PhotoWebMax

Great post, thanks Joss! Your tutorials and the photo gallery tutorial by Everfreecreative have been most useful. I have explored all three. My next stage is implementing the core functionality of these lessons into the couple of sites that I am working on: merging a static concept site structure with the PW API, a news section, multiple navigation lists, news section, gallery and custom CSS. Its slowly coming together. Your post on using functions (or not) helps clear some of the fog...

Thanks, I did get that: /* CATEGORIES LIST This lists available categories */ function categoriesList(){ $categories = wire("pages")->find("parent=/categories/, template=TUT_news_index, sort=title"); $out =" "; foreach($categories as $category){ $out .="<li><a href='{$category->url}'>{$category->title}</a></li>"; } echo "<ul class='categoriesList'>$out</ul>"; } Generally: what is the correct way to approach adding divs to blocks of PHP? For example: say I want to add a div wrapper around three instances of functions, etc. I have been doing a little reading on mixing html in with PHP, but I am still unsure of how to add markup and CSS divs without breaking the PHP logic...

Quick very newbie question: On the TUT_news_index.php file we have this: <?php include("./TUT_header.inc"); include("./TUT_news_functions.inc"); // Give the news index page a title an a bit of an intro echo "<h3>{$page->title}</h3>"; echo $page->body; // Render the Category List categoriesList(); // Render the News List newsList(); include("./TUT_footer.inc"); This works nicely. One thing though: what is the best way to add CSS to the categoriesList UL that is generated here? I would like to give this list a class or ID name so I can customize the list style etc. Thanks...

Nice! My one nit to pick if I may: I think your main logo is too small in relation to other content on your site. Your corporate image links in the footer are larger than the the main logo on the top left corner of the site...

Great first post! I have never heard of WebsiteBaker CMS before...

Nicely done! Video tuts/screencasts can be so useful on so many levels. I look forward to more with narration. I like these videos. One thing I notice with many efforts in this arena is that some videos "move" too slowly or too fast. Some have poor video quality which creates eye strain with the viewer missing out on important details. Some videos will get bogged down covering details that everyone is familiar with and some will skim over important details that deserve more time. Narration is huge as well. It can really reinforce the learning experience. In short, producing this kind of content is an art form itself. Please continue...

Building sites for other people (clients) using Wordpress can be a time saver. But why usually happens with clients is that they will invariably ask "say, can we change this or add that to the design?" This is where I find Wordpress gets tricky to work with. You have to pull back all the onion layers from the theme. There is a lot of prefabricated structure with a themed WP install. Customizing a site can lead to more work and frustration than building a site from scratch. I found MODx much better to work with because you had a blank canvas to work with initially. Much more designer friendly in the long run. ProcessWire offers similar advantages. One thing that site owners have to deal with is the backend admin system. Some CMS platforms offer a million control settings and panels that seem overwhelming. This is where PW shines. I think it offers site owners a nice, fast, clean system...

Wow. Boggles the mind at the skills some of you guys have... This could be a commercial module: think of the all the dog breeders who could use something like this...

Thanks! Looks promising... In this case what I want is a simple system for posting articles with authorName, postDate, postTitle and postCopy; with a preset pagination system and maybe something like adding links to the five most recent articles posts in the sidebar. Don't need feeds, tags, categories, etc...

One of the PW project sites I am working on needs a simple blog (just paginated articles really)... Part of what I am doing is reworking an existing MODx Revo site that has Articles installed. Articles is a full blogging tool that operates as a standalone system. I have reworked it into this site and changed all the default CSS that came with Articles to match the overall base site design, structure and navigation. Like the PW Blog profile Articles comes with a ton of features. As the site owner is not adding that much content to the system I think we need to strip away many of the blog extras. I am going to to attempt to build a simple system using fields and basic statements. Now to the question(s): Create Date: the current system is displaying the article post creation date dynamically. We need to transfer all the existing MODx articles posts to the PW blog system. After thinking about the heavy lifting this would require I have decided just to manually copy the posts one by one into the PW blog page once the site is live. What to do about the post creation dates though? * Is there a fancy way of adding these posts to the PW blog page that keeps the actual articles creation dates in tact? * I could keep this simple and just create an empty Create Date Field to my template. But would be there be a way of adding the date automatically/dynamically once the old MODx article archive has been posted to the PW blog page? In other words: all the old posts would have the creation dates entered manually but from then on new PW posts would have the dates presented automatically? It would not be a deal breaker if we had to enter the creation dates manually forever in the PW system. This is just one of those forks in the road issues I need to consider... Thanks!

