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Recipes and supported modules

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  3. Recipes and supported modules

CWP supplies developers with a default set of packages for setting up their SilverStripe CMS projects.

The Common Web Platform Installer) package is created from the original installer for SilverStripe CMS and Framework. It can be used as a base for jump-starting development of a CWP project. This is a recommended way of creating a CWP project.

The installer comes with a composer.json file which defines dependencies. These make up the feature set of a default CWP ready website by pulling sets of commercially supported SilverStripe CMS modules.

The Common Web Platform Installer package includes the CWP CMS Recipe, the CWP Search Recipe, the Registry module, the Fluent module.

Versions prior to 2.6.0 also included the Subsites module.

These 'metapackages' will be from now on referred to as "recipes", and are crucial elements of keeping your CWP deployment running.

CWP recipe options

There are different recipe variations you can install for a CWP project. By default you get the kitchen sink (e.g. a blog even if your site doesn't need one).

CWP Core Recipe

Core functionality only recipe for a CWP 2.0 installation. It includes the following core SilverStripe and CWP modules:

Note, that this recipe is required if you are running an Active Disaster Recovery (DR) instance. Find out more about preparing your site for active DR.

CWP CMS Recipe

An extra CMS functionality recipe for a CWP 2.0 installation. It includes the following core SilverStripe and CWP modules:

CWP Search Recipe

A recipe of modules to add search functionality to your CWP 2 project. It includes the following core SilverStripe and CWP modules:

SilverStripe Authoring Tools Recipe

Extra tools for CMS authoring in SilverStripe. It includes the following core SilverStripe and CWP modules:

  • SilverStripe CMS Recipe
  • SilverStripe Document Converter - The module adds functionality to import OpenOffice-compatible files (doc, docx, etc) into SilverStripe pages and content
  • IFrame - The module provides an IFrame page type that allows you to embed an IFrame into a page without resorting to custom code
  • Spellcheck for SilverStripe - The module improves spellcheck support for SilverStripe CMS, including an implementation for HunSpell
  • Tag Field - The SilverStripe module for editing tags (both in the CMS and other forms)
  • Taxonomy - The module provides the capability to add and edit simple taxonomies within SilverStripe

SilverStripe Blog Recipe

Adds blog functionality for your project. It includes the following core SilverStripe and CWP modules:

  • Widgets - The module enables the adding of widgets, which are small pieces of functionality
  • SilverStripe Content Widget - The module adds functionality to display HTML content in a widget
  • SpamProtection - The module provides an API for adding spam protection to SilverStripe forms
  • Akismet - The module adds a simple spam filter using Akismet
  • Comments - The module provides commenting functionality for Pages and other DataObjects
  • Comment Notifications - The module provides simple email notification functionality for when new visitor comments are posted.
  • GridField Bulk Editing Tools - The module provides a set of GridField components to facilitate bulk file upload & record editing.
  • SilverStripe Lumberjack - The module enables easy managing of pages in a GridField.

SilverStripe Collaboration Recipe

Adds functionality to enhance CMS author collaboration. It includes the following core SilverStripe and CWP modules:

  • SilverStripe CMS Recipe - The recipe containing CMS, versioned, asset-admin, etc.
  • Content Review - The module adds functionality to mark a page in SilverStripe CMS with a date and an owner for future review
  • Share Draft Content - The modules enables the sharing of draft page content with non-CMS users
  • Advanced Workflow Module - This module provides highly configurable step-based workflow functionality

SilverStripe CMS Reporting Tools Recipe

Adds extra CMS reporting tools to your SilverStripe project. It includes the following core SilverStripe and CWP modules:

  • SilverStripe CMS Recipe - The recipe containing CMS, versioned, asset-admin, etc.
  • External Links - The module tracks external broken links in SilverStripe CMS pages
  • Reports The module contains the API for creating backend reports in the SilverStripe Framework
  • Security Report - The module adds a "Users, Groups and Permissions" report in the SilverStripe CMS
  • Site-wide Content Report - The module adds a report of all pages and files across all the project, including subsites (if installed)
  • SilverStripe Maintenance - The module reduces your maintenance related work.
  • SilverStripe Security Checker - The module adds a task which runs a check if any of the dependencies has known security vulnerabilities.
  • SilverStripe Composer Update Checker - The module checks if any of your Composer dependencies needs to be updated, and tracks the available and latest versions that can be updated to.

SilverStripe Content Blocks Recipe

Adds content blocks to your SilverStripe project. It includes the following core SilverStripe and CWP modules:

SilverStripe Form Building Recipe

A recipe of modules to help you build forms in SilverStripe. It includes the following core SilverStripe and CWP modules:

SilverStripe Services Recipe

Adds API and content service modules to your SilverStripe project. It includes the following core SilverStripe and CWP modules:

Note, when installing the Services Recipe you will also install the GraphQL module which is bundled with the core SilverStripe 4 CMS. You may choose to use this over RestfulServer.

