TYPO3 CMS 6.2 LTS beta3 released

Categories: Development, Community Created by Ernesto Baschny
The TYPO3 community, contributors, and the release team packaged a new snapshot of the current development of TYPO3 CMS 6.2: beta3.
After 6.2 beta2 and the postponement of the final release, we started working on stabilizing the product. This also meant that the speed of new additions dropped, but we still got some important issues already solved. But this is just the beginning of this new phase.

What's new since beta2?

  • Package Management (last feature)
  • Performance and Micro-Optimizations
  • ExtJS upgrade
  • File Abstraction Layer improvements
  • Security Issues

Package Management

The package management now allows the activation of packages during runtime <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#53015, which was a missing feature that was pre-approved to enter after feature freeze. Another important fix was the optimization of the Package State migration <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#53886.

Performance

  • Optimize speed for instantiating class with arguments (<link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#53682, <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54425). The concept was backported from TYPO3 Flow. Besides enhancing performance, it also adds compatibility with PHP 5.5.6.
  • Replaced ClassLoader cache with standard caches <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#53744, so this cache can now also be kept in APC for example.
  • t3skin no longer calls addIconSprite for each lang <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#53918

Micro-Optimizations

  • Some superfluous comparison were removed <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54052, <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54051, <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54048, <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54054, <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54050, <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54018
  • Use array access instead of traversing hook array <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#51283
  • Redundant compare: GeneralUtility::inList() <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54017
  • Simplify returns in ConfigurationManager <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54019

ExtJS upgrade

We upgraded our shipped ExtJS from 3.4.0 to 3.4.1.1 (<link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#52933, <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54238), thus providing IE>10 support with minimal impact. Thanks to Sencha for <link http: www.sencha.com forum _blank>providing this update for the old ExtJS (previously only available through the commercial support channel).

File Abstraction Layer

Some important fixes were merged:
  • Uncaught exception if editor has no file mount <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#52969
  • Moving files and folders doesn't update hashes <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#53655, <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54499
  • Access to sys_files is incompatible to fe_access checks <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54236, <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54237
  • Use correct file data variable in Indexer <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54312
  • Clear statcache after writing file contents <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54302
And some improvements in the File Abstraction Layer usability:
  • Allow Editing field creator_tool in sys_file_metadata <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54259
  • Add editing of file metadata to ClickMenu <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#52835
  • Re-Introduce feature to go one level up in file list <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#51866

Security

This beta3 now includes all the fixes that were released last week in the stable branch releases (4.5.32, 4.7.17, 6.0.12 and 6.1.7).

Other changes

The Install Tool got back it's phpinfo() feature which was missing by some users (<link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#53271). And some other cosmetical issues were solved (<link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#53852 and <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#53905). The new feature of Fluid Template Fallback paths contained some bugs which were fixed <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#52971. More deprecated stuff was removed: disableDocModuleInAB TSconfig option (<link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#53991) and some methods in PageLayoutView (<link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#53811). Improvements and enhancements in the documentation. Added info on system categories in NEWS.md (<link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54368) and CSH for categories-based menus (<link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54366). Replaced URLs of bugs.typo3.org with forge.typo3.org (<link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54020). And last but not least, as usual, we did some cleanups:
  • Add tool-function to strip PATH_site-part of paths <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54126
  • oncontextmenu: Avoid duplicating onclick-functionality <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54288
  • Cleanup usage of getPageRenderer() <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54123
  • Fix broken references in LegacyClassesForIde <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54059
  • Remove non-evaluated parameter from _GP function calls <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54106
  • ext:adodb Remove obsolete diffs from doc/ <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#54078
  • Improve code style of RelationHandler class <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>#53718

Downloading and Upgrading

If you have tried some earlier snapshot of the 6.2 development branch (i.e. some alpha or beta1) here are some tips when upgrading to this latest beta:
  • Download 6.2 beta3 from the <link>Download Page.
  • Uncompress into your old Document Root.
  • Switch the typo3_src symlink to the new package
  • Use the Install Tool:
    • "Important Actions" and delete the whole cache content (make sure this deletes the whole typo3temp/Caches/* files and also the content of Extbase Reflection Caches - do it manually if not working otherwise!)
    • "Important Actions": Use the "Database Analyser" and let it migrate the data structure
    • "Upgrade Wizards": Walk through all Upgrade Wizards
Keep in mind that the exact same steps are required when upgrading from a previous version of TYPO3. Note that you might need to upgrade the extensions to the latest state before upgrading the Core!

MD5 sum of packages

c8b7ff8cf9e51fe46e0867ebc750ae15 typo3_src-6.2.0beta3.tar.gz 092df23deca99b58657cce7ddb0ad062 typo3_src-6.2.0beta3.zip 

What's next?

The team compiled a list of important tasks that we need to get fixed until the final release. These are the important work packages that have been defined:
  • FAL topics: Steffen Ritter gathered the missing issues and we organized the tasks in <link http: forge.typo3.org issues _blank>the FAL Epic.
  • Workspaces Test-Cases: To be able to work on the future improvements in the workspaces / language handling, we need to improve the functional testing on that area.
  • TCEmain bugfixes (workspaces, IRRE, MM). After we have the test-cases, we need to work on the already conceptually thought of fixes.
  • Extbase Workspaces and Language handling.
  • Importer / Exporter with relations (MM, IRRE): The importer, exporter is currently not working correctly with IRRE relations, which is important to export/import records with FAL relations. To tackle these, we want to have functional tests in place to be able to change this code and maybe even adding some features to be able to import a "4.5-export" into a "6.2 installation".
  • Overall System performance: There are known and some yet unknown performance issues with the current system. We improved some places already, but will need to work further on that. There are several ideas hanging around (differenciate cache types, better eID bootstrapping, Extbase bootstrapping issues, TCA optimizations, etc). We want to solve this in a work-force and have a reference system and some automated performance testing framework (based on jMeter for example) to better understand the impact of the changes we make.
  • Responsive Distribution: We need to finish the replacement to the "Introduction Package" as a distribution. Task is currently with Benni Mack.
  • Security Enhancements in the Backend: implement CSRF in more if not every place of the backend and click-jacking protection.
The CMS team has been gathering sponsoring and will also make use of the budget allocated by the TYPO3 Association (the "Important Development" port of our budget) to finance some of the above mentioned work-packages. This will enable to us to have people commited into finishing their task. Please note that the release manager is using <link https: trello.com b typo3-cms-6-2-important-issues _blank>this trello board to keep an overview of issues that we want to get solved until release. If you are interested in helping out, just pick some task from this list that fits your knowledge and work on it. To be safe, contact the team through our IRC channel (Freenode, #typo3-cms) to avoid duplicate work on the same issues.

Merry Christmas

The CMS Team wishes the TYPO3 community Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!