@adrian, Thanks, that worked. I had to double check the Selectors section of the API but I got it working the way I want. @diogo, I know I need to look into the whole template!=name component of managing templates but I have not gotten there yet... Question: adding the include=hidden to the selector of the foreach statements works well for me. The one issue I see is that any client that uses my system will have to know and remember that he/she will need to check the Hidden box in the Settings pane when editing or creating a page. Not the end of the world but it would be nice to have this check box checked (Hidden from lists and searches) as a default for this section of pages. Is there a way of doing this? Thanks!

One other thing though... I have my site about 50% completed. The design is there. The topNav menu works. The main templates work, and I am dynamically making content blocks (pages) for items like Staff, Directors and Programs appear (listed) on their relevant parent pages. Right now I am working on the sidebar and am a little confused. I am using most of the code on the PW default installation as a starting point for my sidebar template. I can make Fields for a headline and some intro text. But what is happening with my sidebar currently is that links to the Staff Members and Board of Directors cards are appearing in the sidebar menu. I do not want these links to appear in the sidebar menu. Editing these card page links to "Hidden: Excluded from lists and searches" removes their links in the sidebar but also prevents their content from showing in the main pages I want them to appear in. I am guessing there is something extra I can add to the foreach statements that would allow the content to show but also prevent the unwanted links from showing up in the sidebar?

I am sure some of you must have noticed my stumbling around in the dark while getting used to the ProcessWire system. Someday I hope to emerge as a user who brings more to the table than just silly newbie questions. I am sitting down with a mug of really good coffee so I thought I would offer my feelings and reactions to ProcessWire thus far… Quick background: I am a photographer with a long history in photojournalism and commercial work. I have also enjoyed doing web work for years. I built quite a few static sites before searching for a CMS system that felt like home. I must have tested about a dozen or so before spending some real time with Wordpress and then MODx. I liked Wordpress but the template system was awkward for me to me customize. I then found MODx Evo. I stuck with Evo for years and found it very designer friendly. I am not a code developer at all but Evo allowed me the flexibility to design static test pages using clean HTML and then create my Evo template from that foundation. MODx uses a system of combining placeholder code using Chunks, programmed Snippets and Template Variables (TVs) for dynamic forks in the road. Forgive me: I have never been well versed in web tech jargon. One of the features (or liabilities) with MODx is that it uses its own template language. When you deploy a Snippet you need a Snippet “Call” to set parameters on how the Snippet will function. Usually you would need a special template for the Snippet as well. This process is not totally intuitive and has its own learning curve. Then along came the entirely new branch of MODx called Revolution, or Revo for short. Revo was more powerful but also more complex. The nice thing with Revo is that you could spend more time away from the root folder or using an FTP client to upload and install Snippets. The Package Management system is a powerful means of installing and updating the various Snippets and plugins. Updating these building blocks in Evo is more of a pain; manual copy and paste effort required. What I did not like with Revo is that much of the placeholder and template syntax changed from Evo. The changes were subtle but deadly if you confused the two. The main issue I have with Revo is how slow the Manager (admin) system is. The amount of stuff (very techie term here) in Revo is overwhelming. Some of my clients who used the Revo Manager sporadically would always forget how to do things. To be honest I would have the same issue on occasion. With MODx we had Evo, then Revo, then the whole cloud system and now MODx III. It sort of gets confusing. To counter this the forum now has a zillion sections that cater to all the MODx project branches. But I find doing a search on my issues or questions revealed some confusing links to information that focuses on a different branch or is outdated to the system I am working with. I guess this last year was a difficult year for MODx: growing pains and money, etc. The whole technology of Revo, the Cloud and the loss of some of its main core programmers (Shaun McCormick) has created some signal-to-noise-ratio issues. Last year was a terrible year for me personally as well. The joy of buying a new project house was crushed by the death of my father and my only sibling (in South Africa) in the space of just four months. Coming out of this fog I sought of stumbled on some interesting chatter about MODx users switching to ProcessWire. The rest of this quick moving journey has been interesting to say the least. My reaction to PW has been filled with both initial confusion and admiration. I thought my not knowing any PhP was going to be a deal breaker. I sort of had initial writer’s block with the blank page. The PW installation would go well, but then what? But after playing around with several local test installs I can see how liberating and powerful the PW API, the template system and Fields really are. I am slowly picking up some basic use of PhP statements. Doing so is more valuable and efficient than the MODx learning curve with it’s proprietary template syntax. I suspect my working knowledge of the PhP that will make using PW easier will only grow with time. That is my hope for sure. The thing I like about the PW Admin is the speed and the whole weight of the backend. Compare the jQuery Admin to the heavy, heavy MODx Revo Manager and there is no contest. It works better on the iPad as well. My clients have commented on how much “stuff” there is in the Revo Manager. I can’t wait to show them how fast and simple the PW Admin is by comparison. One of my issues is letting MODx go. The community has been great. I cant tell you all how much I admire and appreciate folks like Susan Ottwell, Bob Ray, Jay Gilmore and countless others. Susan has over 20,000 posts on the MODx forum. Just about all of them are consistently helpful and insightful. Being a heavy forum contributor can lead to one’s becoming impatient and suffering from burnout, but Susan’s helpful attitude has been amazing. But my heart tells me that I am better suited to learning ProcessWire rather than the awkward mix of MODx Evo and Revo that I have been using to this point. I think I am also trying to duplicate some MODx procedures when I work with my PW test projects. I think that time will be on my side as I become more comfortable doing things the “ProcessWire way”. Anyway, I am not sure where I am going with this, I just wanted to offer my $.02 and to say how grateful I am with all of you who have shown patience with my initial learning. Cheers, Max

