You can configure the handling of news-categories  with a checkbox in the extension manager:

The default is, to display categories only from the “General record storage page”.  For more Information about categories and the “General record storage page” have a look at the “FAQ” in section “Quickstart”.

“Dividers to Tabs” is a feature introduced with TYPO3 3.7.0 which divides the BE form of a news record to smaller parts (“Tabs”) see screenshot in the section “Screenshots”. Here you can disable this if you don't want to use it.

You can configure which field is taken as label in the web/list module. Default is to display the title as label but you can  change it f.e. to the date field (datetime) if you want to see the datetime as title.

The other options configure the alternative labels which will be shown if the title is empty. If the first alternative label is also empty, “Alternative label 2” will be displayed instead. If “Force alternative label” is activated the alternative labels will be shown always, even if the label field is not empty.

Example:

The author field is configured as “News label”, the title field is the “Alternative Label” and the datetime field is “Alternative Label 2”. Now the titles in lists will look like this:

Localization mode for text fieldsBy default, all text fields (text, subheader, imagecaption ...) from a new localized news article will be prepended with "[translate to ...]". If this is not wanted you can disable it here.

Localization mode for imagesThe image field of a localized news article is excluded by default (images are alwas taken from the record in the default language). If you need localized images (f.e. if the images show texts) you can enable the "image" field in translated news by setting "l10n_mode_imageExclude" to 0.

Hide new localizationsBy default, all text fields (text, subheader, imagecaption ...) from a new localized news article will be prepended with "[translate to ...]". If this is not wanted you can disable it here. If "l10n_mode_prefixLangTitle" is disabled the text "(copy [#])" will be added to the titles of this records unless "prependAtCopy" is disabled (see "prependAtCopy").

Here you can disable adding of the text "(copy [#])" to titles of copied records.

Category ordering in BackEnd treesHere you can configure the the ordering of categories in the category tree in BackEnd forms.

Width of the left category fieldThis field shows the selected categories in the tt_news db-record (or parent categories in the category db-record). If "categorySelectedWidth" is set to 0 (zero) the default width (=180px) will be taken.

Width of the right category fieldThis field shows the category tree in the tt_news db-record (or in the category db-record). If "categoryTreeWidth" is set to 0 (zero) the default width will depend on the browser which displays the TYPO3 BackEnd. The default width for all browsers except IE is 280px, for IE the default width is 320px to suppress the unneeded horizontal scrollbar below the category tree.

Max height for category trees Here you can configure the maximum height of category trees in BackEnd forms. If you have xajax enabled for the expandable category tree, set this value to 30 because the height of the tree field will then be adapted to the tree height automatically.

*** Important Note ***There is one major change between tt_news 2.x and older tt_news versions: In tt_news 2.x the default TS-template is not included automatically. That means, if you don't include the TS-template as shown in the screenshot below, the plugin will do nothing.

The TS-settings are splitted in 4 different parts now which you should be included with the “Include static (from extensions)” feature. The big advantage of this technique is, that the extension is not included in all TypoScript setups from your site by default. You can now choose if you want to include only the basic setup or to include the CSS-based setup, the default CSS-Styles and the RSS-feed feature.

For the first test, open your main TS-template (in list view), scroll down to the “Include static (from extensions)”-section and include one of the “base” templates from tt_news, f.e. the “table-based tmpl”. If you dont't know how to do this -> see section “Templates” in the “Getting Started” document: http://typo3.org/documentation/document-library/tutorials/doc_tut_quickstart/0.1.0/view/1/9/

If you want to use the CSS-based HTML-template you you should include the “default CSS-styles” template too, because it contains all the formating information.

The 4 static ext-templates offer you the following settings:

Save your TS-template and open or create a page, where you want the news to appear.

Click on the "create new record" link, to add a new content-element. In the next screen click on the wizard link under “Pagecontent”.

