ryan

Hope you guys are having a great week. I'll keep this week's update short since everything I'm working on is in-progress rather than ready to post. But I can tell you about a few things you'll likely see in next week's post: First is that I've got multi-page/paginated form support just about ready to release in FormBuilder. What this means is that you can take forms (especially long forms) and break them up into multiple paginations. This makes for multi-part forms that are more digestible and easy to use for users. The end of each pagination has "Next" and "Prev" buttons for navigation between them. FormBuilder validates each pagination independently as it is submitted so that any errors are taken care of as the user proceeds rather than all at the end. And these are true paginated forms, rather than a JS manipulation of existing forms. More on this next week. I'm also working here on a new Inputfield module called InputfieldToggle. It's an alternative to the core InputfieldCheckbox and the intention here is to make it a selectable alternative for FieldtypeCheckbox fields. Unlike InputfieldCheckbox, it is presented as two radio buttons for "on" and "off" states. (It's also possible to have a "no selection" state distinct from the "no" state, where supported). It comes predefined with several toggle types (Yes/No, On/Off, True/False, Enabled/Disabled), along with the ability to specify your own (multi-language too of course). Like a checkbox, because it is a toggle, it holds a value of either true (1) or false (0). There is also null for no selection. While this is a relatively simple Inputfield, it answers a common need (at least in my experience) and often can provide a better experience than a standard checkbox, depending on the input need. Not to mention, it's a lot more efficient than using an Options or Page field to accomplish the same thing. In addition to sites and apps running in ProcessWire, I think this particular Inputfield has a lot of potential use in the core and its administrative forms, so I might include it in the core, though not yet certain. I'm already using it quite a bit in forms I'm developing for clients in FormBuilder, where in many cases I find it a better fit than InputfieldCheckbox. Lastly, there are some nice UI enhancements just about ready for manipulating column widths of fields in ProcessWire. It makes it a much simpler and quicker job than it currently is, so I'll have more on that next week too. Have a great weekend!

@iipa Pasting stuff from Word should be no problem ... I think most of our clients likely do this. So you definitely shouldn't get an internal server error from PW at least. Though you might try setting $config->debug=true; in your /site/config.php file (temporarily) and trying again, just in case — that will make it produce a verbose error message. But it's more likely that it is coming from mod_security or some other Apache or PHP module on the server that is monitoring input and halting the request when it comes across something it doesn't like. I don't blame it, as MS word can produce some pretty sketchy looking markup. But between CKEditor and htmlpurifier, PW should be able to clean it up just fine once the server lets it through. But if it's an Apache/PHP module doing this (which seems likely) then nothing you adjust in PW can fix it since the module examines the request before PW even boots, so you'd instead have to disable or configure the Apache module (mod_security, suhosin, or whatever it might be).

ProcessWire added WebP image support this year and many have been adopting it enthusiastically in existing projects. In this post we’ll look at a process used for migrating an existing website to use WebP images. We’ll cover everything from preliminary considerations to implementation and testing, with lots of tips and tricks along the way— https://processwire.com/blog/posts/webp-images-on-an-existing-site/

Just a quick update this week. I’ve got a good post in the works that I thought I’d have ready for today, but didn’t have quite enough time to finish it, so going to save it for next week. Though there's a module that's part of the post, and since it is ready, I've posted it below. We’ll look at ProcessWire 3.0.138 next week as well. I do have a couple of non-core updates to mention this week though. First is that I’ve released a new Textformatter module that converts any image references in your CKEditor/textarea fields to WEBP images on-the-fly as pages are rendered. If you are implementing WEBP on your site, you’ll find that the images placed in rich text fields are the most tricky ones to serve as WEBP, so this module takes care of that task for you. It's in the modules directory or at GitHub: https://github.com/ryancramerdesign/TextformatterWebpImages I’ve also released new development versions of the ListerPro and Export CSV modules, both of which are available to subscribers in the ListerPro support board. Some of the new features are actually built into the core, but currently only utilized by ListerPro. There’s quite a bit of new stuff, so there’s also an ~18 minute screencast that walks you through them, which can also be found in the ListerPro board.