@MindFull, That fixes the issue perfectly. Thanks so much...

Ok, I am busy working on my second PW site. Things are going pretty well. Sort of fun actually I am having problems with a page that uses two instances of an foreach loop. I have a grid system of presentation CSS classes for listing "identity cards" for Staff Members and a similar system for listing Board of Directors. My code looks like this: <!--begin presenting dynamic list of staffCards --> <hr/> <h2>Staff</h2> <?foreach ($page->children as $c):?> <div class="staffCards"> <h4><?=$c->staffName;?></h4> <h5><?=$c->staffAddress;?></h5> <h5><?=$c->staffPhone;?></h5> <img src="<?=$c->image->url;?>" alt="<?=$c->image->description;?>"> <p><?=$c->staffDescription;?></p> </div><!--staffCards ends --> <? endforeach; ?> <hr/> <h2>Board of Directors</h2> <?foreach ($page->children as $directors):?> <div class="directorsCards"> <h4><?=$directors->directorsName;?></h4> <img src="<?=$directors->image->url;?>" alt="<?=$directors->image->description;?>"> <p><?=$directors->directorsDescription;?></p> </div><!--directorsCards ends --> <? endforeach; ?> </div> <!--mainColumn ends --> For the most part this is working. When I add child pages to the About page using a template I call staffCardTemplate for the Staff members I get a nice list of CSS styled Staff id cards. When I then add a child page using a template I call directorsCardTemplate for the Board of Directors I get a different CSS styled list of Board of Directors id cards. I am using fields that are similar for both templates, but with different names so I can style the presentation differently. The Staff cards are presented dynamically in a vertical row and then the Board of Directors cards are below the Staff cards, all on the same page. The issue is that when I create a new Board of Directors card the page is also generating an extra blank box in the Staff cards section of the page. There is no content in this box but the border of the class div is showing? Not wanted... I suspect this line of code is wrong: <?foreach ($page->children as $directors):?> How close (or far) am I to getting this right? Thanks!

Sorry, but I started this thread after briefly mixing up the summary and sidebar feeds in one of my test projects. Makes sense now...

Quick question: The default PS install has a sidebar_item in the main head.inc template file: <div class='sidebar_item'> <?php // if the current page has a populated 'sidebar' field, then print it, // otherwise print the sidebar from the homepage if($page->sidebar) echo $page->sidebar; else echo $homepage->sidebar; ?> </div> </div><!--/sidebar--> The thing I notice is that the all the pages in the default site will echo the Summary text from the Home page. I was expecting the other pages to print the text from the individual summaries?

What a great and useful effort! This deserves its own section of the forum where everyone can see it. Hopefully this list will only improve with time, care, feeding, watering, etc...

I did buy this amazing Underwood in perfect condition for $50. Its nice to look at but I don't use it that much - other than writing my ransom notes of course...

Thanks! All of the above is useful...

ok, sorry I asked...

