TYPO3 4.4beta1 released

The first beta release also means that 4.4 is now feature complete, and in order to keep the aimed release date, we've had to cut down on some improvements and features, which are postponed to 4.5, coming in late 2010. Nevertheless, this release is packed with some amazing visual changes as well as some cool modifications under the hood: Install Tool The biggest change is the install tool, which still offers the same functionality as before, but has an overall updated look & feel, which changes whether you're in the TYPO3 backend or calling the install tool from outside the TYPO3 environment. The code base has also changed, the install tool now delivers clean and valid XHTML code. The visual part can now easily adjusted through CSS as it is completely detached from the PHP code that generates the output. This is also a prerequisite for a hook that allows you to add or modify steps during the installing process. Big thanks to Lars Zimmermann for the visual artwork and Patrick Broens for his outstanding coding work on this part in the last weeks.
Task Center The task center was one part of the TYPO3 Backend that hasn't been evolved throughout the last versions. One of the reasons was that the code base wasn't really clean. Georg Ringer started to recode this part and also updated the related extensions as well. The rewritten parts include sys_actions as well. Thanks for that!
Documentation Updates Speaking of the last 20%, the system extensions "CSS Styled Content" and "Frontend User Login" now have a in-depth manual that is up-to-date. Thanks to Susanne Moog, Steffen Kamper, Jigal van Hemert and Jeff Segars.

Also, there are more than 100 bugs fixed since the last 4.4 release, you can find more infos for all new features in the source package in the NEWS.txt file or, for the more technical, in the ChangeLog. Get your package You can grab one of the following files from the <link https: typo3.org download packages>download page.

MD5 checksums:

fb7050eaff968564626fb93208f672d8  dummy-4.4.0beta1.tar.gz
b552efeae2b159dacfd6590bcc9a45a9  dummy-4.4.0beta1.zip
5b15f6a65da620173877a024ee5416d3  typo3_src-4.4.0beta1.tar.gz
a72301d32cbb5c413bb924997ebd772e  typo3_src-4.4.0beta1.zip
74d2b739066667243d8618c4486d6857  typo3_src+dummy-4.4.0beta1.zip

What's next? There is actually one more feature missing - the Skinning API and the sprites API, along with an updated CSS definition for the TYPO3 Backend Skin. This feature is currently in the works and will be part of the next beta versions. The fact that this feature will be added after the feature freeze results from the major work that has already been done during the TYPO3 User Experience Week, so we don't want to miss out on this fundamental feature.

For the next steps, let's all concentrate on fixing bugs and testing the package. Be sure to report every single bug on <link http: bugs.typo3.org>bugs.typo3.org.

Benjamin Mack
-- TYPO3 Release Manager 4.4