Still here and now what?
In May of 2015, Neos, originally intended as the successor of TYPO3 CMS, started its own community, effectively splitting of from the TYPO3 project. The stalemate the TYPO3 project was in for such a long time was no longer in effect. The separation provided space to drive the re-organisation of the TYPO3 Association and embracing and innovating TYPO3 CMS with a razor sharp focus on editors and the overall user experience for TYPO3 CMS 7 LTS (Long Term Support), released in Fall 2015. Alain Veuve is treasurer of the board of the TYPO3 Association and appointed as the change agent to support the re-organisation towards a TYPO3 Inc. Alain writes a lot about digital transformation on his blog and as such not new to this topic. At the last General Assembly of the TYPO3 Association, in April of 2015, the members voted for the evaluation of a potential re-organisation. Three options were laid out to the attendees of which ‘Scenario #3?—?The TYPO3 Company’ was chosen by the members as the prefered road ahead as laid down in ‘<media 2975>Strategic Options for the TYPO3 Association 2016–2019</media>’ (PDF). On his blog Alain asks the question ‘TYPO3 is still here! Now what?’ The vision is big, as in a global community 10 times as big as it is now, not centered in Europe, not exclusively tied to CMS but to software technology in general. The motto ‘Inspiring People to Share’ remains central in this vision. Becoming a role model when it comes to Open Source, open collaboration and all based on humanism. In the news article ‘Driving the TYPO3 Restructuring Project’ Alain discusses hurdles like creating revenue streams and recruitment. A full team of TYPO3 entrepreneurs from various areas of interest and with a very specific skillset support this restructuring. Next steps are developing a feasible plan around funding, a business model and recruiting/human resources. One first solid action was the call for a CEO (Chief Executive Officer) and a CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) on Xing.
November 10, 2015 marked the release of the long awaited TYPO3 7 LTS. The roadmap that was defined for this release was tightly followed with every 7.x release on the defined date.
Core team leader Benni Mack presented his dreams and goals in ‘What’s next for TYPO3’ at the TYPO3 conference in Amsterdam. His presentation lies very close to the original mission statement you can find onhttps://typo3.org/teams-committees/core-development/:
To Jointly Innovate Excellent Free Software Enabling People to Communicate.In his presentation Benni intentionally avoided the usual buzzword bingo and showed the agile way the team deals with progress in the project. The sketch of the future for TYPO3 CMS generally deals with overarching goals like being the best software when talking about web content management and becoming a leading part in PHP development where it concerns WCM and could become a motor for others. Benni urges people to join the project and make a difference. Everyone is essential in the TYPO3 community. The release of TYPO3 CMS 8 LTS will be in April of 2017.
PHP 7
In the beginning of December 2015, PHP 7.0.0 was released to the public. As it is “the rise of a new PHP generation with an enormous potential” (quoted from php.net) and TYPO3 CMS 7 already supports PHP7 out-of-the-box, the programming language dawn to a new era which paves the way towards faster, better and cleaner coding. With version 7 PHP dips into the enterprise world even more, and TYPO3 goes along with that very will. Running TYPO3 in conjunction with PHP7 speeds up the software to be twice as fast. We encourage everyone to embrace the latest versions of both PHP and TYPO3. TYPO3 Core Team Leader Benni Mack spoke at the SymfonyCon in Paris about the obstacles of a legacy CMS become modern again and how TYPO3 achieved this by using PHP standards nowadays. This part of the efforts to open up to the rest of the PHP world and to join the common goals to re-use components across open-source software. Sharing PHP code and components is a first step in collaborating between the industry standard framework and TYPO3, and you can be assured that there is more to come.TYPO3 Eastern Europe?—?T3EE (November 13–14, Cluj-Napoca, Romania)
T3EE 2015 was the third time the Eastern European event was organised. This time at the Life Sciences Institute in Cluj. The modern building, with two auditoriums, was definitely well suited for an event like T3EE. The first thing that was very noticeable at the event were the many colours present in the t-shirt and the small alcoholic beverages that were presented to new arrivals underlining the diverse crowd at the event..
AOE’s Stefan Rotsch wrote a great look back at conference highlights, concluding that T3EE is an extremely worthwhile destination and pointing out the attention to detail in organising the event and the awesome hospitality.
TYPO3 Snowboard Tour
Canada (Februari 20–29, Whistler, British Columbia)
For the first time the Snowboard Tour will venture on the white slopes of Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. The organisation rented a place that can house up to 24 people. You can enjoy the Canadian slopes for a ridiculously low price. Check all the details:http://t3board16.typo3.org/t3board16-canada/about/Austria (February 28?—?March 3, Zillertal, Tyrol)
it is already the 15th time T3BOARD is organised this time in the valley of Zillertal in Tyrol, austria. The big benefit of the “Zillertal” area is the availability of a large amount of skiing regions, which are all included in the Zillertal Superskipass, included in the event. Check all the details: http://t3board16.typo3.org/t3board16-europe/about/User Experience Week 2016?—?T3UXW (April 9–16, Festenburg)
From April 9–16, 2016 the fifth User eXperience Week?—?T3UXW16 will be held in the wonderful forest- and sporthotel Festenburg. 5 usability teams and one core team will be working for one full week in full isolation to improve TYPO3’s usability. You can be one of 10 designers, 15 developers/writers, 5 project managers!