Hi All, Been away from my learning for a few days. I am about to begin my next local project: redoing an existing client MODx site (education foundation) with ProcessWire. There is no rush but hopefully the new PW site will go live in a couple of weeks or so. I was just wondering how you guys begin a project. You create the database, install PW, and then what? What are the common first habits you begin almost every general PW site with? Do you install specific Modules, plugins and helper items? Do you add a commonly used folder of base template files: CSS, scripts and images? Do you create any base template code system? How do you handle includes files? Do you maintain a PW & PHP code clip file/folder for commonly used site elements? How about any answers to questions I am not listing here? I am really interested in the approaches you might have that streamline the process with site development in general and with PW specifically. Thanks! Max

Try this utility out: http://iconfactory.com/software/xscope/ You get a very generous trial period...

I have the medium sized Intuos and its pretty cool. It takes some getting used to. I do not use mine all the time. I have watched hard core tablet users and they make it look easy. I sometimes find myself dropping the pen and reaching for the regular mouse for certain things but this is really not the efficient way to go in my book. Most of the graphic forum threads I researched recommend the medium Intuos as the size to get. It makes the desk ergonomics easier. The power of tablets really shines when you use professional graphics software that offer pressure settings for brushes and other tools. If you do pen tool work, masking, paths, free hand illustration and removing backgrounds from photos then a good tablet is worth looking into. I also love my buttonless bluetooth Apple mouse as well though...

Interesting reading... You are spot on of course. My issue is a lack of experience using PHP logic in websites. I think I am leaning on using includes files because it sort of mimics my experience in creating templates with chunks and template variables in MODx. In my test site I have a series of pages that are more regular text and inserted image based and a different series of pages that are photo gallery based. The code for the center of the content area is what changes. Also, the gallery system requires a different set of links to scripts, css, template stuff in the head. Using different includes was my way of managing that. To be honest I was not quite getting the logic you were using or why some vital stuff seemed "out of sequence" to my perceptions of normal markup flow. I think that is exactly what I was doing wrong. It took some experimentation to mix your system with my includes and template structure, but I got there in the end. My issues were not so much PW based but placing the various bits and pieces in the correct order for the gallery system to work without my overall layout exploding. I once read this about coding and programming: "don't ever copy and paste code without knowing exactly what it is doing". This sounds like great advice but it is just not always practical. A designer friend of mine also once pointed out; "CMS platforms can be very useful but the learning curve and heavy code lifting takes so much time and effort that presenting the actual content becomes secondary." I can see his point. ... Throughout all of this I have had this nagging voice in my head saying that I am playing in the wrong pool with ProcessWire. The presentation of the entire project, the user base, the conversations in the forms, etc, are more closely connected to programing experience that other systems I have played with. I find reading the documentation and the API to be more of a sales mix of highlighting the features and strengths of the system using technical adjectives than a guide to achieving learning and results. I think web guys and gals that have equal design and programming skills are rare. Usually people lean more one way or the other. To have great skills in both can be wonderful, especially if you work as a one man band. I am a visual person. I like web work though. Its very different to my regular photography work. The main reason I gave up on using Wordpress is the template system. Building stuff from scratch and pouring it into the system revealed how much skeleton scaffolding there really is with Wordpress. I then tried about eight or so systems before settling on MODx. Installing MODx presents pretty much a blank canvas. There is no content and template. The learning curve is figuring out all the building blocks and all the custom MODx placeholder syntax. But there is a lot to like about MODx for designers. After years with MODx I stumble upon ProcessWire. The plusses and minuses are different for each user, but I find there is so much in PW that gives me the sense that this is a pursuit very much worth sticking with. Some things are way easier with PW and some things are like a mirage: not quite sure what I am looking at. It will take some time. I think the design community has this simple request from new CMS platforms: don't just list technical features and parameters, rather show us why they are useful, how & where to add them and how they work. What I see with MODx currently are some real growing pains now that the project has reached some level of maturity. Who is the target audience? Do you attract developer/programmers, designers, or end users? Its a good question if your project aspires to even come close to matching the user base that Wordpress and Drupal enjoys. I guess a good question for ProcessWire is: does this project want to invite designers in solid numbers? A few well placed articles on ProcessWire where designers hang out could create real interest. As things grow the base changes as does the forums. I have seen this with MODx. I better stop rambling here. I think I am guilty of creating some signal-to-noise-ratio concerns on this thread, which should remain focused on your fine and very useful tutorial... Thanks!