MatthewSchenker

Hello Everyone, I have been testing extensively the past couple of days. My goal is to design and develop in ProcessWire, and then hook into a system to handle the shopping cart, (PCI-compliant) payment processing, and shipping steps. I've narrowed it down to these three: Shopify BigCommerce FoxyCart Shopify and BigCommerce are so close in capabilities, I review them together. FoxyCart is a whole different approach. Below is my assessment of everything except pricing, which to me feels rather even across all three systems... Shopify and BigCommerce Shopify and BigCommerce take you fully into their system, which means we must do all design and structure inside Shopify or BigCommerce. They each do have decent design and structure capabilities to customize the look of your "store," but as I tested them I kept wishing I could just use my $page, $pages, $field, $config, and other variables from ProcessWire to make my pages be what I want them to be. For payment gateways, Shopify lists 70 and BigCommerc lists 60. I did not have the time to test all the gateways, so I have to trust their Web statements on this! Shopify and BigCommerce also host your site and take all your files and data onto their servers. The advantage of this is that they can provide more statistical options, and can be used to control inventory. Shopify and BigCommerce are "Level 1" PCI compliance. To try out the systems, Shopify has a 30-day trial period, and BigCommerce has a 15-day trial period. At the end of the trial period, you have to decide if you are ready to go live (or, I presume, stop using the test). Useful information on these systems: Shopify Features BigCommerce Features FoxyCart This one really stands out for me right now: JS-linked forms and buttons that can be integrated into any PHP and hook out to Foxycart's system Can use ProcessWire variables as dynamic values inside the FoxyCart forms or buttons Allows full customization of checkout forms and process by linking to external style sheets With this system, you can develop everyting in ProcessWire and hook out to FoxyCart when it's time to run transactions. All of the great API elements of ProcessWire can be brought together in your store, but use FoxyCart to handle the messy parts of the e-commerce picture. FoxyCart lists 57 payment gateways. Since FoxyCart is only hosting the purchase phase of your transactions. It does not have the capability to keep inventory or other stock-type data. FoxyCart is "Level 2" PCI compliance. Not sure how significantly this compares to the "Level 1" compliance of the other two systems. FoxyCart has an unlimited trial period. That means you can test until you want your site to go live. Useful information on FoxyCart: Documentation Features Opinion In my testing, if you want something that can use your ProcessWire knowledge, FoxyCart is best. Has anyone else here built a working system with FoxyCart? Do you know of other systems that work this way? Thanks, Matthew

Greetings, I have used various payments systems for e-commerce projects, but I am very interested in testing systems that can hook into ProcessWire. Thanks, Matthew

Hello, Stripe looks excellent. I have done some quick testing of it in the past couple of days, and I think this, together with ProcessWire's amazing API, promises an impressive way to set up an e-commerce system. There are many ways to do e-commerce, but the compliance rules seem to push in favor of the friendliest off-server credit card/transaction handler. Stripe seems like a major contender. I'd be curious to see sites done using Stripe and Processwire. Thanks, Matthew

Hi boundaryfunctions, I'll try that. Another thing is that, sometimes, for whatever reason, when I do an update to my JQuery/JS elements, they stop working for a little while, then work properly again at some point. It might be a cache thing, I don't know. Thanks, Matthew EDIT: I cleared out the entry from my file server. Then in PHPMyAdmin I discovered that -- yes, in fact, there was an entry for "TextAreaCounter" in the "Modules" table. I deleted that, then installed the module as normal and it is working great now. EDIT EDIT: I think this one can be moved from "wish list" to "done list."

Hello, I pasted the new code over the old code, then realized it wasn't working in the back end. Then I tried to delete the old module from the back-end, but it was no longer recognized (i.e., it was listed in the modules but not actually functional). The admin message I see is this: Can't uninstall module - Module is not already installed I then deleted the folder on my server and re-created the folder with the new name, uploaded the new files, then looked for "new" modules with PW back end. It did not find it, but the "old" module was still listed. So, I guess I have to try to clean this up first! When I try to delete the module now, I keep getting the same "Can't uninstall" message. No JS errors, and the "TextareaCounter.js" file is being loaded. Thanks, Matthew EDIT: I successfully stopped the module from appearing in the module list by deleting it again from the server. But after re-creating the directory again and re-uploading the files, then asking to "find new modules" it appears in the modules list automatically without adding it. But if I click on the module name, then "submit" it, I get this error: Unable to find ID for Module 'TextareaCounter' This might have nothing to do with the module! But I'm reporting it. Trying to fix it now.

