Most of us are back from holidays re-energised after relaxing on the Spanish beaches, tasting cheese and wine in the heart of France or enjoying the surroundings of your own house or country. Not everyone was holidaying however and quite a lot happened during August with Agency Meetup Days, marketing and buzz around TYPO3 CMS.
The month of August of the Year 2014
TYPO3 CMS
Flat design for TYPO3 CMS backend
Felix Kopp announced in, what became a <link https: twitter.com status photo>very lively twitter thread, a flat design for TYPO3 backend fully based on Bootstrap, LESS, jQuery. Nothing is cast in stone, but the most recent TYPO3 Active Contributor Meeting confirms the CMS team backs up this proposal. More backend / usability work will be done during the upcoming <link http: t3uxw.org>User eXperience Week (T3UXW).
It looks like this flat design accompanied by usability changes will propel TYPO3 CMS to a next level.
TYPO3 by numbers
Marcus Krause set up a project to crawl the internet for TYPO3 websites. <link http: t3census.info>t3census.info prides itself in having reliable and provable data. t3census also mentions a few other sources like cmscrawler that comes up in the media on a regular basis.
The <link http: www.cmscrawler.com tool typo3>TYPO3 page on CMS crawler shows that Rwanda has the highest penetration of TYPO3 websites. t3census shows very convincingly that TYPO3 CMS 4.5 is found most in the wild.
t3census has some topics in its roadmap and is open for participation. You can find the t3census project on <link https: github.com t3sec t3census>Github.
TYPO3 Neos
The Neos team is extremely busy and is currently just taking care of progress, which takes up all their available time.
The code sprint took place from August 25 - 29 and was organised by Christopher and Berit Hlubek and took place at the <link https: networkteam.com>networkteam offices in Kiel. There were 13 attendees in total as show on the <link http: wiki.typo3.org neos_code_sprint_august_2014>wiki page for the code sprint.
The main topics of the sprint was tackling the review queue as well as getting things ready for the next release (1.2). Additionally work was done to release a patch release for the 1.1 version.
Thursday the team went on a high ropes course at <link http: www.highspirits-kiel.de>Highspirits followed by a barbecue at the beach.
The team also discussed how to deal with reviews, to prevent changes halting and staying in the queue too long. The progress of the 1.2 release can be followed on <link https: jira.typo3.org secure>Jira using the Neos development board, there are currently some blockers preventing a next release.
Stabilizing Neos
Rasmus Skjoldan, user experience lead for Neos, writes on his blog about<link http: rasmusskjoldan.com post stabilizing-typo3-neos> the growing need to stabilize Neos. Features are being added fairly quickly to Neos, which will mostly end up in 1.2.
Currently the editing experience of Neos is compromised by a lot of small bugs. As the core developers focus on the features, Neos needs other and more contributors to focus on these annoyances and help solve them.
Here’s a list of ideas about what you can do:
- Assign one of your developers for a set amount of days during the next 2 months
- Allocate a developer on an ongoing weekly or monthly basis to do Neos work (this is being done at <link http: moc.net>MOC and <link http: www.techdivision.com>TechDivision)
- Let one of your developers participate at one of the next code sprints to help out in a limited amount of days (this is e.g. what Punkt.de has done and what <link http: sitegeist.de>Sitegeist is doing now)
- Pay one of the core developers to do a specific set of tasks or have them work on stabilization for a number of days (this is what the Danish Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs has done recently by paying a substantial amount of money to advance core development)
If you are willing and able to contribute in any way then please react to <link http: rasmusskjoldan.com post stabilizing-typo3-neos>Rasmus's article or email him directly at: rasmus@typo3.org
Something Neos
Florian Weiss has been actively writing on Buzz about Neos in the series Something Neos. in episode 6 Florian writes about layouts in <link http: buzz.typo3.org people florian-weiss article something-neos-vi-the-layouts-they-are-a-changin>Something NEOS VI – The layouts they are a changin’
The article is about getting the magic of alternative page layouts going and provides info on how you as implementor can in a quick and very easy way implement different layouts for your client.
TYPO3 Association
Since a few months the TYPO3 Association is communicating through creative writers Stefan Busemann and Naike Begiatto. Stefan is secretary to the board and Naike is almost working for half a year now as executive secretary.
There is no need to get into the details of the activities of the TYPO3 Association as they are described in ¨<link http: typo3.org news article typo3-association-augusts-diary>TYPO3 Association - August's diary¨, save to say the Agency Meetups are quite successful, not only in getting feedback from the companies, but also for just communicating and getting to know the agency part of the community.
The TYPO3 community is big and consists of a pretty varied set of contributors of which the agencies have become pretty important over the past few years not only using TYPO3, but also supporting the development by sponsoring code sprints and the TYPO3 community by TYPO3 Association membership. Agencies and freelancers alike have built a living on implementing TYPO3 and that makes a dialogue with the agencies imperative.
Budget Application 2015
The budget process started August 1, the TYPO3 Association came up with the motto: "Committed to contribution". It expresses the mutual promise that is taken by the budget seeking applicant and the TYPO3 Association.
Individuals and teams have until September 19 to submit their budget.
You can find all important dates and the download from in the news article '<link http: typo3.org news article committed-to-contribution-submit-your-2015-budget-application-now>Committed to contribution - submit your 2015 budget application now!'.
Teams
Documentation team
The documentation team met on the August 21. As usual the team has it <link https: forge.typo3.org projects team-docteam wiki>minutes of meeting available on Forge.
