What’s new in ProcessWire 3?

Last week we called it a soft launch, but this week we'll say ProcessWire 3 is now released and considered our new master, version 3.0.35. This post is a changelog of sorts, where we will cover all that's new in ProcessWire 3!

System upgrades

Namespaces

Technically, one of the biggest difference between 2.x and 3.x is that 3.x uses PHP namespaces. More

Support for compiled modules and template files

In order to ease the transition to namespaces for modules and template files, ProcessWire is able to automatically compile non-namespaces modules or template files into a format that makes them recognize namespaces. More

Front-end editing

Built-in, front-end editing capabilities come with ProcessWire 3.x, opening a whole new path for page edits. More

Field rendering template files

ProcessWire 3.x also adds support for a new kind of template file. You can now have template files for any field in ProcessWire, and those template files can be used to render output for any given field. Read more here and here.

Multi-instance support

ProcessWire 3.x lets you boot multiple copies of ProcessWire at the same time, which opens new possibilities for sharing data among multiple installations. How to use multi-instance

New API variables

$files

Provides several great new API methods for files and directories, including rendering, manipulation, zipping/unzipping, and compilation.

$datetime

Provides several useful API methods for working with dates and times.

$mail

A new API variable that serves as an interface to WireMail.

$classLoader

Enables you to connect PHP namespaces with file system paths for autoloading purposes.

New $page and $pages API methods

New $pages->findOne() method

ProcessWire 3.x adds a new findOne() method that behaves as kind of a hybrid between the $pages->find() and $pages->get() methods. More

New $pages->getPath() and $pages->getByPath() methods

The getPath() method enables you to get the path to a page without actually loading it, making it a nice optimization for several instances. And the getByPath() method enables you to retrieve a Page object when you only know the path. Of course you can already do that with any page finding method that accepts a selector, but the difference is that getByPath() is very task focused and can do it a lot more quickly, and with a few extras as well. More

New $pages->touch() method

The touch() method works very much like the unix "touch" command. Given a $page, it quickly updates that page's modification time (in the database) to now. More

New $pages->findMany() method

The findMany() method enables you to find thousands upon thousands of pages at once, and even iterate them without running out of memory! More

New $page->index() API method

This new index() method (also accessible as a property) tells you the position of any page relative to its siblings. More

API-side loading, sorting and filtering via $page methods

Multi-value fields (where supported) can now be filtered or sorted before they are loaded simply by calling them as a method on $page rather than as a property. More

Field upgrades

Major image field upgrades

Image fields got a major upgrade in 3.x thanks to a redesign by Renobird and development help from LostKobrakai. The design was originally introduced in this post by Renobird, and the results now appear in the current 3.x version with more info and screencasts here and here.

New link abstraction features

Full page link abstraction is now built into the core Textarea field, making it possible to move or rename linked pages and have any internal links to them get updated automatically. More

Repeater upgrades

Repeaters have a ton of upgrades in 3.x, making them far more useful and efficient than before. Read more here and here and here.

Repeater Matrix support

In combination with some of the Repeater upgrades mentioned above, 3.x also supports the ProFields Repeater Matrix Fieldtype, which is opens up a whole new landscape of editing possibilities. More

Enhanced password fields

Passwords fields received major upgrades in UI and configurable security options. More

Paginated Fieldtypes

New support for paginated fieldtypes is a massive upgrade for scalability of multi-value fields. The ProFields Table Fieldtype is the first example to support this. More

Text lengths and runtime character/word counters

Support for minimum length requirements was added to text-based types. Support for maximum length was also added on Textarea types. In addition, you now have the option of showing a runtime character (or word) counter with text types. More

Page tree and editor upgrades

Smarter and faster page tree

The page tree now remembers where you left it. This also enables it to load the page list much faster than before. More

New page view options

You now have a lot more options when it comes to viewing a page on the front-end. Our "view" link is now a drop-down letting you choose to view it in the same window, in a modal, in a panel or in a new window. More

Panel support

In addition to the common modal windows that you see in ProcessWire, we now support panels and are using them in our page list quick tree and the new debug tools panel. Panels are also an option when viewing a page.