The first user experience week happened back in 2009. In 2014 the event was re-activated with a slightly different approach with stunning results. Many of the things that are currently happening in the development of TYPO3 CMS 7, have been started at T3UXW, and this year the organisation continues the successful journey.
This is your chance to participate in a multi-disciplined event. Besides devs the event needs writers, designers and project managers.
TYPO3camps 2016
The TYPO3camps will be rolling along as we have seen the previous years. The season starts with the International TYPO3camp Venlo, Netherlands on April 22–13. As a newcomer in the series of TYPO3camps TYPO3camp Vienna will be held from May 6–8.
Code sprints
Two code sprints go on record at the end of 2015. The PHPUnit code sprint in Berlin and the typo3.org and TYPO3 Server Team Sprint in Karlsruhe.
TYPO3.org and TYPO3 Server Team Sprint (November 6–8, Karlsruhe)
The server team is essential for maintaining the many servers that make up the infrastructure of the TYPO3 project. A server team meeting is usually about updating software and servers, but also looking at what new open source software developments can be implemented in the future. Besides the upgrades, migrations and enhancements the team once again discussed the commenting system on typo3.org. Commenting is very basic and does not provide threading, notification or other features you would expect from om modern commenting system. After a lot of research and testing, the team concluded that there is no software that fits their needs. Requirements and the solutions that the team checked can be found here:https://notes.typo3.org/p/Commenting_Software_for_T3O The T3O team documented their sprint here:https://notes.typo3.org/p/TYPO3_T3O_2016). The team changed the general workflow for contributing to typo3.org. The T3O team is planning many changes for the TYPO3.org website in 2016, and the workflow for this has been discussed during the sprint. One result of this is that two new repositories have been created for the websites which will be launched and relaunched in the coming year. Michael Stucki reports on the code sprint on typo3.org. Quote by Christian Herberger:For me, it was my very first participation at a community sprint. It was a cool event with nice people, and with quite hard challenges. But we came to conclusions and did our thing to bring TYPO3 and the community forward. It was really fun and motivating, and I am looking forward to joining more events like this one.
PHPUnit code sprint (November 27–29, Berlin)
The second PHPUnit code sprint (WIKI) was held at the offices of CPS-IT in Berlin. MaxServ’s Richard Haeser reports on the code sprint (Dutch) on the MaxServ website. Richard writes: “Unit-testing automatically checks whether isolated sections in the code give the expected result intended by the relating function. These tests are executed at every code change ensuring that an adjustment does not influence the current function or functions depending on this function. PHPUnit is the module that makes this testing possible in TYPO3.” This sprint was all about improving the PHPUnit extension. Particularly tackling the following topics:- get new contributors up and running with PHPUnit and the TYPO3 contribution workflow
- get the next small release out of the door (really soon)
- get the extension green on Travis CI
- make the extension compatible with TYPO 7 LTS
- create a new test runner that allows running the current Core tests
- general bug fixing and cleanup
TYPO3 Contribution Bootup Days
CAB AG is located in Basel Switzerland. Owner Jonas Felix has for a long time been active in the TYPO3 Association. Jonas has now taken the initiative for a great the ‘TYPO3 Contribution Bootup Days’. The mission is to boot you or your developers into the world TYPO3 contributions. Of course you know TYPO3 has done a lot for you, but now you wonder what you can do for TYPO3. There are a lot of possibilities to contribute, but it is not always clear where your participation is most valuable. The bootup days provide with an overview of the TYPO3 eco-system and lets you find your contribution sweetspot. Needless to say that your contribution will also influence the direction TYPO3 is taking in the future. The first bootup meeting was held in November and three more are scheduled for 2016. On the Facebook page you’ll find a gallery including links with further details: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1168700269824695.1073741831.181138538580878&type=3Please Copy!
