Jump to content

MatthewSchenker

PW-Moderators
  • Posts

    677
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    2

Posts posted by MatthewSchenker

  1. Greetings,

    With the new design freedom that ProcessWire provides for my work, I am able to enter territory that before was too cumbersome to deal with in previous CMSs. Some of those are pretty basic, such as typography.

    There are lots of typography services out there:

    Typekit

    Google Fonts

    Lost Type Co-op

    Font-Zone

    Fontdeck

    I've enjoyed using Google Fonts, but I wonder what the ProcessWire community thinks...

    What's your favorite, and why? What is your opinion about paid versus free services? And what other typography services should I keep on my list?

    Thanks,

    Matthew

  2. Greetings Ryan,

    I've been playing with the 2.3 release from Github. It seems ready for prime time! Well, at least in my testing I haven't had any issues.

    Thanks for all your efforts! In just a short time, your CMS and the community around it has helped me make a giant leap in my site building.

    Matthew

    • Like 1
  3. Greetings diogo,

    After reading up a bit more on the subject, I do realize that even though it is more involved, we are better off with the way Ryan sees dropdowns. If a site factors to something larger, I definitely see the benefit in being able to control what goes in/out using the page system.

    I do think this is a very good example of how one can get so used to a weaker way of doing things (other CMSs) that when you come to a stronger system (ProcessWire) it at first appears to be weird. But then you realize how it works.

    Still, I must admit that at the moment I'm still getting used to doing dropdowns/checkbox lists this way.

    Thanks,

    Matthew

  4. Greetings Marco,

    I'm still kind of new here myself. But I have come from a similar history as you -- worked with Joomla mostly. If you are like me, you will find that ProcessWire opens up that creativity that was always in you, but which was held back by limitations of other systems.

    Thanks,

    Matthew

    • Like 2
  5. Greetings yesjoar,

    Thanks for the help! I am probably accustomed to creating dropdowns from other CMSs, which I admit do not use the best practices when you look deeper and see the way the material goes into the database. I have read Ryan's explanation for doing dropdowns differently in ProcessWire, and I'm glad to know that he is not afraid to push for a proper way to get material into the database -- even if it requires a few extra steps.

    Since I will probably have lots of dropdowns on my sites, I'm thinking the best way to manage this is to create a parent in my page tree for "Dropdowns" and then branch off individual dropdowns from there with children/grandchildren.

    Thanks again,

    Matthew

  6. Greetings Everyone,

    I've been making great progress with ProcessWire -- really enjoying the way it works.

    But there is one area I'm still a bit puzzled by, and I've put off posting about it in hopes that I'd have that "eureka" moment. But it hasn't happened yet, so I must post what may soon seem like a very simple question:

    How do I create a dropdown field or a checkbox list?

    I see how to create a single checkbox. But in my case, I have a "Galleries" form, where the user selects one of these gallery types:

    - Master Artist

    - Emerging Artist

    - Virtual Exhibition

    I could of course just have three different single checkboxes, which actually works well for making selections later (1 or 0 state).

    I've searched the forum, but must admit I still don't quite see how dropdowns are created. Can someone shed some more light on this?

    Thanks,

    Matthew

  7. Greetings Joss,

    Very nice job Joss. Glad to see you succeeding with ProcessWire.

    This is good proof of both parts of site-creation: you are good at Web design; ProcessWire helps us build sites quickly.

    Hey, if a musician can build a site like that, there's hope for a technical writer like me!

    Thanks,

    Matthew

    PS: I'm rooting for Joss, as I'm somewhat personally guilty in suggesting he try a new CMS.

  8. Hi onjegolders,

    Oh, I don't think the poor horse needs to be put down. Underneath, he's still a horse. I should have mentioned that he goes by the name "PHP."

    However, he might do better if his trainers stopped making him wear layers and layers of wool blankets whenever he raced, and if they stopped putting weights on his feet, and it would also help if his jockey was not a Sumo Wrestler.

    Thanks,

    Matthew

    • Like 1
  9. Greetings neildaemond,

    I'm still investigating the use of these toolkits, and very much on the fence about it. It helps to hear your experiences with Foundation. Sounds like maybe you and I are at the same stage with this?

    I'm wondering whether for people who have already built up their own CSS library, if the simpler CSS grid systems (without all the UI elements) are a better way to go?

    The one area that I feel is a big benefit is the handling of different viewports. Like everyone else, I've struggled with nailing down a set of responsive elements in my own toolbox. Foundation and Bootstrap do seem to have that pretty well taken care of. But then again, some of the simpler grid systems also have that down.

    One of the great things about ProcessWire is that it is easy to experiment with all these toolboxes pretty quickly.

    Thanks,

    Matthew

  10. Greetings,

    Thanks SiNNuT for posting this. Sort of like Mr. Way, I have spent a lot of time looking at various editors over the past couple of years. The irony is, sometimes I think the time saved using an editor is eaten up in the time i take to keep testing a new one! OK, that's a joke, but you see what I mean...

    I've also tried Coda and Textmate, as well as Aptana, Eclipse, and Komodo, and other I can't even remember now.

