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    Episode 20

    02 Feb 2018

    Originally published via email on February 2nd, 2018.

    Since "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans", our announcement regarding RC 2.5.9 was a bit premature. Sorry for the confusion. But the RC is now out since yesterday and we'd be super happy if you could throw it onto your projects, test it and report back to us, so that we can finally release Kirby 2.5.9 next week. Check out the changelog where you'll also find the download link.

    Kirby in the Wild

    Gridonic
    Digital Design Agency

    Kirby Enhanced

    • Integrate basic Google Analytics right in your Panel with Steffen Gier's Analytics Dashboard plugin. Currently, only one widget is available, but more are planned (free).

    • Cache busting assets seems to be quite popular among Kirby users, we now have three plugins to choose from: The "original" by Bastian Allgeier, the "give-me-a-versioned-URL" version by Pedro Borges, and the "bust-it-all"alternative by James Steel (all free).

    • Jens Tornell is back with a new plugin called Kirby Shortcode, an alternative to Kirbytags (free).

    • I have added a collection of custom page(s)/file(s)/field methods on GitHub, intended both as ready-to-use assets and as a source for inspiration. You are invited to create pull requests with your own methods to enhance the collection (free).

    Always test third party plugins thoroughly before using them in production!

    Kirby in Style: Themes

    Since our last edition, a couple of new themes for Kirby have seen the light of day. Here is a little selection. For more themes, head over to http://www.getkirby-themes.com, a project created and maintained by Jonathan Baptistella.

    KompactPro is a paid enhancement of Joro Yordanov's Kotheme, and highly customizable right from the Panel.

    Thinking is a new theme by Florian Kueker. It features reusable modules, social icons and more.

    Koncrete is another new theme by Joro Yordanov with many components, two color schemes, and different header types.

    JS

    CSS

    • Get 25 videos (4 hours) of CSS grid education from the basics to real world examples for free on CSS Grid. All you have to do is give away your email address to register.

    HTML

    • What is the best way for marking up download links? A button element? An anchor tag? Eric Bailey has a solid answer.

    • The Boilerform HTML/CSS framework for forms is aimed at making form creation less painful with ready-to-use form elements. If you want to know more about the background of this project, read Andi Bell's article on CSS Tricks.

    • Meta tags are an important part of your website. They enable search engines or social networks to display information about your website visually, thus providing more context for users. With Hey Meta, a browser based tool, you can both check and improve your website's meta tags.

    • While the head element is the parent of all these meta tags, it can have a lot more children. Head is a guide to elements with links for further reading.

    • HTML 5.2 has brought the new dialog element. While its currently only supported in Chrome, other browsers will probably soon follow. A polyfill is available. Read more about the features of the new element and how to use it in this article.

    • Naema Baskanderi discusses best practices for creating usable and accessible dialog windows.

    Performance

    • Starting July 2018, Google will make page speed a ranking factor in mobile search results. While according to their blog post, relevant content will continue to rank high, developers should look into relevant metrics of website performance on mobile.

    This & That

    • Lisa Wright wrote an interesting read on why companies should say farewell to FAQs in favor of a better content strategy.

    • If you are interested in learning how to automate or scrape the web with JavaScript, e.g. take a screenshot of any website without actually visiting it, this tutorial has a step by step introduction.

    • Threed allows you to generate 3D device mockups with your own designs in the browser. The tool is currently in beta and free.

    • If you need a file uploader for your next project, you may want to consider Uppy. It seems to be a tool with a lot of interesting features. In any case, it's free and open source.