By Thomas Esders
Although the TYPO3 developers clearly write down all changes, it is not very easy to understand and convenient for people who just want to know the interesting changes. This document aims to give you a short sum-up.
Intended Audience
This document is made for all TYPO3 users who would like to have a short overview of what has changed in the new TYPO3 release version 4.1.
For latest information on this release please see [1].
Installation and upgrade
A update to this version is straight foreward as usual. See [2] for details on how to update a TYPO3 installation.
Important note: The PHP version requirement for this TYPO3 release is raised to PHP 4.3.0!
IRRE (Inline Relational Record Editing)
IRRE enormously simplifies editing of related records in TYPO3 and makes it possible to work with complex data structures in the TYPO3 Backend.
The functionality IRRE provides is groundbreaking for the relational editing capabilities of the Core. Its main feature is as simple as editing sub-records inside the parent record, and being able to add new sub-records just by clicking a "+" icon, which then loads the form for the sub-record into the main form.
Examples of 1:n relationships for which IRRE comes in handy reach from "products" that have multiple "prices" to "persons" that have many "email-addresses". Inserting, deleting and sorting of sub-records can be done without any reloads as it's all done with AJAX.
IRRE offers the new TCA type “inline”. The disposal is documented in the TYPO3 Core Doc APIs [3].
”Inline Relational Record Editing” was also the topic of the Diploma Thesis by Oliver Hader [4]. The functionality of IRRE is shown there using a case-study of a travel business which provides bookings for many hotels. A hotel consists of different offers, such as a "wellness special" or "relax weekend". Additionally every single one of these offers can vary in price depending on the season customers chooses to book. Finally this results in a structure spanning three levels, beginning with one hotel as parent, many offers as first generation and also many prices as second generation.
