The TYPO3 Core Development Team and the TYPO3 Community are proud to present a sneak preview of the next TYPO3 CMS 6.2 LTS.
The development of TYPO3 6.2 is going on on a steady pace. This first snapshot of the work done so far presents some improvements and changes from the current 6.1 branch already, despite the little time we had to work on it so far.
After the very motivating TYPO3 Active Contributor Meeting in Nürnberg and the TYPO3 6.2 Kick-Off, we started planning, gathering the teams and organizing the work. Due to several holidays, pace slowed down in the last couple of weeks. But still we stick to our Roadmap to release an alpha1 today - on June, 4th 2013 - because there is already lot to see and especially to test.
Backend User Interface
We want 6.2 LTS to have a stable, consistent and predictable user interface. This means not only Core modules but also providing strong defaults and "best practices" for extension developers.
The first preparation for the planned improvements to the backend user interface are already merged. You can test the backend with some styling enhancements, i.e.:
- Usage of the Share font for headlines
- Cleaned up H1-H4 header hierarchy
- Included normalize.css reset
- Consistent vertical spacing for certain blocks
- Increased some spacing to get a more "light" backend
- New icon for the reports module
- Hide func menu with only one entry
The backend improvements are by far not finished, this is just the beginning. The UX team will meet with the Core Team next week for a brainstorming session to discuss the next steps. A more detailed report about that is planned after this meeting.
Deprecation Cleanup
We continue to clean up the core by removing deprecated methods, finishing the move to namespaces and tweaking the core to be maintainable for the long support period that we will offer with 6.2.
- Dropped unmaintained extension tsconfig_help
- Moved template files from typo3/templates/ to their final destination inside the respective system extensions
- Removed all deprecated "dummy" files in t3lib/*.php and other places.
The aim is to at the end be able to get rid completely of the t3lib directory by structuring the whole core inside corresponding system extensions.
Adapting to empty t3lib / tslib
Note that removing the *.php files from t3lib and tslib (and others, i.e. typo3/template.php) is a
major breaking change! The files were deprecated in 6.0 (with the move to namespaced versions) and removing them now will force many extensions to be adapted. We will provide detailed upgrade information and "checklists" soon - through the project "<link http: forge.typo3.org projects typo3cms-smoothmigration>LTS Smooth Upgrade".
The recommended way of loading TYPO3 Core files is to use "auto-loading". It can easily be solved by removing all "require" and "require_once" for Core files (in t3lib or tslib). Note that this works with TYPO3 as low as TYPO3 4.3, so you don't have to worry about compatibility with older TYPO3 versions.
The compatibility class alias layer will still be included in 6.2 LTS, meaning there will still be a classes with the old names (i.e. "t3lib_div"). The only difference is that it's no longer supported to require the file (in that case t3lib/class.t3lib_div.php) anymore, because the file has been deleted.
Install Tool
The install tool is another area which will receive lots of love during the 6.2 LTS development, as this is the first interaction for new users with TYPO3. Also for regular users it is an important asset for Upgrades or system maintainance. We want it to be rock stable, maintainable, enhanceable and prepared for the future to come.
We'll report more on the plans for the Install Tool in a separate article soon. But we already have some tiny modifications merged for this alpha1 release:
- Improved dbal auto-loading
- Replaced prototype with jQuery
- Cleanups and namespace fixes
Extbase / Fluid
The Extbase team and Fluid backporters have also been busy with lots of tiny improvements. The <link http: forge.typo3.org projects typo3v4-mvc versions>Extbase Roadmap for 6.2 and <link http: forge.typo3.org projects typo3v4-fluid versions>Fluid Roadmap for 6.2 is growing but many issues have been solved already.
We consider these technologies of major importance to the TYPO3 CMS Core and thus deserves the attention their are getting. You'll hear or read more about the overall TYPO3 CMS Vision for the future (also regarding the convergence to TYPO3 Flow and TYPO3 Neos) soon.
Other changes
Some other tiny changes have already been included, i.e.:
- Multiple parameters for user function in TypoScript conditions
- Improved livesearch results
- Add missing stdWrap to the new "strPad" property
- New TCA displayCond options BIT and !BIT
- Useful additions for responsive image galleries in css_styled_content
- No longer render the "hgroup element" (removed from HTML5 specification)
Infrastructural Change (GIT Submodules)
One major task during these last weeks was to <link record:tt_news:1565>get rid of the Submodules in our GIT Repository. This is now the first release where the previous Submodules are part of the regular Core codebase.
Check it out
You can download TYPO3 6.2.0alpha1 on our <link>download page in the tab "
TYPO3 CMS 6.2 LTS Preview".
Your help
We invite you to participate in our journey to make 6.2 LTS the best release ever.
If you can't code, you can help by testing the latest snapshot, reporting issues and getting involved. Simply contact the TYPO3 CMS team or the Release Manager <link>Ernesto Baschny and tell us your special interest.