Greetings, The site is great. A full look at the pianist and his work, and a nice photographic glimpse at the man himself. I can see that you had to work with a lot of text material here. You organize it and present it very well. My only suggestion would be to increase the font size inside the gray boxes on the "Recital" and "Concerto" pages. By the way, what is it lately with Sopranos lookalikes in ProcessWire music sites? - First, there is Macrura73's new management site, where David del Tredici looks quite like Ralph. - Now there's Alexandros who looks strikingly like Christopher. Maybe it's just me. Thanks for sharing, Matthew

Greetings, I like this site. Dr. Shackleton seems like a friendly fellow, despite his name. The site presents a warm and organized feel. (From the photo, it appears the doctor either works late or comes in very early). Joss: I think joshuag must have removed the phrase? Maybe a better one would be "site crowned by ProcessWire" Thanks, Matthew

Hello Boundaryfunctions, I replaced the old one with this, and a look at the code tells me this is definitely heading in the right direction! Here's what I'm seeing: 1. When I enter text, the "Characters left:" counter does not update as I'm typing 2. If I type some text, then hit "save," the "Characters left:" number updates properly 3. If too many characters are entered, it deletes everything that was entered in that "session" Let me know if I can be of any further help with this. I'm looking at your code and trying to get a handle on all that this is doing. Thank you for your excellent work. Matthew

Hello, As I mentioned in my first post, I definitely see CodeIgniter as a model for documentation. The other framework that I have been using for some projects is Laravel, and it also has terrific documentation (http://laravel.com/docs). Still, I think both CodeIgniter and Laravel do not have enough illustrative examples of how the code is used for day-to-day real tasks. That's what I want to base my documentation on. I've already written several pages for my project, and I have high hopes for it. My longer-term goal is for it to link up with the work others are doing -- for example Joss's material. I'm putting together actual documentation pages now, and also a scheme for the way the whole thing works. I'll present it soon. ProcessWire is such an amazing tool, it elevates your whole idea of what's possible. That in turn is making me want to create documentation that is also amazing. Thanks, Matthew

Hey Everyone, Based on this sample, I must... 1. Try Bootstrap 2. Purchase Form Builder I'm still investigating frameworks (Foundation is my current favorite), but it seems that Bootsrap again and again gets the most attention. Thanks, Matthew

Hi onjegolders, I'm working in stages with my ProcessWire sites. I am now looking at all the form options. I prefer to build forms in "pure" HTML/PHP, but am always open to a different way. Thanks again for your excellent share. Matthew

Hey boundaryfunctions, As soon as I get it working properly I will definitely add it! I'm trying to do two things: 1. Cut the entry off after the maximum characters 2. Make the "characters left" turn red when the user gets to < 10 characters remaining The first one is really required. The second one is just a nicde touch, but again this is all about getting faster with ProcessWire as well as making a functional module. Thanks, Matthew

Greetings, Hey, this is terrific! Love the big, bold, positive feeling of the site. What did you use for the entry forms? Thanks, Matthew

Hi boundaryfunctions, We are totally in alignment. We need... 1. The immediate-response thing for stopping innocent people from wriitng a novel only to find out afterwards that we only want 100 characters 2. The server-side validation to make sure the 100 characters are not evil Just for the moment, I'm trying to integrate number 1 into the plugin under discussion. I also leave open the possibility that PW has validation elements already available, and I just am not yet using them. Thanks, Matthew

Greetings, I've been following the various posts on this subject. Definitely, handling page-creation from either front-end forms or a well-controlled admin page is important. At the current time, I see advantages to using the admin interface for page creation/editing, but limiting users with various roles to only seeing certain parts of the form. It works well, and guarantees that what is submitted uses the correct template and places the submission into the right place page tree. I've been doing this by just using the URL of the specific admin page. For example, log into the back-end of your site, then go to the admin page and pretend you are creating a "new" page in your site tree. Copy that URL and use in in any front-facing file. Just remember to set the permissions for the fields and forms. Thanks, Matthew

Greetings, I'm now turning to validation for my ProcessWire sites and this seems like a good discussion on the matter. If the user is a fellow admin, I can see that validation is less of a worry. But for sites where I am allowing submissions from a wider audience, I definitely think the priority shifts from "make sure the page can be saved" to "make sure the data is correct." I'm fine doing validation in the templates, as Ryan suggested. But is this for front-end forms (i.e., not for the admin interface)? Thanks, Matthew