The page that now openingis called the “new Content Element Wizard”. At the bottom of this page you'll find an icon called “News”':

Select it and choose the position (column): eg NORMAL:

A form will show up looking almost like this:

It is required, to select at least one item from the "What to display" field. If you don't do this, an error message will appear instead of the news content-element. To select an item, click on its name in the right list. (For the first test choose “LIST” or  “LATEST” and leave the other settings at their defaults)

The “Startingpoint” is the page/sysfolder, where the extension looks for news-records. It is not required to set this value in this field, you can also define it with TypoScript for the whole page.  See: section “Configuration/Reference” in this manual (-> pid_list)

If you don't insert a page as “Startingpoint” and no value for “pid_list” is defined by TS, the current page is used. That means the news-extension looks for news-records in the same page where the content-element is.  

To test the functionality of the extension you'll also need at least one news-record. Save & Close the form for the News content-element and click again on the "create new record" link. Choose the "News" item from the list.

A form opens, showing a news database record:

Fill in some dummy information, uncheck the "Hide" checkbox and save & close the form.

Assuming that you did not set a "Startingpoint" in the news content-element, and that the newly created news-record is located in the same page as the news content-element - click on the preview icon and you should see your news article in your browser.

If this is not the case, repeat the steps above. If still no news appear on your website, have a look in the section "Troubleshooting" of this document.

What to display:

Currently there are 7 different options in the “What to display” field (this list can be extended by other extensions). These are the function of this options:

It is possible to define multiple “What to display”-codes in a news content-element, but some of them will not work well together. If you encounter problems with those combined content-elements, try to split them in single elements with one code per element.

"Order by" this field (LIST & LATEST):

In this selectbox you can choose the field by which the listed news-records should be ordered. Possible options are: datetime, archivedate, author, title, type and “randomise order”.

default (= nothing selected) is to order lists by the “datetime” field and display newest items first.

With the selectbox “Ascending or Descending” you can choose the sorting order.

If you want to order or group your news by fields, not listed here, you can do this by setting those fields by TypoScript. See section “Reference“ -> “listOrderBy” and “listGroupBy”

The special case “randomise order” orders the news by random.

Hint:

If you use randomly ordered news, it is required that tt_news works as USER_INT object or caching disabled.

Add this to the TS setup of the page where you want to display rendom news:

plugin.tt_news = USER_INT

f this page is on the first level of the pagetree all pages below this page will also display tt_news as USER_INT object which consumes much more processing power than a USER object which can be cached.

This can be prevented by using the 'template on next level' feature to set tt_news again to USER.

plugin.tt_news = USER

Category selection:

The display of categories in the right field of the part “Category Selection” depends on two settings: If you didn't change the default value of the “use StoragePid” switch in the plugin-configuration in the extension manager, it is required to define a "General Record Storage page" in the page-properties of the rootpage (the page with the “is root of the website” flag).

The "General Record Storage page" points to the folder where the tt_news  categories are stored. See “FAQ” for more information.

If you set the “use StoragePid” value to “0” in the extension manager, you should see all categories from the whole pagetree in the select box.

It's possible to select newsitems for display by their assigned categories or subcategories. A newsitem can be member of multiple categories. It's also possible to de-select news by their assigned categories of to display only non-categorized items. The “Category mode” selector offers the following options:

Use subcategories

With this switch you can configure if news items are also selected by their subcategories.

Archive setting (for LIST):

It is possible to give each news record an “archive date”. It is also possible to handle news-items automatically as archived, if they are older than a certain number of days. -> see: Section "The Archive” and the part “Archive Settings” in section “Reference”.(“for LIST” means, that the archive mode is only selectable for the “LIST” view. “LATEST” is by default never showing archived items -> can be changed with “displayArchivedInLatest”)

 “Archive setting” gives you these options:

Starting point and Recursive level selection:

"Starting point" is used to tell the extension where the news records are stored. It is possible to select multiple ”Starting points”. This way, you are able to collect news from several folders to display them in one content-element.

If you don't insert a page as "Starting point", tt_news will look for a value for “pid_list” from TypoScript. This is the recommended way to configure many news content-elements from one central point, e.g. from the constants field in your main TS-template. -> see files EXT:tt_news/static/ts_new/constants.txt & EXT:tt_news/static/ts_new/setup.txt for examples. The “Starting Point” can also be set in the Constant editor.

If no value for “Starting Point” is present at all, the current page is used. (the page where you inserted the tt_news content-element).

Recursive level selection:

This tells the extension how many levels of subpages to include below the page(s) given in the "Starting point" field.