Please note that Francois Suter, who has been leading the team for a very long time, will step back at the end of this year and the team needs a new leader. As a matter of fact the documentation team will gladly accept skilled new members to their team.
Marketing Team
The marketing team has stepped up activity parallel to the T3A. That should not be a surprise as Alain Veuve at the same time leads the marketing team and takes the position of treasurer of the board of the T3A. Alain leads by example thereby inspiring the team as a whole.
Last month's marketing team meeting (August 27) revolved around the budget request for 2015. In line with the increase of activity an increase in the requested budget was evident in the meeting. One of the major things the marketing team is working on is supplying a large array of Merchandise and Marketing Collateral for companies and individuals that will be available in a new online shop. Boris Hinzer leads this effort.
T3BLOG
The members of the marketing team are responsible for certain Fields Of Responsibility. Christian Händel’s FOR is <link http: t3blog.com>t3blog.com, T3BLOG is an initiative of the marketing team and showcases great websites built with TYPO3 and shows why major companies switch to the TYPO3 Open Source CMS for their global web content management needs.
Christian has done some technical changes and has added an awesome range of new submissions (like <link http: www.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com>Sony Entertainment Network and <link http: www.gigaset.com>Gigaset). Check those out on <link http: www.t3blog.com blog-post>T3BLOG.
If you believe you have built a website that fits the <link http: www.t3blog.com suggest_a_site.html>requirements of T3BLOG, then go ahead and <link http: www.t3blog.com suggest_a_site.html>submit your website.
Events
Quite a few significant TYPO3 events mark the end of 2014. Two mini-conferences in Eastern Europe, the main TYPO3 Conference in Berlin and the User eXperience Week.
T3UXW (September 20 - 27, Festenburg, Upper Harz, Germany)
The T3DUST week aimed at distributions, usability and themes was merged with the user experience week (T3UXW) and finds its home on the web on <link http: t3uxw.org>t3uxw.org. From September 20 - 29 some 30 TYPO3 enthusiasts will devote their time to improving the usability of TYPO3 products. Just like the UXW back in 2009 5 teams will tackle topics in a lonely place without distractions in the dark heart of Germany.
TYPO3 conference (October 8 - 10, Berlin, Germany)
<link http: t3con.eu>The 10th international TYPO3 conference will take place in, Berlin, an exciting and fascinating city and will feature international speakers and visitors from different countries. Many of the <link http: t3con.eu speakers>speakers are already known for the TYPO3 event of the year.
During three days a large variety of core themes with interesting sessions and practical workshops will be featured. The program will be finalised in the coming days.
Watch out for special actions regarding ticket sales this coming time.
TYPO3 congres (October 28, Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
The <link http: www.typo3congres.nl>Dutch TYPO3 congress is organised this year under the header "
Web Content Management 2020". The congress will be organised in Science Center Nemo, Amsterdam. Next to new insights about the future of WCM and the vision on technology the congress offers great opportunities to meet people involved in web content management.
Many prominent <link http: www.typo3congres.nl programma sprekers-typo3-congres>Dutch speakers are announced already and our very own Neos User eXperience and TYPO3 brand manager guy, Rasmus Skjoldan will also be present on this event.
<link http: www.typo3congres.nl>
TYPO3 Eastern Europe T3EE (October 31 - November, Cluj, Transylvania, Romania)
<link http: t3ee.org>T3EE takes place right on Halloween, October 31 – November 1. The organisation already adorned the T3EE website accordingly with bats.
What a better way to spend your Halloween then with our Romanian friends in the heart of Transylvania.
TYPO3camp conference (November 21 - 22, Pozna?, Poland)
The hybrid <link http: typo3camp.pl en>Polish TYPO3 event will be in Poznan again. The private university "<link http: www.wsnhid.pl>WSNHiD", which has a great Computer Science Division, will be hosting the event. The university provides a great environment, including lecture and workshop rooms.
What is also worth mentioning is that starting October, TYPO3 will be lectured on the "CMS" course for computer science students. A collaboration between WSNHiD and<link http: macopedia.pl> Macopedia, organiser of the event and industry partner of this university, made this possible.
Inspiring Conference (March 21 - 23, Rosenheim, Germany)
<link http: www.inspiring-conference.com>
It is the fourth time already that this international TYPO3 Flow and TYPO3 Neos event is taking place in Rosenheim, Bavaria. <link http: www.inspiring-conference.com about call-for-papers.html>Call for papers is open for a while now. You can submit your papers until October 15.
Miscellaneous
TYPO3 frontend rendering explained
Michael stucki wrote "TYPO3 frontend rendering explained" (<link http: buzz.typo3.org uploads media typo3_frontend_rendering_process_v1.5.pdf>download PDF) in 2007 and writes about it in this <link http: buzz.typo3.org people stucki article typo3-frontend-rendering-explained>BUZZ BLOG entry. The guide is still of use to many people. While a lot of aspects in the guide are still valid the guide is not fully up to date with TYPO3 CMS 6.2 anymore.
The TYPO3 community will benefit enormously if someone could update this guide and we ask for a volunteer or volunteers to work on that.
The visio charts and other docs that lie at the basis of this document are made available by Michael on GitHub:
<link https: github.com stucki typo3-frontend-rendering-explained moz-txt-link-freetext>github.com/stucki/typo3-frontend-rendering-explained
Check out the events calendar for a user group meeting, code sprint or other event near you: <link http: typo3.org events>typo3.org/events/. Do not hesitate to share you TYPO3 activities in 'This Week in TYPO3'. Just let me (@benvantende) know what you are up to.