I'm running into this issue on my localhost (MAMP) where it reports PHP’s standard "Fatal Error: Maximum execution time of 120 seconds exceeded" before even 1 second occurs. It does this regularly, but not all the time. But if I'm clicking around pages, I'll see often (maybe 1 out of 7 requests), and it halts the request. The file reference is always somewhere in either ImageSizerEngineIMagick or ImageSizerEngine, though a common place is on the line that instantiates the IMagick instance in the processResize() method: // start image magick $this->im = new \IMagick(); I looked into the ImageSizerEngine::setTimeLimit() method in detail, but there's no problem I can spot in there. I have no idea what the issue could be, but just replying here since @Mikie also ran into it, so it seems to be reproducible. Though it's a weird anomaly that we should never see unless 120 seconds actually passed (but they didn't, not even close). I haven't observed it occurring on any live servers yet, just my localhost environment on PHP 7.2.10. I'm guessing the issue might be PHP version specific or IMagick version specific since it appears to be PHP outputting an error with false information. Posting here in case anyone else has insight on what it might be.

Core version 3.0.137 on the dev branch adds the ability to hook multiple methods at once, in a single call. This post details how it works and provides a useful example of how you might put it to use in your development environment. This version also refactors and improves upon several core classes— https://processwire.com/blog/posts/pw-3.0.137/

ProcessWire 3.0.136 upgrades the version of CKEditor from 4.10.1 to 4.12.1. While that might look like a minor version bump, it’s actually 5 versions ahead and includes quite a lot of new features, changes and fixes. See the CKEditor release notes for more details on all that's been added and changed in the last 5 versions. It was a year or two ago where it seemed like CKEditor was going to be phasing out CKE 4 in favor of CKE 5. But interestingly it now seems like there is a new focus in CKE 4 from the CKEditor folks, so I’m going to have to start watching the version updates more often. Of course, I remain interested in CKE 5 too, but it’s nice to see CKE 4 (my favorite editor for a long time) going so strong and getting new features and attention, which is also a nice benefit for all of us PW users. I’m looking forward to working with some of the new stuff they’ve added in recent versions as well. For instance, the autocomplete feature sounds like it has nice potential for inserting Hanna codes or links to other PW pages, among other things. Also new in 3.0.136 is a new Debug::backtrace() static method in the core. I often use PHP’s debug_backtrace() method when debugging (and it appears in PW’s fatal exceptions), but the reality is it gives me a lot of stuff I just don’t want… all the hook method calls and such that aren’t usually relevant to what I’m trying to find. So the new built in Debug::backtrace() method returns a much simpler array than PHP does, and it also excludes all of the [likely] irrelevant internal hook method calls, and is just generally more focused on what you are likely to need from a backtrace in ProcessWire. It’s very convenient to plug into a ProcessWire $wire->message(Debug::backtrace()), or a Tracy Debugger bd(Debug::backtrace()); or even an echo '<pre>' . print_r(Debug::backtrace(), true); call. Though please consider this new method a work in progress, as it’s just a start at the moment and is likely to get additional updates. At some point, PW’s fatal exceptions will likely use the output from this method as well. Since this is kind of a short post, I’m just posting in the forums rather than creating a new blog post. More core updates on the way next week. Hope you all have a great weekend!

This week I was catching up with client work after traveling last week, but some of that work overlapped with a focus on WireMail modules. As a result, this week I’ve released two new WireMail modules, and also have information in this blog post on how you can configure two existing WireMail modules (WireMailSmtp and WireMailPHPMailer) to use Gmail as the SMTP sender— https://processwire.com/blog/posts/wiremail-modules-and-gmail/

I've been in Minnesota all week for a family reunion and only a few minutes at the computer every day, so I don't have a core update or anything worthwhile to write about this week. But now I'm headed back home so will be back to a regular schedule next week. Hope that you have a great weekend!

Version 3.0.135 of ProcessWire on the dev branch focuses on adding additional layers of security via .htaccess updates, adds clarity to debug mode, and improves upon the installer— https://processwire.com/blog/posts/pw-3.0.135/

I've been working remotely this week and haven't had a good place to sit or very particularly reliable internet, so I've put my attention towards things that I could make progress with in small and inconsistent chunks of time. As a result, it worked well to focus on resolving issue reports this week. In addition to updates mentioned last week, 3.0.134 resolves 18+ issues and contains roughly 25 commits relative to 3.0.133. Since most of the commits since last week are focused on resolving issue reports, I don't have much to write here beyond what's in the commit log, but do want to thank everyone for their reports and hope that you have a great weekend!