HintIf you have your news not stored in a few dedicated sysfolders but scattered around in a huge pagetree it might be helpful to disable the pid_list/recursive functionality completely (see: “dontUsePidList”). Reason: TYPO3 checks each page in the pid_list for visibility and if the current FE user is allowed to see this page. When you have a very long pid_list which is generated from a whole pagetree this will take quite a lot processing power.  

In the sheet Template, you can overwrite the html-template defined globally by TypoScript with another one.  

It is not required to define a template in this place, because in most cases several news content-elements under one pagetree use the same html-template. This can be defined directly in the TS-setup or in the Constant-Editor of your main-(TS)template.

HintThe best way to include your own html-template is to link it directly in TS. Add the following line by hand to your TypoScript setup or edit the default value in the “TypoScript Object Browser”:

plugin.tt_news.templateFile = fileadmin/templates/tt_news_template.html

Do not edit and save the html-template in the extension directory -> it will be overwritten if you update tt_news.

You can change the news display, by simply creating a new template-file for the display of news. There are 2 default template-files included in tt_news (in the folder EXT:tt_news/pi/):

The main differences between the new css based template and the “traditional” template are:

if you want to change the template, take a look at that file, make a copy of it and modify it to your own design. Observe the comments in the file - they are markers that define where content is inserted and which parts are used for this and that. Self explanatory to a certain degree...

Max Width/Height for images

These 2 fields offer you the possibility to set the image sizes for a certain content element different from the image sizes defined globally by TypoScript. The setting here will be applied to all images, displayed by this content element (works with: LIST, LATEST, SINGLE and SEARCH)

The sheet “Category settings” offers a range of options regarding how to display category-texts (titles) and category-images.

The default setting is “Use the settings from TS” which is “Display but no link” for images and texts.

Other Category settings:

PageId for single news display:

This tells the extension on which page the single view is located. It's not required to set a value here, cause it's more efficient to set a global value for the single view (singlePid) in the constant-Editor of your root template. See: “Configuration”

PageId to Return to:Here you can set an alternative page for the "back to list" link in the single view. Works of course only if the current content element is SINGLE. By default the “back to List” Link in the SINGLE view points to the page where you came from. The setting here will override a globally given “backPid”.

Don't display first image in single view (firstImageIsPreview):

If you set this checkbox, the SINGLE view will not display the first image atached to the news article. The first image will only appear in LIST and LATEST view and is handled as "preview image" of the news item.(works only if more than one image is atached to the news article).

You can force this behavior even when only one image is assigned to the news record by checking the next checkbox (forceFirstImageIsPreview)

List StartId: Force LIST or LATEST to start from this item [deprecated]

with this option (and “limit”) you can realize complex combinations of news content-elements, by giving each item its own offset from the first result.

Example:

Let's assume you want to realize a page that looks like this:

the first (red) content element is configured to show one item (limit=1). The “listStartId” is empty, so it shows only the very first result.

the second (purple) content-element shows also only one item (limit=1) the “listStartId” is set to 1 (because the counting starts with zero). The image in this content element is set to a smaller size than the first content-element.

the two other content-elements (green) are both limited to show 4 items, the left one starts with “listStartId” set to 2, the other one starts with listStartId=6

(thank goes to Paolo Nugnes for sponsoring this feature)

The value inserted here will subsitute the marker ###NEWS_TITLE### in the html template.

Here you can define the type of the newsitem. The different types are shown with different icons in the BackEnd. Possible types are:

If this “editlock” is enabled non-admin users can't open this record. All other actions (hide,copy,delete,....) are also disabled.

With the fields “Hide”, “Start”, “Stop” and “Access” you can configure the visibility of the current newsitem. The settings made here will override visibility settings from categories that are assigned to this news record.

The value of this field affects several things:

For new created records the current time is inserted atomatically.

If archivedate shows a value in the past, the news record will be shown in lists showing only archived news. Of course it will disappear from lists showing only non-archived news.

This field appears only in translated news records and points to the translation Original. (The translation original has to be in the default language)

This field shows the language of the newsitem. This field should be not edited by hand because its value is handled by the translation system of TYPO3.

The values of this fields will substitute the html-template markers ###NEWS_AUTHOR### and ###NEWS_EMAIL###. By default only the author will be displayed and linked to the author's email address.

