Craft Link List (Archive)

Introduction

Craft Link List #52: The Over-stuffing Issue

Giving that Craft 3 now has an official release date, it's not surprising there would be a bump in the number links about Craft CMS. As proof, this issue is as stuffed with content as possible. The service I use has a 50-links-maximum per issue and we're using every single one of them.

You'll see Fred Carlsen's work pop up here a lot this issue with 10 new Craft 3 plugins. If you like a lot of Craft plugins in your CLL issue, thank him on Slack! ⭐️

Interested in sponsoring an upcoming issue? Please get in touch.

Enough talk. Let's hit the links.

-John Morton

News

Craft 3 beta 34 released

In short order Craft 3 has been through beta 31, 32, 33, and landed on lucky 34. Get to updating.

Featured Sponsor

Pic Puller: The Instagram plugin for Craft CMS

Pic Puller brings your Instagram media into Craft CMS with one-click authorization for your users. Full documentation and code samples get you up and running quickly. Craft 3 version is coming soon. Learn more.

Tools, tips, and fundamentals

Starting a business? Here's some advice. ⭐️

There has been a great on-going discussion in the Craft Slack "shoptalk" channel about starting and maintaining a business. Paulo Elias had a list which he let me share here. Great advice below.

Plan for it (your new business): Thinkabout your value-add. Specialize. Drive that home in your messaging when you are starting out.
Regardless of your wife [or S.O.], get 6-12 months of living expenses in the bank
Network, network, network. I have been working with folks I met 20+ years ago. Conferences were a huge help for me too after my business plateaued in 2010. I was making a decent living in SF but getting out to see like-minded folks and larger agency owners was a huge help at that time
Take care of your great clients and ditch problem clients ASAP
It's cliché, but just do great work and be easy to work with. Don’t be a pushover but be diplomatic and firm as you partner with your clients (keyword partner)
Immediately find a decent accountant and sort out how to best set up your venture. You can end up saving a TON that it is a necessary investment
Find ways to productize your services and find another income stream or three that will help bring in passive income without much fuss (hosting, maintenance contracts, dog walking 😉)
Partnering with busier agencies who value your work, time, and work/life balance is one of the best things you can do
There are many more successful branding, design and marketing agencies out there than we realize who don’t have much (or any) technical chops. They are great clients too.
Really understand your monthly expenses. Break everything down to a monthly number. E.G. If you buy Sketch for $99/yr then divide that by 12
I prefer to pay for the services and software I use regularly upfront for the year when possible
Take time to learn, put your family time first, and plan for vacations. Taking a week a quarter for myself is really a huge anti-burnout trick that learned over time

Which Craft?

Need to easily download a specific version of Craft? Here's a quick way to find it. This site puts a pretty face on the official method of getting older Craft versions.

Using Craft environment variable for Asset source subfolder

Using .all() in Craft 3 Element Queries

Mijingo on how and why to use .all() in Craft 3 element queries. It's an important, required change to how you code Twig templates in Craft 3.

Backup database fails to download zip under PHP 7.1?

A quick and easy local environment for Craft 3

"We’ve tried MAMP, Homestead, Valet, Docker, and others, and come up against roadblocks with them all. Here I’ll discuss how we use a free app called Local (from WordPress host Flywheel) to install Craft 3 quickly with a minimum of fuss."

✅ Wrapping Twig Filters

Andrew Welch with a great Twig tip.

✅ The striptags Twig docs.

striptags is built into Twig.

Twig Language plugin for Visual Studio Marketplace

Perfecting your technique

Working with Craft Commerce

A speaker deck from a presentation by Jason Mayo.

Tweaking PHPStorm's performance ⭐️

Fred Carlsen, hero of this issue, shared this link and said, "For anyone using PHPStorm or any of their editors, the tweaks this article mentions has been a great improvement on the perceived performance."

Is it possible to move an entire asset source?

Forge Recipe for CraftCMS websites

How to integrate Craft CMS with Microsoft Dynamics GP using SmartConnect

Composer Autoloader Features: Part 1

Alan Storm takes on Composer. Also check out part 2.

Migrations - Working with Databases - The Definitive Guide to Yii 2.0 ⭐️

Tip from Andrew Welch on writing migrations:

There’s a command line tool to help you make your migration at http://www.yiiframework.com/doc-2.0/guide-db-migrations.html but instead of yii you use the craft command line tool.

Plugged In

Calendar Links

Generate add to calendar links for Google, iCal and other calendar systems.

Autologin

Automatically login based on whitelisted IP or basic auth username for Craft 3.

Beam

Generate CSVs and XLS files in your templates for Craft 3.

Restrict

Restrict access to the CP based on a IP whitelist for Craft 3.

Randomm (yes, with 2 m's)

Fieldtype for Craft 3 that allows you to create random things via chance.js.

Logout Redirect

Configure where to send users after they logout for Craft 3.

Craft 3 Readability

The Readability plugin will help you to identify issues with your website content.

One Campaign Monitor Plugin

Easily send user information to Campaign Monitor from your Craft or Commerce site.

Value Store

Easily store some loose values into files in Craft 3.

Mobile Detect

Use Mobile_Detect for detecting mobile devices (including tablets) with Craft 3.

Workflow for Craft 2 and Craft 3

Need a writer-editor-publisher workflow? Check this plugin out.

Craft3 Imgix

Use Imgix with Craft 3.

Template Select

Template Select plugin for Craft 3.

Amplify

Twig filter for Craft CMS to optimize rich text content for Google AMP.

Craft 3 Default Tab

Add a default tab to your new sections.

Also available for Craft 2 at https://github.com/studioespresso/craft-defaulttab.

Overheard

ImageOptimize + Imgix update

ImageOptimize 1.3.0 plugin for Craft 3 gets added support for globally replacing native Craft transforms with a service like Imgix, with zero template changes.