This week I've been working on core 3.0.134 but am going to keep the version number at 3.0.133 for another week while I continue with updates there. Commit log. One of the updates already present that I'm finding quite useful is a nice upgrade to InputfieldSelector (like used by Lister and ListerPro) which simplifies the field selection process as there are no longer separate "Field" and "Field…" selections for fields that have subfields, and they are now bundled into one. This reduces the number of selectable fields and likewise speeds up the selecting/filtering process. I'll have more details on that next week, along with other updates. I'm going to be working remotely next week (not vacation) and do not yet know what the internet situation is going to be yet, so on the chance that I don't have good internet access, I may not have an update next week, but hopefully will. Have a great weekend!

ProcessWire 3.0.133 adds a useful new $page->meta() method for a new type of page-specific persistent data storage, adds the ability for users to create their own bookmarks in Lister, and has a handy and time saving update for the asmSelect input type. Read on for all the details, examples and screenshots— https://processwire.com/blog/posts/pw-3.0.133/

This week we’ll take a look at 3 different WEBP image strategies that you can use in ProcessWire 3.0.132+. Then we’ll dive into a major update for the Google Client API module, and finish up by outlining some useful new updates in FormBuilder— https://processwire.com/blog/posts/webp-images-and-more/

This week I’m happy to report we now have WEBP support in ProcessWire thanks to a GitHub pull request from Horst Nogajski. This enables you to have highly optimized image output in PW and I think you’ll really like the difference it makes. Read on for all the details… https://processwire.com/blog/posts/webp-images-in-pw/

In this post we take a quick look at the new version of ProFields Repeater Matrix, yet another new version of FormBuilder, and a new version of the GoogleClientAPI module— https://processwire.com/blog/posts/lots-of-module-updates/

In this week’s post we’ll shift focus a bit and take a look at the latest version of FormBuilder (v38) just released today. It ends up being a fairly major release with a lot of new additions, optimizations and updates— https://processwire.com/blog/posts/formbuilder-v38-released/

ProcessWire 3.0.131 adds support for partial/resumable downloads and http stream delivery, and contains several updates to our comments system, among other updates— https://processwire.com/blog/posts/pw-3.0.131/

@horst Thanks Horst that's great news!

Just a brief update today. I’m going to give it another week before bumping the core version, as I don’t think there’s enough changes yet to warrant a version bump. For whatever reason, several of my clients have needed integration with Stripe (payments) over the last few weeks. I’d not worked with it before the last month or so, but now all of the sudden am working with it a lot, because that's what my clients have asked for. I’ve found myself working on four different Stripe integrations on existing PW sites, both Stripe Elements and Stripe Checkout. None of these are for sites that have an actual “store” where they would need a cart, but rather just “pay for your reservation”, “buy this book”, “buy this song”, and “make a donation of $10”, “make a recurring donation”, type things. After doing a few of these, I thought it would make a lot of sense to have this built into FormBuilder, which would save us time on this stuff. So this week I built Stripe support into FormBuilder (using the Stripe Elements API). It’s already fully functional, so I will be releasing a new version of FormBuilder with this capability quite soon. To add a Stripe payment input to your form you just add a new field of type “Stripe payment for FormBuilder”, and then it asks you for some info about it (like amount to charge) and then your form works as a payment processor. Stripe has a clever way of making this all work, so that the user never leaves your site, but your site (and FormBuilder) never sees credit card numbers or anything like that, so it’s secure and you don’t have to consider things like PCI compliance. I've also got some other unrelated updates for FormBuilder that I'll be covering soon as well. Have a great weekend!

Quietly and without interruption this week, our whole website (and all subdomains) moved from a single static server to a load-balanced multi-server environment, giving us even more horsepower and redundancy than before— https://processwire.com/blog/posts/processwire-hosting-upgrades/

Work continued in closing out issue reports this week. We’re down to about 60 of them now, though if we subtract issues that aren’t reproducible, are already marked as resolved (close pending), may be moved to the request repo, or are a discussion (rather than something to fix), then we’re closer to half that number. Over these last few weeks we’ve been working on issue reports, but I’ve also been enhancing the core in small ways as well. This post will cover a few of the useful enhancements that have been made in recent weeks— https://processwire.com/blog/posts/pw-3.0.130/

