Getting ready for TYPO3 CMS 6.0

Categories: Community, Documentation Created by François Suter
The Documentation Team is working as hard as it can ahead of the release of TYPO3 CMS 6.0.
Our aim - first and foremost - is to provide the community with up to date documentation. In itself this is no small task. Even though we got better at it over time, we face an additional challenge this time around: we also need to complete the migration to ReStructured Text. The transformation of the old OpenOffice documents to ReStructured Text was in great part automated, but there's only so much a script can do. At some point human intelligence and sensitivity is required. This is the part that takes the most time. One task is particularly time-consuming, but is one of the most awaited features of this migration: labels for cross-linking. We use Sphinx to render the manuals. We have added to the mix a module called Intersphinx, which is specialised in cross-linking. With Intersphinx we can defined keys for each manual we want to cross-link to. For all official manuals, we now have a central list of all such keys (e.g. "t3tsref" stands for the TypoScript Reference). Inside each manual are labels that can be used as reference to the particular section where they appear. The combination of key and label makes it possible to create a link to a given part of a manual without knowing the URLs, nor the structure of the manual. Intersphinx will resolve the reference during rendering. This means that as long as keys and labels are not changed, links will never be broken, even if a manual is rearranged (obviously, manuals pointing to such parts have to be rendered again). We will even provide a list of all available labels at the end of each manual. As an example, go and have a look at: <link http: preview.docs.typo3.org typo3 typoscriptreference targets.html>preview.docs.typo3.org/TYPO3/TyposcriptReference/Targets.html While some of us are concentrating on updating the content and improving the structure of the manuals, others are diving into the rendering to improve it further. If you take a look around, you will definitely see pages that don't look very good. Rest assured that we are aware of that and such improvements have very high priority. Two members of the Documentation Team will take part in the "typo3.org" code sprint (scheduled early December) to tackle integration of the new documentation into the community site.

Related Links

  • Sphinx projet home page
  • The Intersphinx extension