Hint:

If you need an author field which is a relation to another table where the authors are stored (f.e. fe_users), install the extension “News author relations” (extkey: news_author_rel) http://typo3.org/extensions/repository//news_author_rel/ which extends tt_news by this feature.

The versioning label of this record. This field is only visible when the extension "versioning" (extkey version) is installed.

The value of this field will substitute the html-template marker ###NEWS_SUBHEADER###. If this field is empty the value of the field “Text” is taken instead.

This is the main text of the news article and will substite the html-template marker ###NEWS_CONTENT###.

this will disable automatic pagebreaks after a certain amount of words for this record.

The content of this field is written to a TypoScript register ("newsKeywords") which can be used to insert the keywords as "<meta> keywords" to the page header (plugin "metatags" required). If you don't need this field for "<meta> keywords" you can use it as a second "subheader" field (it will substitute the template marker ###NEWS_KEYWORDS###).

Here you can assign categories to the current news record (if this record is no translation of another record).The available categories will be displayed in a tree. The titles of the assigned categories will substite the html-template marker ###NEWS_CATEGORY###, the category images will be written to the marker ###NEWS_CATEGORY_IMAGE###. Tt's possible to control editing permissons of news articles with the assigned categories. See section “Categories” for more information.

Here you can define images that will be shown in the news item. All images will be rendered to the marker ###NEWS_IMAGE###.

Field for the imagecaption which will be displayed under the image. If more than one image is assigned the value of this field can be splitted by linebreaks.

In these fields you can define two texts that will be inserted as alt and title texts in the image html tag. If more than one image is assigned the values of these fields can be splitted by linebreaks.

The links that are inserted here will be displayed under the "bodytext" in the news single view. They will substite the marker ###NEWS_LINKS###. This field is parsed through the stdWrap function "parseFunc" so it will be possible to enter links as typolink. F.e.: <LINK http://typo3.org _blank>open typo3.org</LINK>

In this field you can select news records or pages that will be displayed as related news. Related news with type “news” will point to the single view of the related news record. Related news with type “External URL” or “internal Link” will point to the url or page id that is inserted in the news record. Related pages will be handled as news with type “internal link”.

Related news will substite the marker ###NEWS_RELATED###.

Here you can attach files to a newsitem. Files will substite the marker ###FILE_LINK###.

It's possible to control the editing permissions for news records with the assigned categories. This is either possible by editing the Tsconfig field of the be_user/group or – since tt_news 2.5.0 – by selecting the allowed/visible categories from a category tree in the be_user/group record. The category tree in be_user records appears only if the user is not admin. In the sreenshot below you see a be_user record where the user is only allowed to edit or assign the category “Commitees” and its subcategories.

If thís user opens a news record he will only see the category “Commitees” and its subcategories.

Another message will be displayed in the news record above the fields "Type" and "Category". Non-selectable categories will be displayed in grey text and not linked. See screenshot below. Defining allowed categories is also possible by inserting their uids in the Tsconfig field of a be_user or be_group record.

Example:

(user/group TSconfig)

# this enables the use of the list below

options.useListOfAllowedItems = 1

# users of this group are only allowed to save news records with the following categories:

tt_newsPerms.tt_news_cat.allowedItems = 35,36,37

If the BE-user with this configuration opens a record that has at least one category assigned that is not in the list of allowed items he will see the error message below.

The tt_news html template contains a marker ###NEWS_CATEGORY_ROOTLINE###. This marker will be filled with the titles of the parent categories of the first assigned category in SINGLE view or with the parents of the selected category in LIST view. It doesn't work in LIST view if more than one category is selected.

The category titles can be linked to the category shortcut page which is configured in the category db-record.

plugin.tt_news {

  # settings for the category rootline

  catRootline {

    showCatRootline = 1

    catRootline_stdWrap.wrap = <div class="news-catRootline">|</div>

    # if titles are linked the link points to the page which is configured as category shortcut

    linkTitles = 1

    title_stdWrap.wrap =

    divider =  > 

  }

}

In the field “title language overlays” you can define titles for other languages. If you have more than one additional language, you can split the titles with the “|” symbol. Example: if you have a website with 3 languages (en,de,fr) you write the category title for the default language in the field “Title”. The titles for german an french are stored in the field “title language overlays” like this:

the order of the overlay titles has to be the same as the order of your system languages. In this example: en=0, german=1, french=2

In the Field “Parent category” you can define the current category as a subcategory of the category which is selected in this field. That will include the current category and the newsitems which have this category assigned when the parent category is selected. This works recursive.