Like in recent weeks past, the primary focus this week in core development was working through the queue of older issue reports. Relative to 3.0.128, ProcessWire 3.0.129 contains 17 commits over 1 week, most of which are focused on resolving and closing out older issue reports. However, there have also been a few very useful additions too, and I’m going to cover them in a blog post next week. In terms of our issues repository, we are now down to 65 open issues and 777 closed (the closed number is a total over the life of this repo). If we subtract issues that are tagged as being fixed, not a bug or ready to close, we’re around 55 open issue reports (give or take a couple depending on when we check). Which is to say, there’s a lot of great progress here. And many of the remaining issues are minor things that might only affect one person, though still important nonetheless. Thanks to everyone that’s helping figure things out (such as Toutouwai, Matjazpotocnik, Netcarver and others), your help is greatly appreciated. Just now I also released a new version of ProMailer (v7) which accommodates many of the recent feature requests and fixes a few minor issues as well. There has been a lot of enthusiasm for ProMailer, pleasantly more than expected—thanks for your interest and support. Here’s the changelog for the latest version (v7) below. There is also more good stuff in the works for v8 as well. Changed subscribers list interface to use tabs. Added ability to remove all subscribers from a list. Added ability to remove filtered subscribers from a list (matching find query). Added ability to import subscribers from another list (creating a merged list). Added support for single, multi-select and checkbox custom fields. Added support for PW 3.0.129+ core WireMail blacklist (more details in next week’s blog post). Added several new options for custom fields (see new custom fields reference). Added documentation for conditional placeholders. Split the rather large ProcessProMailer.module into separate files/classes. Fix some display issues in AdminThemeDefault and AdminThemeReno. Various minor bug fixes and other minor tweaks, additions and improvements. Thanks for reading this quick update and hope that you have a great weekend.

Relative to the last dev branch version (3.0.127) version 3.0.128 contains 40 commits, mostly specific to resolving older GitHub issue reports. If you are interested, here is the commit log: https://github.com/processwire/processwire/commits/dev — version 3.0.128 covers commits between March 2nd and today. We're down to about 77 remaining issue reports, mostly older stuff that didn't get covered in the past for one reason or another, but we're making good progress. Similar updates will be continuing next week, and I've also got several ProMailer updates coming out next week too. Hope you all have a great weekend!

If all of this is correct, I personally think that the stakes are too high for sending any kind of email in a place where anyone can accuse another of emailing them and subject them to thousands in penalties from a single email sent by accident. It seems like that creates a dark market for people to pursue receipt of email as a litigation model. It seems like sending any email at all is huge risk where one accidental email could bankrupt you (reminds me of the US healthcare system). Personally, I wouldn't have the ability to pay a lawyer to even respond to such a complaint, so would be inclined to play it safe and simply remove email as a communications method from my business entirely. I don't think you could safely run a software like this one (IP.Board) with those kinds of restrictions. But as far as ProMailer goes, if people subject to those kinds of laws still want to use it, I do think I can support much of what's been mentioned so far. Actually I think it's a good opportunity for ProMailer as a product to provide answers for these kinds of needs, and would enjoy implementing solutions for them. But I consider everyone here my friends, and with the stakes being so high, I would prefer that friends dealing with such laws stay far away from any software or service involved in sending email. Sending email sounds like a death trap as dangerous as swimming with crocodiles. I understand some will take the risk anyway, so I'll do my best to make sure ProMailer has answers for these kinds of things. The only one I'm really not wild about is encrypting email addresses, just because that would place major limitations on the ability to search subscribers, which might increase the risks in other ways. For instance, Mike sends you a C&D letter, but you can't find Mike in your lists in order to remove him, so he ends up getting another email, and BAM, Mike gets to take over your life savings. But I think I can provide hooks for those that want to do it anyway. In my development version, this morning I added an option to log IP addresses with subscribe request and confirmation logs. It's off by default, but can be enabled in the module settings. As I understand it logging of IP addresses is not legal in some places, so anything that has potential to record IPs I usually keep disabled as a default. But the option will be there for those that want to enable it. With regard to a blacklist, we've been talking about it in the ProMailer board and I'm currently thinking a blacklist might be better supported in the core WireMail rather than just in ProMailer. That way you could blacklist an email address for anything in PW that might send an email via WireMail, rather than just ProMailer. For instance, modules like LoginRegister use WireMail to confirm account creation, so a lower-level blacklist could affect that module or any others too, in addition to ProMailer. That way an errant confirmation email or password-reset email won't cause someone to lose their retirement savings. I understand one of these blacklists can be individual email addresses, or entire domains, but am wondering about scale: are blacklists usually fairly small, or might it be an existing published list with thousands of domains/emails?