$namespace}{$className}::initiate", []); // Page classes register hooks in their initiate() method this way. */ public static function initiate() { parent::initiate(); wire()->addHookBefore("Pages::saveReady(template=product)", function ($event) { ... more hooks go here ....

Transitioning from procedural development to object-oriented development is primarily a matter of approach and key principles to follow. It involves learning to code differently, but the code itself is not the core issue; it is the way the application is structured that is important. It's not enough to create a class to do OOP; for example, if you put 5000 lines of code in a class, you are probably not adhering to OOP principles. ? I would advise you to look into the KISS principle, read articles that compare inheritance with composition, study the role of interfaces and abstract classes, study Design Patterns, and represent your programs with UML class diagrams before you start coding (at least during your learning period). A book that definitively gave me a leap forward is "Design Patterns" from the Head First series. This book is absolutely magnificent for understanding the OOP approach in record time while learning the essential Design Patterns and the reason for their existence.

If anyone's interested, I posted a deeper dive into page classes with more real world examples. I like page classes so much I had to write a love letter.

Your post should be a blog post here on the ProcessWire blog, be listed as a prime example why PW and its API is so awesome and should be linked on the frontpage under "(Why) Web developers love ProcessWire". ? @FireWire

Welcome to the ProcessWire forums! This is a great question and I think ProcessWire is a great platform to begin transitioning into OOP because ProcessWire itself is object oriented and is built using OOP. It includes powerful tools and features that can help make your code cleaner, more efficient, and reusable. I recommend starting with custom Page classes. Custom page classes lets you use OOP principles to extend ProcessWire and add additional custom behaviors by thinking with objects. There are a couple of examples in that link, but I'll provide one here that specifically contrasts different methods of doing the same thing. This example is a real-world case that I use on many projects, and because of how it's written I can replicate this feature easily when I start new projects. This is just a simple example of code I use that hopefully opens the door to thinking in OOP when working with ProcessWire. On blog posts I like to add something that shows how long it will take to read it, a la "5 minute read" like articles on Medium do. I wrote code that implements Medium's own method of calculating read time and use it often. The code that calculates the reading time is real, but I threw this together for illustration so please excuse any errors. Lets assume that you have a template called blog-post.php where you calculate reading time and output that value to the page. Here is what that looks like using procedural code: <?php namespace ProcessWire; // site/templates/blog-post.php // Calculate the read time for this article by using the words contained in the title, summary, and // body fields $text = "{$page->title} {$page->summary} {$page->blog_body}"; $blogText = explode( ' ', $sanitizer->chars($text, '[alpha][digit] ')); $wordCount = count($blogText); $dom = new \DOMDocument; @$dom->loadHTML( "<?xml encoding=\"UTF-8\"><div>{$blogText}</div>", LIBXML_HTML_NOIMPLIED | LIBXML_HTML_NODEFDTD ); // Account for images in text and add to read time // Starts at 12 seconds for first img, 11, 10, 9, etc. until floor of 3 secs $secondsPerImage = 12; $imageReadTimeInSeconds = 0; $imageCount = $dom->getElementsByTagName('img')->length; while ($imageCount > 0) { $imageReadTimeInSeconds += $secondsPerImage; $imageCount--; $secondsPerImage > 3 && $secondsPerImage--; } // Word count divided by average adult reading speed per minute with image read time added $readTime = (int) (ceil($wordCount / 275) + ceil($imageReadTimeInSeconds / 60)); ?> <!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title><?= $page->title; ?></title> </head> <body> <h1><?= $page->headline; ?></h1> <span class="read-time"><?= $readTime; ?> minute read</span> <div class="summary"> <?= $page->summary; ?> </div> <div class="blog-content"> <?= $page->blog_body; ?> </div> </body> </html> So, there's nothing wrong with that- gets the job done! But it could be better... It adds a lot of logic to our template and makes it harder to read, imagine if we had to add more logic for other features Mixing raw PHP and HTML works, but can be confusing when it comes to managing and maintaining our code We can't reuse the the code that calculates reading time, if we wrote this in another place then we have to make sure both are bug free and accurate Of course, we could create a function called readTime() that does the same thing and cleans up the template. But now we are writing functions that do a specific thing but exist without context and are harder to organize and maintain flexibility. Luckily, there's a better way. I'll let the notes by Ryan in that link I shared above explain how to start using custom Page classes, so I'll assume you have that set up. So now lets think in objects and use OOP to improve our code. Now we have our template, blog-post.php, and a custom Page class called BlogPostPage.php. Lets refactor. Here's our BlogPostPage.php file: <?php namespace ProcessWire; // site/classes/BlogPostPage.php class BlogPostPage extends Page { private