With the fields “Hide”, “Start”, “Stop” and “Access” you can f.e make this category and the newsitems  that have this category assigned only visible for a certain usergroup. Works recursive for subcategories.

You can upload or assign an image for each news category which is shown in the CATMENU element (“catmenuIconMode = -1”) and as category images (f.e. instead of the category title). The behavour of the category titles/images can be configured in the sheet “Category settings” in the news content element.  

The category titles/images can act as shortcut to a page or as “category selector” which means: the contents of a news-list ist filtered by category. Filtering by category works recursive for subcategories.

Category titles or images can also act as shortcut to an internal page. If this is enabled and a visible page is defined as shortcut, the link from the category title or image points to this page.

With the field “Target ...” you can configure a target for the category shortcut (this setting will have priority over a global setting for link targets in your website)  

The field "Single-view page for news from this category" gives you the possibility to define a single-view page for each category. If you want to use this feature it is required to add "useSPidFromCategory = 1" to the TypoScript setup.

If a news-record has 2 or more categories assigned the SinglePid will be taken from the first category which is assigned to the news record.

Here you can enter a description for the current category which will be shown as tooltip in the category tree in BE and in the CATMENU content element in FE. If you have long description texts (>70 chars) Firefox and Mozilla will not display the tooltips correctly. Solution: There are some Firefox extensions which correct this problem. I tried "Popup Alt Attribute" which works flawless for me (see screenshot).

Example:Category description as tooltip in the category select field:

The tree mode has some special options for configuring the icons. The option  “catmenuIconMode” configures the behaviour of the icons showing left to the category titles.  “catmenuIconMode” offers the following options:

The icon for the “root” item of the tree (the catmenu header) can be configured separately (“catmenuRootIconFile”) or completely disabled by seetting “catmenuNoRootIcon” to 1.

The sizes for the normal icons in catmenuIconMode “1” and “2” and for the root icon can be configured separately.

Example:

TypoScript setup for a “catmenu” content element that looks like this:

plugin.tt_news {

  displayCatMenu {

    # select root icon file

    catmenuRootIconFile = EXT:tt_news/res/tt_news_cat.gif

    # enable root icon

    catmenuNoRootIcon = 0

    # disable other icons

    catmenuIconMode = -1

  }

}

All other settings are included in the default TS templates (see Section “Reference” for details)

In this mode each level of the "catmenu" has its own wrap. 1 is the first level.

Example:

TypoScript setup for a “catmenu” in mode “nestedWraps”:

plugin.tt_news {

  displayCatMenu {

    mode = nestedWraps

    # wrap for the complete "catmenu"

    catmenu_stdWrap.wrap = <div class="news-catmenu">|</div>

    # wraps for active or inactive category links in the tree

    catmenuItem_ACT_stdWrap.wrap = <img src="tslib/media/bullets/bullet1_h.gif" />|

    catmenuItem_NO_stdWrap.wrap = <img src="tslib/media/bullets/bullet1_n.gif" />|

    # wrap for level "n"

    catmenuLevel1_stdWrap.wrap = <div class="level1">|</div>

    catmenuLevel2_stdWrap.wrap = <div class="level2">|</div>

    catmenuLevel3_stdWrap.wrap = <div class="level3">|</div>

    catmenuLevel4_stdWrap.wrap = <div class="level4">|</div>

  }

}

After adding the CSS styles below to your website the catmenu could look like this:

CSS Styles:

.news-catmenu  {

   padding:5px 0px 0px 5px;

   margin:10px;

   border:1px solid #666;

   background-color:#F9FFE5;

}

.news-catmenu DIV IMG {

   margin:0px;

   padding: 0px 3px 3px 0px;

   vertical-align: middle;

}

Hint: With a function hook in the tt_news class (“userDisplayCatmenuHook”) It's possible to add a userdefined script that renders the “catmenu”.

