Introduction
Craft doesn't take a holiday.
As this issue came together, I was worried that since August is a slow month, this would be a short issue. I was wrong. The Craft community has come through again.
While the production version of Craft hit 2.922, the dev preview version of Craft 3 hit 3.0.2918. There's news around both.
What else is in this issue? There are a number of people writing about why they use Craft over other CMSs. We've also got plugins, tips and even a Twig discovery.
Let's hit the links.
-John Morton
Craft Link List
Top Stories
Craft CMS 2.922 requires a manual update.
We've had 2 releases in 2 days recently in the Craft 2 line. The latest, 2.922 includes new CP template hooks. There are updates to the updating mechanism itself which means this 2.922 release requires a manual update. There is no one-click-update for this version.
You'll need to download the latest build, dig out app folder and then replace the app directory in your site.
One last tip, if you're seeing a Garnish error, just clear your browser cache and Craft's cache and then reload your site. (Some people have manually delete the stuff in craft/storage/runtime/cache and craft/storage/runtime/compiled_templates to get things squared away.)
Upgrading Your Site to Craft 3
This documentation page for Craft 3 will probably evolve as we get closer to an actual Craft 3 release, but check out the mention of Craft 4 at the very end of the page. Yes, I said Craft 4.
"The following things have been deprecated, which means that they still work for now, but you will need to change them before upgrading to Craft 4, at which point the backwards compatibility code will be removed completely."
craftcms.com
News
Accessibility Improvements Come to Craft and Garnish
This is great news. A+ for Accessibility.
Plus, Garnish is under an MIT license now, as pointed out by Ben Parizek on Slack this month.
craftcms.com
From the Craft CMS 3.0.2915 change log
Although we're already beyond this version of Craft 3, notice in the change log that "user photos are now assets".
craftcms.com
Featured Sponsor
Pic Puller: The Instagram plugin for Craft CMS
Pic Puller brings your Instagram media into Craft CMS. Full documentation and code samples get you up and running quickly.
picpuller.com
Tools, tips, and fundamentals
The Guide to Craft CMS Development
Masuga Design is writing a book on Craft CMS development. Sign up to be notified of when it's available.
gomasuga.com
Perfecting your technique
Pushing the Limits of Craft CMS's Matrix Field
Straight Up Hangouts takes on the Matrix field.
straightupcraft.com
Eager-Loading Elements Templating Reference
Need to brush up on Matrix blocks and eager loading them? Check out this example from the docs where Matrix blocks are explicitly eager-loaded.
craftcms.com
Plugged In
Comments Rating
If you have comments on your Craft site and need star rating on each comment, well you've found the right plugin. This extends Comment for Craft plugin mentioned in issue 5 of Craft Link List.
github.com
Craft CMS ADLAP2 Plugin
Allow LDAP authentication on the FRONT-END of your web application. (Between you and me, I don't know what that means.)
github.com
Craft Hacksaw
This is a migrated version of Hacksaw (for ExpressionEngine) made especially for Craft CMS.
It's a simple text truncation plugin for Craft CMS that adds a Twig filter to take your entry's content and hack it down to a more manageable size. It strips the HTML and limits the excerpts by character count, word count, or cutoff marker.
Note: After publication, I received this as an updated link for Hacksaw: https://github.com/ryanshrum/hacksaw.
github.com
Instant Analytics updated for Craft Commerce
Instant Analytics brings full Google Analytics support to your Twig templates and automatic Craft Commerce integration with Google Enhanced Ecommerce.
github.com
Craft Asset Use
Asset Use is a plugin for Craft CMS which adds a Control Panel section to easily spot where assets are or aren't being used on your site.
github.com
Asset Links
A Craft CMS extension to automatically add download links to files in the Assets fields on entries.
github.com
A&M Command
Need to do something like delete content in only one section? Check out A&M Command and "you'll have the ability to show a command palette when you navigate through the backend in Craft."
github.com
The Craft Advantage
Yii, Twig, PHP & More
It’s not Craft, but it’s interesting.
Responsive Images: If you're just changing resolutions, use srcset. | CSS-Tricks
You might also want to check out this one, Srcset and sizes mentioned in the same conversation on Slack.
Lazysizes also came up. I
css-tricks.com
What Does My Site Cost?
Find out how much it costs for someone to use your site on mobile networks around the world.
whatdoesmysitecost.com
Grade
This JavaScript library produces complimentary gradients generated from the top 2 dominant colors in supplied images.
github.com
'font-display' for the Masses
"The font-display property in CSS is newly available in Blink-based browser. It gives us the same power found in browser features such as the Font Loading API and third party scripts such as Bram Stein's Font Face Observer. The key difference, though, is that this capability is also now a CSS feature."