You are encouraged to copy the concept and to create a ‘TYPO3 Contribution Bootup Days’ in your region. Today Basel, tomorrow Frankfurt and then the whole world!TYPO3 Tech
There is a lot going on in the TYPO3 extension and application arena that does not always hit the TYPO3 community daylight. In This Week I highlight the most interesting stuff going on. If you are working on something or have released something that will interest and benefit the community than let me know so I can include it in the overview. I got a lot of reactions in the Facebook thread in the public TYPO3 group.Mask stable arrives
Gernot Ploiner of WEBprofil.at proudly presented the new Version 1.1.0 of Mask at T3EE, while at the same time people from his agency presented it atTYPO3camp Rhein Ruhr. Mask is gaining popularity for the number one extension creating flexible content elements. Even the core team is paying close attention. Currently there is no way to create your own ce’s out of the box in the core of TYPO3. The current Mask version is now compatible to TYPO3 6.2 LTS and 7.6 LTS. A lot of bugs were fixed and new features added. This version provides you with the possibility to design the preview of content elements in the page module. This feature makes life a lot easier for editors. You can now use font-awesome icons as identifier for your ce’s, which also positively influences the backend loading speed. The Backend module was rewritten with bootstrap with newly designed SVG-icons replaced. 100% look and feel of TYPO3 7 guaranteed! Gernot just put a feature wish poll online, which lets you prioritise 27 features that are currently lined up for future releases of Mask. Please let the developers of Mask know what your priorities are by filling in the Google form here: https://goo.gl/8QfyloUpdated extensions or work in progress
- Direct Mail?—?Author: Ivan Kartolo (dkd) has updated the popular newsletter extension
https://typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/direct_mail - tt_news?—?Author: Rupert Germann (wmdb)?—?With over 300.000 downloads tt_news is the most downloaded of all extensions.
https://typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/tt_news/ - Apache Solr?—?Author: Ingo Renner (dkd)?—?Apache Solr is another well known and much used TYPO3 extension. It is an enterprise search server with special features such as Faceted Search or Synonym Support and incredibly fast response times. The extension repository on typo3.org runs on Solr.
https://typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/solr/ - Apache Tika?—?Author: Ingo Renner (dkd)?—?Solr and Tika go hand in hand. Tika provides services to detect a document’s language, extract metadata and extract content from files.
https://typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/tika/ - Tim Lochmüller lets us know he is working on a new calendar extension called calendarize. For some reason calendars are always a tricky extension for content management systems. Tim explains about that the “core concept” does not rely on the data structure of the event, but rather the index process of frequencies and recurring events. You can use your own data structure in this calendar. More on YouTube (German language)
- Prince Vikramaditya is working on a Project Management System based on AngularJS + TYPO3 Extbase.
http://typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/t3pm - Gisele Miller has been working on her comments extension for quite some years. EXT:toctoc_comments for TYPO3 7.6 is now on TER, as isEXT:toctoccommentsce. For TYPO3 7.6: Final changes in $TCA implied updates inside toctoc_comments. Gisele mentons: ‘I needed to change a little implementation of rsaauth in the AJAX-login and the biggest update along T3 7 was the update of old OpenOffice doc to rst doc.’ Btw toctoc_comments is still compatible down to TYPO3 4.3… parts of the code look like sediments of ancient epochs!, she confesses.
There’s a testsite running TYPO3 7 LTS and toctoc_comments 8.1 onhttps://76.toctoc.ch, more info on the toctoc-extensions are onwww.toctoc.ch - Jigal van Hemert lets us know that the automaketemplate extension maintained by Alternet has been updated to work with 7 LTS. The automaketemplate extension is one of the first templating extensions and with 100.000+ downloads in the top 10 of popular/most used extensions. The concept of the extension to map a class or id value in the HTML template to corresponding template subparts was pretty revolutionary at the time.
- Jigal is also the author of the t3adminer extension, that was created as an alternative to PHPMyAdmin, due to the many security issues this extension has faced. T3adminer is also 7 LTS compatible.
- One extension I am pretty excited about and also very happy to see completely documented in English is Manfred Rutschman’s (rutschmann.biz) powerful layerslider. The article ‘TYPO3 Layerslider 5.4.2 published’ gives more info on the extension.
- Last but not least Nicki Ulbach from Nimius lets us know she is working on a workshop and a payment module which are both soon ready for a TER upload.
Calling all managers and integrators to do code verifications.
MaxServ’s very own Michiel Roos is already known from the easy to use Vagrant box to test TYPO3. He describes on his blog how easy he has made it to review patches without technical knowledge, like using the command line interface. Michiel describes how you only need to install the TYPO3 Review Box and the Chrome TYPO3 Review Helper he has created. The article is not only interesting from the perspective what you can do already with the technology, but also worth reading how Michiel has been experimenting with Atlassian Stash support and the Github API. The review helper might become a generic TYPO3 (and Neos) review helper.This article was originally published on Medium: <link https: typo3.community>typo3.community/this-week-in-typo3-2015-week-52-fb2f51d768b3
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Check out the events calendar for a user group meeting, code sprint or other event near you: <link http: typo3.org events _blank>typo3.org/events/. Do not hesitate to share you TYPO3 activities in 'This Week in TYPO3'. Just let me (<link http: twitter.com benvantende>@benvantende) know what you are up to.