const INITIAL_SECONDS_PER_IMAGE = 12; private const WORDS_READ_PER_MINUTE = 275; private const ALLOWED_CHARACTERS = '[alpha][digit] '; public function readTime(): int { $text = "{$this->title} {$this->summary} {$this->blog_body}"; $blogText = explode( ' ', wire('sanitizer')->chars($text, self::ALLOWED_CHARACTERS)); $wordCount = count($blogText); $dom = new \DOMDocument; @$dom->loadHTML( "<?xml encoding=\"UTF-8\"><div>{$blogText}</div>", LIBXML_HTML_NOIMPLIED | LIBXML_HTML_NODEFDTD ); $secondsPerImage = self::INITIAL_SECONDS_PER_IMAGE; $imageReadTimeInSeconds = 0; $imageCount = $dom->getElementsByTagName('img')->length; while ($imageCount > 0) { $imageReadTimeInSeconds += $secondsPerImage; $imageCount--; $secondsPerImage > 3 && $secondsPerImage--; } $time = ceil($wordCount / self::WORDS_READ_PER_MINUTE) + ceil($imageReadTimeInSeconds / 60); return (int) $time; } } Now that our code is in the context of a class method, we've made a couple of extra changes: $page->{name of field} is now $this->{name of field} because we're now working within BlogPostPage which extends the Page class itself. We've added constants to define values that would otherwise be a little difficult to understand at first glance. Seeing self::WORDS_READ_PER_MINUTE is clear and self-documenting where only using the integer 275 in place doesn't really state what that number means We switched $sanitizer to wire('sanitizer') because the $sanitizer variable does not exist in the method scope and the wire() function makes the entire ProcessWire API available to us both inside and outside classes ProcessWire will use BlogPostPage class to create the $page object we use in our templates when it boots, executes our code, and renders content via our templates. Thanks to OOP inheritance, BlogPostPage has all of the methods and properties available in the Page class and can be used in our templates with the $page object. And now let's go back to our blog-post.php template: <?php namespace ProcessWire; // site/templates/blog-post.php ?> <!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title><?= $page->title; ?></title> </head> <body> <h1><?= $page->headline; ?></h1> <span class="read-time"><?= $page->readTime(); ?> minute read</span> <div class="summary"> <?= $page->summary; ?> </div> <div class="blog-content"> <?= $page->blog_body; ?> </div> </body> </html> Now we're talking. With a little extra code and some OOP we've created a method on the Page object. Some benefits: Our template is cleaner and easier to maintain We've made the BlogPostPage class extend Page, so it inherits all of the methods and properties you access via $page The $page object is used to output the reading time to the page, just like $page outputs our field content, so our custom behavior is predictable and and feels at home with the core ProcessWire API It's easier to find where your programming logic is and keep a separation of concerns What's even better is that because we have used OOP to extend the Page class and add new functionality, we can use this a lot more places in our templates (so now it's reusable too). Let's say that you want to add a blog feed to the home page that shows the latest 3 blog posts and displays them with their title, read time, summary, and a link to read the post. <?php namespace ProcessWire; // site/templates/home.php ?> <!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title><?= $page->title; ?></title> </head> <body> <header> <h1><?= $page->headline; ?></h1> </header> <section class="blog-feed"> <!-- Create an <article> preview card for each blog post --> <?php foreach ($pages->get('template=blog-post')->slice(0, 3) as $blogPost): ?> <article> <h2><?= $blogPost->title; ?></h2> <span class="read-time"> <?= $blogPost->readTime(); ?> minute read </span> <div class="post-summary"> <?= $blogPost->summary; ?> </div> <a href="<?= $blogPost->url; ?>">Read More</a> </article> <?php endforeach ?> </section> </body> </html> That would be a lot harder to do if you had to write more procedural code to calculate the read time for each blog post. Thanks to that method in BlogPostPage, we can use it anywhere we reference a blog post. Think we can make this better? Let's improve it using PHP traits. Using a Trait will allow us to reuse our code that calculates reading time in many places thanks to OOP. We'll create another file called CalculatesReadingTime.php and put it in a new folder at /site/classes/traits. Time to refactor, here's our new trait file: <?php namespace ProcessWire; // site/classes/traits/CalculatesReadingTime.php trait CalculatesReadingTime { private const INITIAL_SECONDS_PER_IMAGE = 12; private const WORDS_READ_PER_MINUTE = 275; private const ALLOWED_CHARACTERS = '[alpha][digit] '; /** * Takes an arbitrary number of field values and calculates the total reading time * @param string $fieldValues Contents of fields to calculate reading time for * @return int Total read time, in minutes */ public function calculateReadingTime(string ...