When you have long articles in SINGLE view, you might want to split them into multiple pages and have a page navigation inserted to navigate between these split pages.

This can be done automatically by specifying the amount of words after that a pagebreak is inserted. When the amount of words is reached, the extension looks for the next dot (.) and inserts a pagebreak after it (default). Alternatively you can configure tt_news to insert pagebreaks only after paragraphs (an empty line in the bodytext field) by setting “useParagraphAsPagebreak=1”.You can disable this feature for each news record (“No automatic pagebreaks for this record”).

You can also add a manual pagebreak at a specific position in the text. At the desired position, enter the text: “<---newpage--->” (default) or the string that you configured as “pagebreakToken”. This will trigger a pagebreak at this position. On the new page, the wordcounter starts again for automatic pagebreaking. However, manual pagebreaks work even when the automatic pagebreak feature is disabled.

The subheader is by default only displayed on the first page of a single view with multiple pages. If this is not wanted the subheader can be configured to appear on all those pages by setting “subheaderOnAllSViewPages=1”.

One thing to note is the way images are handled on multiple pages. The images for the additional pages in single view are asssigned by their position in the Image-list of the news record.

Example: If you have 6 images assigned and “imageCount” for the single view set to “2”, then the first 2 images will appear on the first page, the second two images at the second page and so on.

There is a seperate marker for the pagebrowser in single view:

###NEWS_SINGLE_PAGEBROWSER###

Alternatively it is possible to simply append the pagebrowser to the bodytext without a special marker by setting “appendSViewPBtoContent=1” (this is the default).

Example:

# TS setup

plugin.tt_news {

  useMultiPageSingleView = 1

  pageBreakToken = <break>

  maxWordsInSingleView = 300

  useParagraphAsPagebreak = 1

  subheaderOnAllSViewPages = 0

  appendSViewPBtoContent = 0

}

This will enable the pagebrowser for the Single view. The string “<break>” will trigger a manually pagebreak. If the text is longer than 300 words, a pagebreak will be inserted automatically after the next paragraph (an empty line in the field bodytext). The subheader will be displayed only on the first page and the pagebrowser will be rendered to its own marker (###NEWS_SINGLE_PAGEBROWSER###).

For a detailed description of the TypoScript options that are mentioned here, take a look at the section “Reference”.

The news records that are inserted in the field “Related news” in the tt_news db-record are shown in the single view. If those records are “normal news”, their links point to the single view of the related news article. Related news with type “link external URL” or “link internal page” will link directly to the url or page id that is configured in the news record.

Additionally to news records, relations can also point directly to internal pages. Related pages will be handled as news that link to internal pages.

tt_news can be configured to insert the link that points back from the related record to the current one automatically. This feature can be enabled by setting “useBidirectionalRelations” to 1.

The display of related news and pages is configured by TypoScript. For more information search for “getRelatedCObject” in the section reference of this manual.  The details of the link configuration can be found in the section “Link Configuration”.

The single view can also be configured to show a list of news articles with the same category as the current article. The feature is disabled by default and can be enabled by setting “showRelatedNewsByCategory=1”.

If news with the same category are found, they will be rendered as news LIST to the marker “###NEWS_RELATEDBYCATEGORY###”. The header will be rendered to the marker “###TEXT_RELATEDBYCATEGORY###”.

By default the code LIST causes tt_news to render the content to the template  ###TEMPLATE_LIST### This can be changed with “altMainMarkers” to take an userdefined template instead which f.e contains only the news titles. The template for “related news by category” is included in the file tt_news_v2_template.html -> part: “###TEMPLATE_CAT_RELATED###”

  relatedByCategory_stdWrap.wrap =  <dl class="news-single-related">|</dl>

  relatedByCategoryHeader_stdWrap.wrap = <dt>|</dt>

  wrap3.wrap = <dd>|</dd>

  altMainMarkers.TEMPLATE_LIST = TEMPLATE_CAT_RELATED

  altMainMarkers.TEMPLATE_LIST.wrap = ### | ###

plugin.tt_news {

  altMainMarkers.TEMPLATE_LIST = TEMPLATE_CAT_RELATED

  altMainMarkers.TEMPLATE_LIST.wrap = ### | ###