Image resizing upgrades

Thanks to the work of Horst, we added support for new ImageSizerEngine modules and bundled the new ImageMagick resizing engine as a faster alternative to the built in GD resizing engine. More

Dropdown button actions

Now our submit buttons come with dropdown actions, which add convenience and save time. More here and here, as well as a new "Save and edit next" action here.

Performance and optimization

Improvements to sub-selectors

The speed at which sub-selectors operate has now been greatly improved. Basically, they are now hundreds of times faster than before. 3.x also now supports nested sub-selectors.

Exponentially faster forms

With a few bottlenecks removed, our editor forms (InputfieldForm) are now exponentially faster! More

Major performance upgrades to Page traversal methods

The Page traversal methods like $page->next(), $page->nextAll(), $page->nextUntil(), and all the equivalent prev() versions, received major upgrades making them not only simpler to use but a whole lot faster! More

Enhanced page finding selectors

Page finding selectors got a whole lot more powerful with support for a.b.c and a.b.c.d (and so on) type selectors! More

Control over when to use sessions

Now you have the ability to implement a function that controls when sessions are allowed using your own provided logic. More

Multi-language upgrades

Language pack CSV import/export

You can now export an entire language pack (group of translation files) to a single CSV file. You can also import translations from the CSV file. More

Extended page names

We added support for extended page names enable you to have URLs containing almost any UTF-8 characters. This is great for multi-language sites too. More

Multi-language page history

The PagePathHistory module now supports multi-language URLs. More

Multi-language template toggle

Now you have the ability to toggle multi-language features on/off on a per-template basis. More

New phrase search for language translation

When you need to translate some text, but don't know what file it appears in, this new search engine makes life a lot easier! More

Change all language tabs at once

Now you can long-click on any language tab (in the page editor) and it will change all fields to focus that language tab. More

Multi-language placeholder attributes

Text fields now support multiple languages when it comes to placeholder values.

Translation dropdown submit buttons

Now when translating files, you can choose to save and exit, save and edit next, or save and continue editing (as before).

Composer and Packagist support

ProcessWire 3 and Composer

PW3 now comes with a default composer.json file and a custom PSR-4 compliant autoloader. More

ProcessWire now on Packagist

ProcessWire can now be installed with Composer via the Packagist service. More

Modules can now use Composer

In addition to other libraries you might install with Composer, ProcessWire Modules can now be installed and maintained via Composer, where supported. More

Code hosting upgrades

New GitHub repositories

The ProcessWire code is now hosted in a new more official GitHub repository called processwire/processwire (changed from ryancramerdesign/ProcessWire). We also have the processwire-legacy repository which hosts ProcessWire 2.8. More

Improved issue and request management

We now have an issue and request management team, lead by Francesco Schwarz (@isellsoap), new repositories for managing issues and requests, new issue templates, and more. More

And more…

Nice improvements to the ~= text finding operator. More

Install support for utf8mb4 charset and InnoDB engine (database). More

New long-click modal actions. More

You can now use selector arrays in addition to selector strings. More

New options for required fields. More

New 3.x comprehensive API reference documentation. More

Some useful $config improvements. More

Hundreds of big fixes and optimizations!

What about ProcessWire 2.8?

ProcessWire version 2.8, hosted in our new processwire-legacy repository, is by-and-large exactly the same as ProcessWire 3 except for the following exclusions:

namespaces

multi-instance*

Composer support*

Packagist

*May still work but we aren't officially supporting it in 2.8. If you need any of the above items we recommend sticking with ProcessWire 3.

ProcessWire Upgrade module updated for PW3

With ProcessWire 3 now out, the ProcessWire Upgrade module has also received a version upgrade that supports upgrading to ProcessWire 3 (or ProcessWire 2.8). We've used this for a few of our PW3 site upgrades, including the demo.processwire.com site, and it works quite well.

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