A couple ProcessWire installations that get special treatment

[Jonathan Lahijani]

I've been using ProcessWire for a long long time and over the years my techniques and go-to approaches have been constantly refined.  A lot of this knowledge is codified in my internal heavily opinionated starter module that sets up everything up the way I like.

Even with that, there are other tips, techniques, and modules that I may use occasionally on client sites and because of that, I may not remember them months or years later.  I do have a document that I've been better at updating recently with this information, but in addition to that, I think to really remember a piece of knowledge it's best to actively use it even if not necessary.

The best place I've found to do this is on my personal website.  I treat my personal website as a semi-testing ground, a reminder of techniques and the generally the first place I will use something that maybe gets used on my other client websites.  Even if I don't really need some specific module, need that odd hook, or require a specific setting, I will deliberately use it on my personal website because I have total control over it, it's live (meaning I have both a development and production version which allows me to test my deploy and sync scripts) and if something breaks temporarily it's not a big deal.

For example, I'm doing the following on my personal site:

• various hooks that modify the admin; adding custom markup fields in the page editor for certain templates
• using dotenv (maybe eventually use this everywhere, but only here for now to codify the latest approach on this)
• using rockshell with some custom commands that I don't really need
• have a random snippet for tracydebugger in /site/templates/TracyDebugger/snippets/
• created all the other special status files in /site/ (boot.php, download.php, failed.php, render.php)
• blocking the vendor folder in .htaccess
• have a random rewrite rule in .htaccess
• using ProcessRedirects with a random rewrite rule
• disabling sessions
• purposely have a dash in the name of my database (did you know Microsoft purposely put a space in the "Program Files" directory so that developers properly handle paths with spaces in it?)
• using Page Edit Lock Fields on my home and about page (yea, locking the page from myself!)
• experimenting with the AdminBar module and hooks, even though I won't use this module (I have my own admin bar that loads via ajax)
• overriding styles in the ProcessWire's admin bar (making the font small, smaller spacing, full width container)
• have a humans.txt file
• separately, using Matomo even though I don't really care about analytics for this site
• my deploy script deploys some extra random directories even though I don't need them
• have a separate user account that's been assigned the AdminThemeBootstrap theme I am working on
• using a honeypot field on my formbuilder-based contact form (I use this everywhere)

I have a note (which is basically the above list) that I add to so it's easy to remember what I did, why and references to it (forum post, github, blog post, etc.).

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Separately, I have another completely blank ProcessWire installation with nothing extra done to it (except TracyDebugger).  I use this to test and experiment various things (sometimes unrelated issues) when I don't want any hooks or installed modules potentially modifying anything.  I'll also install modules here that I'm not so sure about.  If I suspect I hit a bug with ProcessWire in a separate installation, I'll experiment here as well.  Once I'm done fully experimenting and the issue has been resolved, I'll make a note in a log of what I did then undo my changes bringing it back to a clean slate.

[Robin S]

6 hours ago, Jonathan Lahijani said:

created all the other special status files in /site/ (boot.php, download.php, failed.php, render.php)

Just wondering, have you (or anyone else) ever needed to put anything into those files? What scenarios are they useful in? I use status files for "init", "readySite" and "readyAdmin", and I think once or twice I've used "finished", but I don't have a grasp on what the files you mentioned would be useful for.

 

[netcarver]

@Robin S I ended up using boot.ini to extend PW's class loader early enough to allow traits to be used in the UserPage class. More on this here.

[Jonathan Lahijani]

On 5/10/2024 at 4:29 PM, Robin S said:

Just wondering, have you (or anyone else) ever needed to put anything into those files? What scenarios are they useful in? I use status files for "init", "readySite" and "readyAdmin", and I think once or twice I've used "finished", but I don't have a grasp on what the files you mentioned would be useful for.

@Robin S Not yet but at least for now, the files existing there serve as a visual reminder.

[FireWire]

@Jonathan Lahijani I wrote a little utility that works with .env files. It uses phpdotenv but adds additional features that are ProcessWire focused and also adds caching for performance. Sharing since you mentioned dotenv in your list. I've been thinking about how I've been using phpdotenv myself on every project and am interested in thoughts from other devs who use in with PW as well.