    Currently, I use Espresso and I am happy with it. But a discussion like this could get me trying new ones...

    Thanks,

    Matthew

  11. Greetings,

    onjegolders: I totally understand where you're coming from! I've spent the past three years using Joomla, and I am now moving away from it entirely in favor of ProcessWire. I still get clients that specifically ask for Joomla, and I have a couple of development partners that still want to use it. I'm convinced that it is my job to move away from Joomla. Maybe I can offer some general ways to approach this...

    I've got several opinions on this matter. But let me focus on one particular area that you mentioned...

    THE "CLICK TO INSTALL" ILLUSION

    When I first started using Joomla, I thought it was great to have all those extensions ready to install with a few clicks. But as time went on, I found that my clients wanted more specific styling and actions. Since every module and extension for Joomla is nearly a separate application, each one re-doing models and coding that often were already done by something else in the Joomla ecosystem (more on the Joomla ecosystem in another post), each one comes with its own (sometimes very extensive) styling and coding assumptions. These very often (let me emphasize very often) conflict with styling definitions you're using elsewhere in the site.

    If you just want to insert stuff into a pre-fab template and use it exactly as is, you can get along pretty well. But I have found it is inevitable that clients need something more customized down the line. At that point, all the time you "saved" with point-and-click is lost when you have to figure out what that extension developer did in there, or when you have to stop using an extension altogether and find another one that does something better and have to figure out how to transfer the arcane material from one extension's database structure into another one (for example).

    By contrast, in a community like ProcessWire, you can get the snippets of code necessary to do the same thing as the point-and-click operations. The difference is, the styling is up to you. Even more importantly, you are very clear about how the thing was coded and can re-code pretty quickly.

    The key here is having a strong community, because if there are people to help you out with the code it hardly takes any longer to do it that way than to install a "point and click" extension. Also, it's a real problem that in Joomla so many developers abandon their projects. Then you are left with a strange extension, and you are on your own anyway to decipher the code!

    I do agree that it's a difficult thing to convince people of this. But I'm becoming more confident in just stating that I can build the system they want, with more flexibility beyond the first stage. I've found that most clients do want to be able to add more features in the future. Another thing I have found: most people who say they want Joomla are only saying that because it's the first or second system that turned up in a Google search. But if you sit down with them and explain that you can go further with a system like ProcessWire, most clients will trust you. After all, the reason they are hiring you is because they want a professional to advise and direct them! If that were not the case, they would just build it themselves.

    I use a metaphor when sitting down with people who bring up the Joomla vs ____ comments....

    It's like a horse race. At the starting gate, the Joomla horse jumps out to a fast lead. ProcessWire and CodeIgniter (for example) start off slower. By mid-race, it seems all but certain that Joomla will win. But more open systems build speed throughout the race. Coming around that last turn, you can see Joomla slowing down. By the end of the race, the Joomla horse is tired and confused, and often doesn't cross the finish line at all.

    Thanks,

    Matthew

    • Like 5
  12. Greetings,

    Glad to discover this topic.

    For a long time, I've been building my own library of CSS elements, and I have a set of UI elements (sliders, tabs, buttons, etc) from various sources. I get a tab element from here and an image slider from over there, button ideas from over there, a particular technique for being responsive, etc. Working this way has helped me learn more about how JQuery works, and to understand responsive design.

    At the same time, I like the idea of putting all these parts together into a single toolbox like Bootstrap or Foundation. The downside, it seems, is that it feels like a toolbox is a way of saying that you'll now limit yourself to the tools and techniques included in that system. I know you're not forced to do it, but if you're not using those elements why bother with the toolbox? Still, I definitely see how using a toolbox would speed up my development. I also see how it can be beneficial to get involved in a community of developers who are using it.

    In recent years, I've been using Joomla for all my sites. With that CMS, the difficulty of including a framework makes you avoid it. Now that I'm using ProcessWire, including a toolbox seems rather intuitive, so it's become a burning question for me.

    After playing with Bootstrap and Foundation... It's a close call, but I like Foundation a bit more. I was looking for a tie-breaker, which for me was the Orbit image slider (http://foundation.zurb.com/docs/orbit.php)!

    Thanks,

    Matthew

  13. Greetings,

    Thank you again to everyone for helping! It turns out that adding JQuery to ProcessWire is definitely natural and straightforward -- as I assumed it had to be, since everything else works so naturally here!

    I got my JQuery running properly on my test site now. To be honest, I don't know what was going wrong. I decided to just scrap all the files related to the script and start over... And this time it all worked.

    Thanks again everyone,

    Matthew

    • Like 1
  14. Hello interrobang,

    Thanks for helping! I appreciate everyone jumping in here.

    Yes, I realize I'm not supposed to include both JQuery references. That was one of the ways I was trying to figure out where the problem was coming from.

    I owe everyone here a favor!

    Thanks,

    Matthew

  15. Hi Soma,

    Thanks, and I'm glad to know it must be something simple going wrong here.

