Introduction
The “Oh wow it’s May apparently” Edition
Hello there, Craft friends!
If you print out your email you already know this is a big one. We’ve got some interesting Craft developments to share, a slew of new articles, another fresh round of sites, and some cool upcoming events in the broader web community.
Thank you Solspace for sponsoring this edition with a note about Freeform.
Let’s hit these links.
Craft Link List
News
Entry Authoring Improvements ⭐
Brandon wrapped up a rigorous revision of the entry authoring experience. This update will ship with Craft 3.7 and addresses a variety of feedback for a more intuitive editing and publishing experience.
Be on the lookout for a hosted demo where content authors and developers can try it out and provide feedback.
github.com
Accessible Images with Craft CMS
Matsuko offers a practical guide to text alternative strategy and concrete Craft examples.
craftcms.com
CKEditor Plugin Released
Matsuko elaborates on why the recently-updated CKEditor plugin is a sensible choice for accessible rich text fields.
craftcms.com
Servd Announces CloudFlare Integration
servd.hostServd integrates directly with CloudFlare, providing you with managed DNS directly within the Servd dashboard.
Featured Sponsor
Features and design mean nothing when they don't work reliably.
Don't let any of your valuable form submissions fall through the cracks! Freeform has been meticulously designed and developed to be the most robust form solution for Craft.
solspace.com
Tools, tips, and fundamentals
Securing Front-End User Profile and Entry Forms in Craft ⭐
Ben put it best on Twitter:
putyourlightson.comIf your #CraftCMS site allows public user registration and you use custom fields for “private” admin use only, then this article is required reading for ensuring data integrity.
Vite.js Next Generation Frontend Tooling + Craft CMS
Andrew Welch offers a boots-on-the-ground tour of Vite.js and Craft.
Editor’s note: the included videos don’t seem to factor into the read time.
nystudio107.com
Hot Module Reloading with Laravel Mix v6 and Craft Nitro 2
Andrew Menich walks through a working HMR setup with Laravel Mix on Nitro.
andrewmeni.ch
Smarter Translation Files
David Hellmann suggests componentizing translation strings rather than managing a single, unwieldy file.
davidhellmann.com
Monkey Patching
Rene Merino of Happy Cog explains monkey patching in the context of the Craft control panel.
happycog.com
Docker, Craft, Forge, Arcustech, and Heroku
John Morton writes to us and his future self about his Docker adventures, changes to project structure, and which console editor is closest to his heart.
supergeekery.com
How I Update Craft CMS 3.6.x and Craft CMS Plugins
Andrea calmly and completely describes her 3.6.x update process in an uncommonly tranquil technical article.
substack.com
Content Modeling in CraftCMS Using Matrix Blocks
Rodrigo Passos takes us through a detailed example of content modeling with Matrix, from concept to configuration to templating.
rodrigopassos.com
CraftQuest on Call 22
Andrew and Ryan answer questions and show how the embed tag in Twig works.
craftquest.io
Perfecting your technique
Leveraging Craft CMS Plugins for Horizontal Growth
Ben Croker on the role Craft plugins can play in sustainable business growth.
putyourlightson.com
Should I use Hotwire with Craft?
Leo Bauza of Viget contemplates the potential benefits of HTML over the wire with Craft. He promised to report back as he experiments more. You all saw it.
viget.com
Plugged In
Newsletter
craftcms.com(...) makes it possible to let end users subscribe with various emailing services from a frontend form.
Imager X Storage Driver for Microsoft Azure blob
craftcms.com(...) external storage driver for Imager X that uploads your Imager transforms to Microsoft Azure's blob storage.
Yii, Twig, PHP & More
Built on Craft
Shade Catalog
Via oof. Studio: Craft CMS localized into English and Indonesian, offline PDFs+catalogs with Puppeteer, custom field types.
shadecoffee.org
Premier Protein
Via Smiths Agency, whose recently-relaunched site is also built on Craft CMS.
premierprotein.com
It’s not Craft, but it’s interesting.
May 20th is Global Accessibility Awareness Day
The purpose of GAAD is to get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital access and inclusion, and the more than One Billion people with disabilities/impairments.
There will be lots of events hosted all over the globe and other ways to participate.
globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org
The New Tower for Windows Is Coming
And while we’re on Windows, soon Tower will be with a much nicer UI!
git-tower.com
Google FLoC and Why It’s Bad for Digital Privacy
FLoC is a method to collect, summarize and sell your recent internet browsing activity.
Craft disables FLoC by default as of yesterday’s 3.6.14 release.
usefathom.com
Inclusive Design at Microsoft
Charming, polished manifesto with a wealth of resources for understanding and embracing inclusive design. Highly recommended.
microsoft.com
TailwindCSS: Fluid typography with CSS Clamp
A lingeringly-skeptical-yet-serious exploration of using the CSS clamp() function with TailwindCSS.
Mighty Browser
Need another browser that’s like Chrome but not Chrome? You’re in luck:
mightyapp.comMighty makes Google Chrome faster and uses 10x less memory by streaming your browser from a powerful computer in the cloud.
npm trends: Parcel vs. Vite vs. Snowpack
Battle of the build tools: npm download stat comparison of Parcel, Vite, and Snowpack.
Alternate title: Vite Poised for Escape Velocity.
npmtrends.com