Introduction
Craft 3.1, DotAll Berlin, big tips, and other Craft CMS goodies
DotAll is just days away. What will be revealed? A new Craft powered iPhone? Odds are against that, but Craft 3.1 is sure to be a hot topic. Check out the top story below for a preview of that.
This issue features a very big tip on security keys to your Craft site. If that’s all you read this issue, be sure to check it out. As always, there is more to check out: Craft news, plugins and generally interesting links about web dev.
Thank you to this issue’s sponsor, fortrabbit. If you’re at DotAll in Berlin, you’re likely to run into their crew there. Say "hello".
I won’t be at DotAll this year. If you happen to collect some links while you’re there, please send them along.
Let’s hit the links.
-John Morton
Craft Link List
Top Stories
Craft 3.1 Dev Preview is Here
Coming to a Craft CMS near you later this year: Soft Delete and Project Configs.
A soft delete is there to prevent you from accidentally erasing something important. Project config files might take a little more explanation but basically it will help syncing your sites between environments.
craftcms.com
News
Craft 3.0.24 released
Ch-ch-changes: Browser-based form validation is now disabled for page forms (in Craft 3.0.23).
github.com
The Future for Craft Commerce with Brandon Kelly and Luke Holder on Commerce Minded by Foster Commerce
Brandon and Luke chat with Stephen Callender in the Craft Commerce-centric podcast, Commerce Minded, about how Craft Commerce got to where it is and what to expect moving forward.
fostercommerce.com
Regarding plugin pricing.
I don't embed Slack links here in the newsletter, but while the thread lasts in Slack history, there's a discussion there in the #announcments channel to check out. In what one user called the longest thread in Slack history, the pricing of plugins got debated. Spoon, a $59 plugin, is the one that got the ball rolling. Is $59 an appropriate price for a plugin?
On one side, there was lament that Craft 3 plugins are more often paid plugins compared to their Craft 2 counterparts. For small projects, plugin costs can impact what you can build, especially when budgets are tight.
On the other side were plugin developers (and users) defending the cost of paid plugins given the time commitment to write and support them. Paying for imagery is normal in a site build and plugins should be thought of in a similar fashion.
Andrew Welch, who most of you know and whose plugins you may use, mentioned that "no one is forcing you to buy said [paid] plugin. If you think it's too expensive, use a free alternative, or write your own."
Do you agree or disagree? If you want to join in that discussion, head over Craft Slack. Or just buy or not buy a plugin.
(Note regarding quotes in CLL: Slack is a sudo-private place to talk and discuss. I seek consent from people who are quoted here in the newsletter before direct quotes. Slack is a safe place to talk and I want to keep it that way.)
Craft Link List
Featured Sponsor
Craft CMS Hosting Partner
We like to automate ALL THE THINGS — except customer support.
Let's talk about your hosting requirements, online or in person at the Dot All Conference 2018 Berlin.
fortrabbit.com
Tools, tips, and fundamentals
The importance of your Craft "Security Key".
During the installation process for Craft 3, you will have a security key automatically generated, or you can make one of your own. (See the documentation here.)
A recent discussion in Slack highlighted the importance of this key. So, for the record, the security key is very important. Don't lose it.
The security key is stored in an .env file, which is typically not stored with your repo. Also, storing it with your files as an environment variable is probably not the safest thing to do either.
The problem is that this means that key is, by default, not stored anywhere in a safe manner. It's not part of your backup. You need to take the responsibility of storing that key safely somewhere on your own, like in a password manager.
Why? Image that your local repo gets deleted. This happens. Now imagine you have server troubles. This also happens. Now your key is lost which means any data in your database that was encrypted with that key is encrypted with a key you don't have. Without that key, you can't recover any data that's used that key to encrypt data.
The solution? For every Craft 3 site you work on, make a personal record of the security key and store it somewhere safely so you can recover your data when the time comes.
Craft Link List
Helping a Beginner Understand Getting a Website Live
This isn’t Craft specific... or is it? I love that in the section about CMS’s it says, “There are, as you've seen, some big players like WordPress and CraftCMS.”
css-tricks.com
Why use Vim: Forget easy-to-use design. Choose something hard instead.
This is not really about choosing VIM as your code editor. It’s about choosing as a tool that, while complicated to learn, ends up benefiting you in the long run.
qz.com
Gatsby Starter Craft CMS
Use Craftcms as a headless cms. Pull data into Gatsby via craftql that exposes the craft api as a grapql layer. Lovely stuff
github.com
Creating a Simple Month-Year Archive
This video requires a CraftQuest subscription. If you're in the club check it out.
craftquest.io
Correct order of <head> tags
Get right in the head?
Get your head straight?
Get your head in order?
twitter.com
Perfecting your technique
Using VueJS + GraphQL to make Practical Magic
Make some practical magic with VueJS + GraphQL to solve everyday problems like auto-complete searching and form submission saving with a headless Craft CMS server.
nystudio107.com
Forge, Digital Ocean, and Craft CMS
Sean Smith from Caffeine Creations discusses deployment using Laravel Forge and Digital Ocean.
caffeinecreations.ca
Editorial Design in Craft CMS with Travis Gertz
Travis Gertz joins this episode of CTRL+CLICK CAST to explain the importance of art direction and creativity when designing for digital experiences.
ctrlclickcast.com
Gatsby Source Craft CMS
Source plugin for pulling data into Gatsby from a CraftCMS endpoint.
gatsbyjs.org
Sponsor
Pic Puller: The Instagram plugin for Craft CMS 2 & 3
Pic Puller brings your Instagram media into Craft CMS with one-click authorization. Full documentation and code samples get you up and running quickly. Learn more at picpuller.com or find it in the plugin store in your Craft 3 control panel.
picpuller.com
Plugged In
Freeform plugin for Craft CMS : Payments
Like collecting money? I knew it! Now you can collect payments with your Freeform forms. Allow clients to pay invoices, subscribe to a service, pay for memberships and more.
solspace.com
Craft Retour for Craft 3
Retour allows you to intelligently redirect legacy URLs, so that you don't lose SEO value when rebuilding & restructuring a website.
github.com
Phone Number plugin for Craft CMS
This plugin adds a new fieldtype to Craft for entering phone numbers along with a Twig extension for extracting numbers from a string.
github.com
Craft3 Craftnet CP
A "very basic" api.craftcms.com integration for the Craft control panel.
github.com
Craft 3 Pending User Module
A Craft Module that sets all new user accounts to pending status.
github.com
Yii, Twig, PHP & More
Overheard
It’s not Craft, but it’s interesting.
Should I expose a user ID to public?
You'll find a hidden userId field in some forms and the question of whether that's secure or not came up. Here's what Stack Overflow has to say on the topic.
Google Chrome Labs Size Plugin
Prints the gzipped sizes of your webpack assets and the changes since the last build.
github.com
Pageproofer - Visual Bug Tracker & Visual Feedback Tool
A couple of bug trackers were mentioned in Slack recently. This is the first.
pageproofer.com
Marker.io – Bug Tracking Software for Agile Teams
A couple of bug trackers were mentioned in Slack recently. This is the second.
marker.io