    Sorry I'm changing the site as we discuss this. I'm going to settle the one under discussion here and do my tests on another install so I don't cause confusion.

    All right, I'm going to get a cup of coffee and then get into this again. I'm sure this has a solution.

    Thanks,

    Matthew

  16. Hello diogo,

    Yes, I even included a link to Google's hosted version. I've also tested a few other JQuery scripts. I just can't seem to make JQuery work.

    I know this sounds kind of silly, but is there anything unique about calling JQuery in PrcessWire?

    Thanks,

    Matthew

  17. Hi Wanze,

    Thanks for jumping in to help!

    Unfortunately, that's not the problem. I did accidentally put the script inside the loop in a moment of experimentation!

    I've tried to put the script in the head.incl file and also outside the foreach loop. But it still doesn't work.

    I'm sure I'm overlooking something that I will be embarrassed about! But at the moment, I don't know what it is.

    Thanks,

    Matthew

  18. Greetings,

    I've been getting acquainted with ProcessWire in the past couple of weeks, and really like it! But I'm encountering an issue, which I have hesitated to ask about because it's so basic.

    But here goes...

    I'm trying to implement FancyBox as a way of expanding images for artist gallery pages. I've added the actual FancyBox JS and CSS files in my head.inc file, like this:

    <script type="text/javascript" src="<?php echo $config->urls->templates?>scripts/jquery.fancybox.js?v=2.1.3"></script>
    
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="<?php echo $config->urls->templates?>styles/jquery.fancybox.css?v=2.1.3" />
    

    I then loop through a series of images that were entered via a form. Here are the relevant lines in my template:

    <?php
    foreach ($page->artist_images as $image) {
     $large = $image->size(640, 480);
     $thumb = $image->size(200, 150);
    ?>
    <li class="picture_box">
    <a class="fancybox" rel="gallery1" href="<?php echo $large->url; ?>" title="title goes here">
    <img src="<?php echo $thumb->url; ?>" alt="" />
    </a>
    </li>
    
    <script type="text/javascript">
    $(document).ready(function() {
    $(".fancybox").fancybox({
     openEffect : 'none',
     closeEffect : 'none'
    });
    });
    </script>
    
    <?php
    }
    ?>
    
    </div>
    

    But instead of seeing the FancyBox effect, the thumbnail links to the large image with no JQuery.

    I've used FancyBox this way a thousand times... Well, OK, I slightly exaggerate!

    I'm sure I'm missing something very obvious. Can someone please tell me what I've done wrong?

    Here's the test site where I'm building this: http://50.22.43.59/~racc/galleries/artist1/

    Thanks,

    Matthew

  19. Greetings,

    Thank you Ryan.

    I had a feeling it was not difficult to achieve this in ProcessWire. After all, I have yet to find anything that is difficult to achieve in ProcessWire!

    But this should be a warning that, being in my early phases with ProcessWire, I am liable to ask questions that are very easy to answer.

    My positive feelings about ProcessWire increase exponentially every day, based on the system itself and the community around it. It's quite amazing how much territory I have been able to cover in just a couple of weeks. And I am -- at best -- an intermediate PHP coder.

    Thanks again,

    Matthew

    • Like 3
  20. Greetings,

    Very glad to find this topic, because I had a somewhat related question about handling user roles. Not only was my question answered, but I just expanded my general knowledge of ProcessWire by reading this thread.

    This is such a terrific user community, which -- besides the value of the CMS itself -- is like gold to anyone learning this system.

    I'm curious about one particular statement that onjegolders made:

    ... As my editor was the person adding clients, I made a simple front end template for them to add clients through which created the user and the page at the same time.

    Can you share more about this? I'm curious about the best ways to give users front-end methods for creating pages.

    Thanks again for everything!

    Matthew

    • Like 2
  21. Greetings,

    Just wanted to say thanks for this discussion. I'm still new to ProcessWire, and I had a similar question.

    The fact that such a discussion can take place here so naturally is one of the many reasons I find ProcessWire so good. What you are all discussing here is what one could call "good general practices" for deploying any site. However, in other CMSs, when you ask such a question, you get the general information then you have to go further and say, "OK, now how do I do this in [name] CMS?" With ProcessWire, what I really like is that the answer is simply the answer, and not "Here's how you need to do it in ProcessWire."

    This principle seems to extend all the way through ProcessWire -- from templates to JQuery, and more. It's one of the principles that I find very appealing about the system

    Thanks,

    Matthew

    • Like 7
  22. Greetings,

    Aha...Yes! That solved it.

    Now that you turned my attention to that section of the .htaccess file, I see it states that there might be problems with "temporary" sites with a "~" in the URL.

    Hey, while I was there I corrected a typo om line 70: changed "aern't" to "aren't"!

    See, I'm being helpful already (sarcasm on).

    Thank you for the quick help everybody!

    Matthew

    EDIT: I just voted for ProcessWire at the Critics Choice CMS Awards. Even just what I have seen in recent days tells me I have found the right thing. Don't know how I went this long without knowing about ProcessWire.

    • Like 3
×
×
  • Create New...