Best workflow to map custom website development with ProcessWire?

[shogun]

I want to start getting process wire into our workflow.

(Someone recommended this to me and I absolutely fell in love with this. It's just what I needed. We build completely custom "static" sites from scratch.)

I'm just wondering what's the best workflow. I'm thinking of 2 methods:

1. (Build site first and then integrate processwire) We build a site using all our compilers -> then setup processwire, and start copying each page to the template directory, then mapping templates/pages and fields. I'm worried in this case, will I either misconfigure mapping pages/templates to the copied over pages or there will be some conflict between a page copied to the directory and then mapped in the admin. (also curious about this since we already have a bunch of sites I'd love to map processwire's cms to)

2. (Setup processwire first and then custom code each page) We just setup processwire from the start, create the template, page, fields for a page and then open it up and custom code into the page created by processwire...  Just concerned of anything getting in the way of our initial buildout with our gulp and sass precompilers.

Any thoughts?

Edited December 8, 2019 by shogun

[bernhard]

Hi shogun, welcome to ProcessWire ?

imho that's totally up to you... It depend's solely on your preferences, other workflows, integrations, team members... 

I guess 1) would be easier in the beginning and 2) might make more sense after a while when you are more familiar with how pw works (and how you work with it). You can do a lot more than just inject some API magic into template files. For example you can do field rendering (https://processwire.com/blog/posts/processwire-3.0.7-expands-field-rendering-page-path-history-and-more/#field-rendering-with-template-files) or use Markup Regions (https://processwire.com/docs/front-end/output/markup-regions/) that open up a lot of possibilities but also make things more complicated in the beginning (if you are new to them).

[wbmnfktr]

There is an old video around that shows how it could be done. It's the older version of ProcessWire in that video but it would work the same nowadays - just looks a bit different now.

In terms of best workflow... it really depends on various factors as @bernhard already mentioned.

I wrote about my personal workflow in or with ProcessWire here and here.

[qtguru]

The first workflow is the more traditional way for me, I ensure the website is built first, then change them from HTML to Twig, since I am more of a fan of Twig than the default Processwire Engine. 

[Gideon So]

Same here. Build the site in html first and then implement whatever you want into it.