From thursday, November 17th until November 20th 2011, a handful of TYPO3 coders met in Frankfurt, Germany to concentrately work on some new features of the next version of our beloved content management system TYPO3.
From last thursday, November 17th until November 20th 2011, a handful of TYPO3 coders met in Frankfurt, Germany to concentrately work on some new features of the next version of our beloved content management system TYPO3.
Some of the major goals for the weekend were the review, finishing and integration of some of the parts from the "<link http: news.typo3.org news article successful-code-sprint-for-typo3-47-in-frankfurt typo3-receives-german-governmental-funding-for-accessibility-and-usability-project>BLE project". The sprint was of course not limited to these jobs. The features we worked on in detail:
Migration to ExtJS 4
Our RTE specialist Stanislas Rolland had made a tremendous effortin porting most of the ExJS 3.x code within the TYPO3 Core to the latest version, ExtJS 4. Steffen Ritter did a complete code review and some testing, and found some additional things that needed to be modified. Stanislas is working on more changes for that migration these days, so that we can expect an integration into the TYPO3 Core master branch within the next weeks.
Ivan Kartolo was working full-time on proper styling of the ExtJS 4 components to fit in the TYPO3 UI scheme, which was at times very hard to tackle.
Logging
Ingo Renner and Steffen Gebert worked on a brand-new logging interface, that would cleanup the current logging mess. Currently there are around 5 different implementations for logging throughout the TYPO3 Core, each with its up- and downsides. The goal was to find a proper way to fit all of these functionalities under one umbrealla.
The <link http: forge.typo3.org projects typo3v4-logging _blank>ideas from the Developer Days were taken into account and were formed into PHP-Code. The current state and a first draft of the logging feature can be found in the <link http: forge.typo3.org projects typo3v4-incubator repository _blank>TYPO3 Incubator repository.
Indexed Search: Speedup when searching -- and a new, accessible Extbase-based plugin
The search engine that comes with the TYPO3 core, "Indexed Search" has undergone some major improvements. First of all, a new extension called "indexed_search_mysql", that was initially developed by Michael Stucki, has been integrated in the TYPO3 Core. It utilizes the mySQL-specific functionality of a "FULLTEXT" search. Although this is not compatible with other DBMS, it will speedup all MySQL-based TYPO3 installations.
Additionally the main indexed search extension received another frontend plugin, which is based on Extbase and Fluid. Although it doesn't have a rich domain model behind it, the new plugin creates proper links, and everything in the output area is completely customizable through TypoScript and the power of Fluid. Also, a cleaner split between controller, output related logic and DB queries has been achieved. All of these changes will be part of TYPO3 4.7. Code reviews are still missing for the <link https: review.typo3.org _blank>Extbase-feature. Any coder – feel free to pick up the patch, review and improve it.
Accessibility / Improvements on the "Government Package"
A major part of the whole BLE project was the improvement of the default output of the Frontend rendering in regard to accessibility, which Patrick Broens was working on the last months. A lot of details were taken into account to make a fully accessible, HTML5 version of CSS Styled Content. These changes were integrated into the "Government Package" which serves as a presentation of a full package that demonstrates the power of a out-of-the-box accessible TYPO3 version. Many minor details were modified by Ingmar Schlecht, Oliver Hader and Benjamin Mack during the four days, making the package compatible to the BITV standard, necessary for a lot of government offices. The new "Government Package" will be shiny and ready for TYPO3 4.7, so it can join the existing "Blank Package" (former "dummy package") and the "Introduction Package" on our <link http: typo3.org download packages _blank>download section of TYPO3.org.
File Abstraction Layer (FAL) & Image Gallery Extension based on the File Abstraction Layer
Ingmar Schlecht and Benjamin Mack -- and Andreas Wolf via Skype -- were working on some of the last major parts missing for the File Abstraction Layer. As part of the BLE package, an accessible image gallery with page browsing mechanism and lightbox integration, was created. This extension, based on the FAL interface, also pointed to some pieces missing in FAL that could be fixed right at the spot. The extension itself is a clean and simple Extbase / Fluid extension that can <link http: forge.typo3.org projects show extension-media_gallery _blank>be found on forge and soon in the TYPO3 Extension Repository (TER) as well.
Overall the timing for such a sprint was just right to make the features ready for TYPO3 4.7. We're all looking forward to the first alpha versions of 4.7.
Thanks to all participants: Ivan Kartolo, Ingo Renner, Steffen Ritter (thursday only) Steffen Gebert, Andreas Wolf (via remote), Ingmar Schlecht, Oliver Hader and Benjamin Mack. Creative input came from Jens Hoffmann. Also thanks to DKD - they sponsored the meeting rooms, the coffee and the drinks and food during that time.
Without the efforts of the individuals, the agencies and the support of the TYPO3 Association, these creative code sprints could not happen in this kind of way. It's great to see how the TYPO3 community works. Thanks!