Craft Link List Begins: Issue 1

Introduction

Craft Link List Begins

Welcome to the first issue of Craft Link List. If you are reading this you are probably a bit of a Craft CMS junkie. You’re in good company here. I've been a fan of Craft from its early days. (Remember Blocks?)

A Craft-specific newsletter has been an interest of mine for a while, but after the Craft Summit 2015 that interest turned into inspiration. Between the incredible presentations and conversations in the chat room, I accumulated pages of Craft links and notes. I shared a Google Doc link of my notes that from that day and I've decided to make that into a regular activity with Craft Link List. I hope you enjoy it.

Currently, this will be a monthly newsletter initially but I hope we can grow it further. The Craft community has momentum and we should be in for a fun ride.

If you have any suggestions of links for the next issue, please drop me a line! I'd love to hear from you.

-John Morton

Tools, tips, and fundamentals

The Craft Field Cheat Sheet

Erik Reagan helps you cheat in Craft class. Don't worry, I won't tell the teacher.

Craft-Twig bundle for Sublime Text

A Craft CMS influenced Twig bundle for Sublime Text, customized to work with Craft CMS specific Twig extensions.

Perfecting your technique

Everything you wanted to know about cache but were afraid to ask.

Spend an hour with Ben Parizek from Straight Up Craft as he dives deep into the Craft {% cache %} tag.

Using Macros in Twig and Craft

Ryan Irelan from Mijingo takes us through making macros (i.e. functions) for your Craft templates.

Craft Grid System

Nathan Doyle shares thoughts on grid layouts in Craft.

"Currently it's possible to build a Grid System using special Matrix setups along with some advanced Twig tempting but, that's not ideal."

Flexible Layouts with Craft

Like Nathan, Stephen Bowling also has Craft layouts on his mind. Check out his take on Flexible Layouts with Craft.

Plugged In

Code Block

If you're a geek using Craft for your own site, you likely will have code blocks. Lindsey Diloreto has a Code Block plugin for that very purpose.

Cache Warmer

Sure, your site buzzes along and all that delicious content is stored in your cache. Pity the first user who has to load one of those 12 seconds long page builds to generate that cache. Cache Warmer from Fred Calsen promises to do that behind the scenes. Yeah, you want this one.

REST Easy

REST Easy is a plugin for Craft that allows for integration with Craft via a simple API.

The plugin has a healthy to do list:

Add config file for setting authentication keys and default embeds
Post
Patch
Put
Delete

It's on Github, so you can ask the author, Wes Rice, how you can pitch in.

Facebook Feed Plugin

Bluemantis lets you feature public Facebook Feeds in your Craft site.

FormBuilder

Generate multiple forms with custom fields without manually create markup for each field.

Overheard

Sort by two fields

John Baxter may have uncovered an undocumented sorting feature for Craft templates.

What's in your CMS Tool Belt?

A guy walks into a bar and says, "Which do I use? ExpressionEngine or WordPress..."

It’s not Craft, but it’s interesting.

Statamic has a new licensing scheme

The Statamic team has a new take on licensing called Statamic Unlimited, an "unlimited license solution for the CMS." Cool.

Perch: The really little CMS

Perch aims to help you turn an existing static site into a content managed site quickly. I know I've been in that situation before.

The walk-through video gets a Perch site up and running in about 8 minutes. Beware, there PHP tags ahead, but they don't seem too WordPress-y and the bird animation is very charming.