Greetings, I think there are many ways to approach validation, and a lot of what I've been reading lately makes me think that all Web apps need to consider new (better) ways to validate form entries. But whatver the latest thinking is, validation is a central and vital part of any application, and I'm sure there are ways to do this in ProcessWire! It seems like the validation challenge comes from submissions using the admin interface, and there are more validation options when building front-end forms? Thanks, Matthew

Hi boundaryfunctions, This topic has me thinking of validation in general. Validation is such a crucial part of any CMS, but I wonder whether there are better practices than what has always been done before? For example, can we get away from the "receive-an-error-upon-form-submission" scenario? Using JQuery or HTML input restrictors might be better in many cases. With text/textarea character limits, I feel like an immediate response in the field (not allowing you to type more characters) is better than waiting until you submit the form. That way, you prevent situations where someone composes a long entry only to find out later that it must be cut. I'm looking at your code and Soma's code and trying to figure out how to use the JS to disallow further characters after a certain point. As I said, I'm looking at this as a way to get a useful module, and also to document how to do modules in ProcessWire. Thanks, Matthew

Hello boundaryfunctions, I installed your Github version (extension?) and it works great. This is a terrific addition to the text and textarea fields. The only thing left is to figure out how to make it so a user cannot enter more than the character limit. I'm thinking a good way to do this is by not allowing any more characters to be entered once the limit is reached (rather than a validation error). These snippets seem to have elements that can work for us: http://www.yourinspi...ide-a-textarea/ http://unwrongest.com/projects/limit/ http://stackoverflow...rea-with-jquery http://www.devcurry....n-textarea.html http://www.scriptiny...xtarea-limiter/ http://web.enavu.com/daily-tip/maxlength-for-textarea-with-jquery/ This is definitely also a good way to get into PW module creation... Thanks, Matthew

Greetings, Well, what do you know. I was wondering about a counter for my textarea fields, and there it is. THANK YOU SOMA FOR CREATING THIS! I've not only installed it, but studied it. I like how clean this code is and how easy it is to understand what it does. That says a lot about Soma's ability to create modules, and also about ProcessWire's module-building system. Has this been entered into the official ProcessWire module listing? Thanks again, Matthew EDIT: Thank you boundaryfunctions for running further with this! I can do some documentation for this, if you need me to.

Hello Macrura73, Well, what do you know... Another Joomla move. I wonder exactly how many of us are here on the forum? Is there a way to do this in ProcessWire: $formerjoomlausers = $members->find("joomla=was"); foreach($formerjoomlausers as $formerjoomlauser) { echo "<li>$formerjoomlauser->name</li>"; } Thanks, Matthew

Greetings, I'm very interested in this. In the past, I feel I have had to make a lot of compomises on e-commerce "solutions." These days, because of how great ProcessWire is, I'm looking for e-commerce solutions that can hook naturally with ProcessWire fields and database. Shopify looks good, and it means a lot that it gets Ryan's endorsement! Can anyone share examples of fully-developed Shopify sites that use ProcessWire as the core CMS? Thanks, Matthew

Hello netcarver, Thank you very much for responding... I switched to using the "normal" Textile, and everything is working great now. In fact, I discovered an additional benefit: Textile adds <p> linebreaks on "return" key entries, so we don't have to use an additional module to make that happen in the textarea fields. This is actually my first time really using Textile. It offers a terrific balance of giving end-users crucial formatting optoions, without resorting to problematic WYSIWYG editors. Great work on Textile! And it's excellent you are part of the ProcessWire community. Thanks, Matthew

Hello, Excellent site! Really fantastic. As Joss said, it feels perfect for its audience (Joss would know better than I). It has an open and friendly feeling that makes you want to explore and "wander" through the site -- even if (like me) you have no musical talent. Thanks, Matthew PS: is it just me, or does David Del Tredici look hauntingly similar to Ralph from The Sopranos?

Hello, I am using Textile in my site now. I like the options it provides. However, for some reason it is not rendering unordered lists properly in the "restricted" version. I apologize if this has been reported already, but here's my scenario... 1. I placed the TextformatterTextileRestricted.module, TextformatterTextile.module, and classTextile.php files in the sites/modules directory 2. I installed the Textile and TextileRestricted modules from the ProcessWire module manager 3. I created a textarea field and applied the "Textile Restricted" formatter in the "Details" screen 4. I enter the following text in a textarea field: *Publications* * Publication 1 * Publication 2 *Honors* * Honor 1 * Honor 2 The browser result is asterisks instead of <li>: Publications * Publication 1 * Publication 2 Honors * Honor 1 * Honor 2 If I do exactly the same thing with the plain "Textile" formatter, it works properly and I get nice <li> elements. Thanks, Matthew