This alpha release of the next TYPO3 CMS version is a snapshot of the current development and should not be used in production sites. When we sketched to release timeframe for 6.1, there were two alpha versions planned, however due to the late development kickoff and the short development timeframe in general for 6.1, we decided to only release one alpha version, as the focus of TYPO3 CMS 6.1 is on stabilization and not on bleeding-edge features where new features drop in every day. The final release of TYPO3 CMS 6.1 is still scheduled for April 30th.
Although mostly fixing issues were added to the CMS Core in the last months, I want to highlight two changes of this release:
Refactoring of the TCA caching
The TCA is now cached separately in an easier way for 6.1, and available all the time. So, no need to call t3lib_div::loadTCA('tx_myext') is needed anymore. Thanks to Christian Kuhn.
Extbase development
The extension framework is growing further - Bigger modifications to the persistence layer and property mapper has been included - mostly developed during the <link record:tt_news:1520>Extbase code sprint in February. Kudos to the Extbase team!
There are more <link record:tt_news:1525>Code Sprints for 6.1, starting this week. They will focus on JavaScript integration and cleanup, stabilization of the file abstraction layer (FAL) and its extension handling, and Extbase extension management, ready for the final release in late April. If features from the sprint won't make it into 6.1, they can soon be put in TYPO3 CMS 6.2.
You can find the alpha releases on the <link>download page.
Feel free to try out these snapshots or the code from <link http: git.typo3.org>git.typo3.org, and please report any bugs to the Core project on <link http: forge.typo3.org projects typo3v4-core>Forge.
The next release on the way to 6.1.0 is scheduled to be TYPO3 CMS 6.1.0 Beta 1, to be released on March 26th.