Recipe combinations

The above recipes can be combined as follows:

Theme options

There are two themes provided for the Common Web Platform 2.0 that help government agencies quickly get their sites up and running:

  • The CWP Starter theme is a developer focused highly accessible Bootstrap 3 theme. It is suited for sites that require more customisation and a design applied with minimal restrictions.
  • The Wātea theme includes more design elements than the CWP Starter theme. It is well suited for smaller agencies with smaller sites, smaller budgets and less developer involvement.

The Wātea theme is a more "designed" subtheme which can be installed over the top of the Starter theme to provide a more visually appealing starter project. It also requires the CWP Agency Extensions Module to be installed.

Stabilising the project

Even if you did not start from the installer, you can make your project "stable" by including the following in your composer.json:

"require": {
    "cwp/cwp-recipe-cms": "~2.0.0@stable"
    ...

So if the above dependency can be found in your root composer.json file it can be said that you are running on a stable CWP recipe version. If you request help from the CWP Team, this will be one of the first things that will be checked - if you are not running on a stable CWP recipe, we may not be able to easily help you.

You may add more modules to your project by modifying your base composer.json. Please note that these modules will interact with the recipe, so you need to test for regressions as only the base combination of packages is tested in the CWP recipe release process.

Can I remove the default recipes?

We strongly recommend using the supported SilverStripe and CWP recipes that come by default with a CWP installation.

The reasons include:

  • Reused code makes maintenance simple - it's easier to apply security updates
  • The CWP Service Desk might not be able to help you if you are on a heavily customised codebase
  • Custom code is usually less stable than the one that's frequently used
  • Advertised CWP features may not work
  • Your site may break when infrastructure changes are rolled out - these changes will only be tested against the official CWP recipe releases

You are welcome to remove recipes or features from the list of dependencies that are not required for your project.

If after careful consideration your development team decides to depart from the recipe model, it is recommended to pull in at least the CWP CMS recipe. If even this doesn't work for you, the last resort is including the CWP Core recipe. This at least will ensure the minimal compatibility

with the platform infrastructure and will allow us to deliver some subset of fixes and features to you as they are released.

Your development team will need to follow the releases of the recipe on their own and make sure the modules are either updated, or the issues acknowledged as not posing security or technical risk.

Recipe releases

We use semantic versioning for the SilverStripe Framework, CMS and supported modules. In CWP recipes we use major, minor and point releases. From time to time the fourth level - micro (1.2.3.4) - might be used if more granularity is needed.

Stable recipe releases will often be released alongside a stable release of the core SilverStripe framework and CMS, but we may also release new features or bugfixes for CWP independently of this.

If we announce a new point/micro recipe release (e.g. if you are on 1.0.1, these will be 1.0.1.1, 1.0.1.2, 1.0.2, 1.0.2.1 and so forth) you will need to upgrade, test and deploy your updated project code within a relatively short timeframe which will be specified on the release notification. While such point/micro releases will be backwards-compatible and should not break any existing APIs, we still recommend at least running a few smoke tests on your UAT environment or dev machine before deploying to production.

As a rule of thumb you need to remain on the latest point/minor release version of the recipe to receive all security fixes.

Major and minor recipe releases (if you are on 1.0.1 these will be 1.1.0, 1.2.0, 2.0.0 and so on) could take more time to apply. One old minor and one old major branch will still receive security patches, so you have more time to do these. We estimate that on a small site you may need to spend a day upgrading to a new minor version, and a few days or more upgrading to a new major version.

The CWP support team may in some situations hot-patch (possibly in a destructive way) your site or pull an environment down if it is found to endanger other sites on the CWP infrastructure. The timeframe in which this could happen will be specified on the release notification.

See the upgrading guide for instructions.

Recipe contents

To obtain the composition of the latest stable recipes, the easiest way is to head to the recipe repositories and look at the respective composer file and the dependencies contained there.

For example, here is the blog recipe contents.

To find the location of a specific repository check on Packagist.

Dev recipe

The installer's composer.json also provides a single "dev" metapackage dependency for CWP:

"require-dev": {
    "cwp/cwp-recipe-basic-dev": "~2.0.0@stable"
    ...

cwp-recipe-basic-dev pulls in dev dependencies specific for development based on the CWP codebase. These packages will NOT be installed on the environments (neither prod, UAT nor test). You can also elect not to install it by specifying --no-dev with your composer install or composer update commands on your local dev machine.

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