AVD Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Hello, I'm new to this community and need some feedback. I hired an Agency to design and develop a cms website for me. I am familiar with working with other CMS dashboards (eg: WordPress, Squarespace) so at the start of this project, I assumed a Processwire dashboard would have similar functions & accessibility. Looks like I assumed wrong. Below is an excerpt from my conversation with the Agency regarding changing fonts. Me: Will fonts be editable via CMS dashboard should I decide to change it to something else? Is it safe to assume Google fonts and @font-face will be allowed? Agency: Unfortunately Processwire isn't like Wordpress in that regard. We'd have to build font-selection capabilities into the site. If you would like us to do this though, we can quote you on building this type of functionality. In terms of what you'll be able to edit in the CMS: Change header images Add pages Add new portfolio items Change body copy Change headings You won't have control over the page structure/colors etc unless you edit them in the code base. I'm confused because, from the little I've read online, Processwire has a powerful API. Thanks in advance for your feedback! PS: I should mention that I am a graphic designer & webmaster, fairly proficient with HTML & CSS, have limited knowledge of PHP, and zero experience in JQuery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clsource Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Hello and welcome to the forums. You arrived at the right place we are a friendly community happy to help newcomers. About your question: Quote Will fonts be editable via CMS dashboard should I decide to change it to something else? Is it safe to assume Google fonts and @font-face will be allowed? Yes, but as the agency said. It should be configured to do so. Wordpress does not have this functionality either. every wordpress theme comes with their own settings and options. So the agency programmed your site but it didn't program Processwire to include such settings. Maybe wasn't in the original specs. As you mention that you know html and css it seems that you have all the required knowledge to integrate this feature in your site. Just go to the templates folder and take a look for the files. You will encounter many files with html in them. One of them will have the <head></head> tags and you could change the fonts easily 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVD Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 Thanks clsource. I've actually been able to spec fonts within WordPress theme, but perhaps it is a feature included with only some (i.e.: Avada). Good to know I can edit Processwire's template files. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bernhard Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 hi avd and also welcome from my side, nice to hear that you get a pw site. maybe you can share your experience of pw after your first steps with us? would be interesting to hear! in processwire you can make almost everything editable. you CAN. but it's all up to the developer. and in my opinion thats a good thing. so the question is always WHY do you want to make this or that editable. if you have a valid reason one can just create a field for that and build that functionality into your site. but for other things that will not (or should not) change often it's better to change the code directly (and fonts seem to be a good example for that). hope you enjoy pw and your agency does a good job 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3fingers Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Hi @AVD, usually changing font on the fly is not the best choice you could made on the front end, mainly because every font has a different way to handle kerning, line-height, weight, etc. This may cause issues in the whole design of the site, since it may be (or maybe not) possible that some elements on your page breaks the whole layout. Moreover I think that Wordpress themes (like Avada) offers way too many options that, even if fascinating at first, may lead to uncontrollable results on the front end, resulting in a mess (especially regarding the communication aspect of your - or your client - brand) if not handle properly. That said it's not hard to build some sort of switch on the Processwire backend to change fonts on the various pages, but I'd suggest to evalutate this option twice, if not mandatory for what you are achieve 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horst Posted October 28, 2017 Share Posted October 28, 2017 On 26.10.2017 at 6:40 AM, AVD said: Thanks clsource. I've actually been able to spec fonts within WordPress theme, but perhaps it is a feature included with only some (i.e.: Avada). Good to know I can edit Processwire's template files. Welcome to ProcessWire. Maybe, that the settings for fonts is not defined in a template file, but in a css, less or scss file. (Regarding to how your agency organized your site) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVD Posted October 28, 2017 Author Share Posted October 28, 2017 Thanks bernhard and 3fingers for weighing in on this topic. Having access to font selections was just an example of a feature I'm used to seeing in a CMS dashboard. Any future font change I'd make would be only to the site's base-font, not applying multiple fonts to individual pages. I was excluded from collaborating on the font choice for my website and I thought if I found something better down the road I could simply change it out. Looks like I can, but need to code it myself. I have the technology, it's just not what I signed up for. I can see, however, Processwire is an ideal platform for designers & developers, and the merit of limiting editing features to optimize load time and reduce front-end conflicts. I probably won't know what I want to modify (if anything) until I'm ready to update my site with new pages, content and images. So it's not feasible at this point to ask my developer to add features that I don't know that'll I need. Do you know if it's possible to change the template's core code to add features to the dashboard at a later date? Also, are any screenshots or demos available of PW's dashboard? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVD Posted October 28, 2017 Author Share Posted October 28, 2017 2 minutes ago, horst said: Maybe, that the settings for fonts is not defined in a template file, but in a css, less or scss file. (Regarding to how your agency organized your site) 4 That would be awesome! I'll have to ask about that. Thanks, horst! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macrura Posted October 28, 2017 Share Posted October 28, 2017 47 minutes ago, AVD said: Also, are any screenshots or demos available of PW's dashboard? there is no dashboard for PW. If you login though, you would see the page tree, that's the admin landing page. I would never permit a client access to changing the site's global base font. As mentioned in posts above this could have not only detrimental effects to the layout of all content elements, but would also be virtually impossible considering that many parts of the base css file (global style for example) may have rules that refer to that loaded web font. If this ability for base font to be selectable in admin was a requirement of the project, then i would neutralize all of the font rules in the css, and place 1 style tag in the header, which would be selected using some settings page (settings factory or custom helper module), this selection would also have the effect of loading the correct webfont (i use webfonts.js for font loading)... so to sum up, yes it is definitely possible to grant control of the global base font for a site to a settings page with the right modules, and code in the header, but whether it would really work is questionable; You also might need to account for 2 fonts, since most sites use 2-3 complementary webfonts each optimized for either headings or body text.. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
szabesz Posted October 28, 2017 Share Posted October 28, 2017 (edited) 4 hours ago, AVD said: 4 hours ago, horst said: Maybe, that the settings for fonts is not defined in a template file, but in a css, less or scss file. (Regarding to how your agency organized your site) That would be awesome! I'll have to ask about that. Thanks, horst! Welcome To get started, I recommend watching some video tutorials. They might seem outdated at first but in ProcessWire features rarely get deprecated, mostly we have new features added. This means it is worth checking out old ones too, like (note that the admin keeps changing a bit and there are three different admin themes currently so you will surely see differences in this regard): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHqnLQy9R1A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIXxVnsor9A You can find others by searching Youtube or http://processwire.com/videos/ On 10/26/2017 at 3:59 AM, AVD said: PS: I should mention that I am a graphic designer & webmaster, fairly proficient with HTML & CSS, have limited knowledge of PHP, and zero experience in JQuery. You do not need too much PHP to get started. This one is another nice introduction to the most important ProcessWire topics: https://processwire.com/docs/tutorials/but-what-if-i-dont-know-how-to-code/ Hope this helps. When you understand the basics, you will feel more confident to make changes to the site. Edited October 28, 2017 by szabesz typo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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