$fieldValues): int { $text = array_reduce( $fieldValues, fn ($content, $fieldValue) => $content = trim("{$content} {$fieldValue}"), '' ); $text = explode( ' ', wire('sanitizer')->chars($text, self::ALLOWED_CHARACTERS)); $wordCount = count($text); $dom = new \DOMDocument; @$dom->loadHTML( "<?xml encoding=\"UTF-8\"><div>{$text}</div>", LIBXML_HTML_NOIMPLIED | LIBXML_HTML_NODEFDTD ); $secondsPerImage = self::INITIAL_SECONDS_PER_IMAGE; $imageReadTimeInSeconds = 0; $imageCount = $dom->getElementsByTagName('img')->length; while ($imageCount > 0) { $imageReadTimeInSeconds += $secondsPerImage; $imageCount--; $secondsPerImage > 3 && $secondsPerImage--; } $time = ceil($wordCount / self::WORDS_READ_PER_MINUTE) + ceil($imageReadTimeInSeconds / 60); return (int) $time; } } Let's take a look at that before we go back to our other files. Our new trait has a name that is an "action" because now, as we'll see, we can add this ability to other classes so they can calculate reading times We've abstracted our code. Now instead of referring to content as $blogText, we are calling it $text because it can be used in many places and many contexts but provide the same behavior The readTime() method is now called calculateReadingTime() and has been converted to a variadic function so you can pass as many field values as needed We've taken an extra step of type hinting our parameters as strings to make sure the method is always getting the proper type of data to work with. This will help a lot as this method becomes used more in different places Our docblock is more robust to help understand what this method does, what parameters it takes, and what it will return, another extra step to help us as we use this method in more places Now back to our BlogPostPage.php file <?php namespace ProcessWire; // site/classes/BlogPostPage.php require_once __DIR__ . '/traits/CalculatesReadingTime.php'; class BlogPostPage extends Page { use CalculatesReadingTime; public function readTime(): int { return $this->calculateReadingTime($this->title, $this->summary, $this->blog_body); } } Now we're giving our BlogPostPage class the ability to calculate reading time and all of the functionality has been kept the same. We were able to abstract the logic for calculating reading time to a reusable trait that can be included in any Page class Our readTime() method still exists and is available to all of the templates where we were already using $page->readTime() Now our readTime() method calls the calculateReadingTime() method and passes the fields we know we need as they exist in our blog-post template This code is clean, concise, and easy to maintain. Right now it looks like OOP has made things look nice but caused some extra work... but then the phone rings. Your client wants to add Press Releases to the blog section of the site and it's going to need a new layout and different fields, but they love your reading time calculator so much that they want it on the new Press Release pages too. So we create our new files- a press-release.php template, and a PressReleasePage.php file. We'll skip writing out the press-release.php HTML, but while creating the new template in ProcessWire you've created new fields. The new fields are 'pr_abstract', 'pr_body', 'company_information', and 'pr_contact_info'. Here's our new PressReleasePage.php file: <?php namespace ProcessWire; // site/classes/PressReleasePage.php require_once __DIR__ . '/traits/CalculatesReadingTime.php'; class PressReleasePage extends Page { use CalculatesReadingTime; public function readTime(): int { return $this->calculateReadingTime( $this->pr_abstract, $this->pr_body, $this->company_information, $this->pr_contact_info ); } } Since we've created this simple class that uses the CalculatesReadingTime trait, we can use $page->readTime() in all of our Press Release pages, and anywhere that a Press Release $page object is present. Very nice. Now OOP has really shown how useful it is and we can appreciate how ProcessWire uses objects and provides tools for us extend that power with our own code. There's also some other OOP things happening here: Our BlogPostPage and PressReleasePage classes do one thing and one thing only: handle logic and features for their respective pages. So, they have a single responsibility The calculateReadingTime() and readTime() methods do one thing and one thing only, calculate reading time based on content. They only care about one thing and have no side effects. Our BlogPostPage and PressReleasePage clases can both calculate reading time, but other hypothetical page classes, like "HomePage" and "AboutUsPage" aren't required to have a readTime() method that isn't used, thanks to making use of traits to share behavior only where it's needed. So, that's composition over inheritance Our readTime() method does not expose how it calculates reading time and it provides an interface to only expose information we want our object to make available. So, readTime() is read-only and can safely be used knowing that the value will never be overwritten or modified except when content is changed by editing the page. This is a great tool that shows the difference between setting a value to $page->title and getting a value from readTime(), each have their purposes and roles. Our code is modular and easy to maintain. If we had to adjust how reading time was calculated- we could for example adjust the value of WORDS_READ_PER_MINUTE in our CalculatesReadingTime trait. Then all of our Press Releases and Blog Posts would have their reading time correctly calculated with one change. We can also add CalculatesReadingTime to any future page classes that need it. ProcessWire's strong OOP foundation and the way that it uses objects that are created from classes for everything (like $page, $config, $input, etc.) is the reason that the API is easy to work with, enjoyable, and powerful. If you get the hang of working with OOP in ProcessWire you can build even more powerful websites and applications, better understand the ProcessWire core code, and write your own modules (which is actually pretty fun). Wasn't sure of your overall exposure to OOP but hopefully this helps and inspires!

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