typo3.org Summer of Code Sprint Report

A dedicated team of 11 people worked for four days (and nights) in kanban style on typo3.org again and brings you more stability and more goodies.
In April 2011 we had the big code sprint, with 25 around attendants, in the Linux Hotel, Essen that started the actual relaunch of typo3.org (April 2012). Since that code sprint we organised 3 - 4 events to tackle issues concerning typo3.org. We can be proud of what has been achieved since the Essen sprint and we can be proud of the many people that have participated in making typo3.org the solid platform it is today. For every sprint we have a different focus and for the current ‘Summer Sprint 2013’ the main focus is the TYPO3 Extension Repository. The code sprint location has been graciously sponsored by <link http: dkd.de>dkd and hosted by the Reverend Neverend. The code sprint saw 11 attendants all together being: Thomas Löffler, Sven Burkert, Kay Strobach, Christian Zenker. Tomas Norre Mikkelsen, Christian Händel, Roland Schenke, Peter Foerger, Ivan Kartolo, Olivier Dobberkau and Ben van ‘t Ende. The spirit of the team was high and besides being really productive, such a meeting is also about meeting friends again. This is what makes the code sprints so valuable. Sven mainly worked on preparing the new certification listing (1100 certified integrators) so we can integrate <link http: certification.typo3.org>certification.typo3.org into the typo3.org instance. Sven started to work on the new <link http: snippets.typo3.org>snippets extension that will be based on Fluid and Extbase and includes better filtering and sorting. Roland and Christian H. worked on the preparation of new content for typo3.org that will reflect the new structure of the TYPO3 family, showing relevant information about Flow and Neos. The separate websites for <link http: flow.typo3.org>Flow and <link http: neos.typo3.org>Neos will still be there. In the beginning of October there will be an Editorial Code Sprint where all this content will be refined and implemented on typo3.org, together with some changes to the homepage. Ivan Kartolo, the original author of Direct Mail implemented Direct Mail again together with a TYPO3 template enabling us to activate the TYPO3 newsletter again. We started on Thursday preparing our Kanban board with the columns Backlog | TODO nex/On hold | in progress | waiting for latest/Test | TESTED/CLOSED. Together with Joern Bock we had already prepared a lot of issues so the team could get of to an easy start. We mainly fixed bugs. We have been discussing interactivity of typo3.org on several occasions and one of the things we are about to implement is a feedback form that submits feedback to our issue queue. A first attempt implementing the form unfortunately failed, because of clever spammers. We also worked on contact functionality so a visitor to typo3.org can contact a team leader, the community manager or any other person responsible for a particular page or section. We did not finish this one as we still need to establish the position and the functionality of this contact point, which is a design team task. Commenting is also something that is under discussion. The current commenting is very basic and does not offer any interactivity. We might start a test run with Disqus, but we also had a look at <link http: www.discourse.org>Discourse, which seems to be a very good alternative, combining commenting, knowledge base and forum. Most important maybe is that Discourse is totally Open Source. We also identified that the donation form does not give the kind donator any feedback. A feedback mail with a friendly thank you message was implemented. We fixed some minor Professional Services List  as well as Case Studies bugs, but did not have the time to work on the bigger issues. PSL is on top of our agenda and we will most likely have a solution for consistent maintenance, outside of the code sprints, soon. We also fixed usability glitches for the editors and our community users. Internet Explorer bugs were never a priority to the team, but we did address quite a few, which of course proved to be very difficult to fix. Respect goes out to Peter Foerger. With the arrival of Thomas Löffler on Friday evening we started bug fixing and testing already implemented features for TER (TYPO3 Extension ). Thomas explained the TER construction with it’s frontend and backend extension. We established the importance of TER as a collaboration platform for the community and that we need give tenderness, love and care to TER (TER TLC). Thomas has been working on TER as Don Quichote for a long time, but in this sprint we pledged support for TER with a team consisting of Kay Strobach, Christian Zenker, Tomas Norre Mikkelsen, Peter Foerger. Olivier Dobberkau is working on a narrative document describing the functionality of TER that we will be able to use in discussions surrounding TER. The future of TER has been discussed before with people from the TYPO3 and Neos team and the importance of providing the same platform for all our products is evident. Furthermore there is also an initiative that we want to support providing metrics about TER.

What changes were implemented for TER?

Edit your extension details

New extension fields you can edit:
  • Forge URL: You can insert the url of your forge project and it will be linked on extension detail to contribute and/or submitting bugs and/or other issues.
  • External repository URL: You can insert the url of an external repository (e.g. GitHub)
  • External manual URL: Here you can set an url for a manual if there is another manual besides docs.typo3.org
  • Donation URL: Here you can set an url for donating you.
  • Flattr username: Here you can set your username in flattr to get a flattr button in your extension details. For a detailed guide to get the button there is a link to wiki entry
  • Google+ ID: Here you can set the G+ ID (you can find it in your profile and consists only of numbers) for getting an author link in the head of the page to display nicer search results
You can see these new fields if you’re logged in and visit the page “Extension keys”. On this page you can edit all of your extensions.

Link to docs.typo3.org

Every extension now changed the link to documentation. First of all the standard manual leads to docs.typo3.org where all the manuals of all extensions are built as beautiful HTML and ReST pages.

Contacting the extension owner

Cannot register the extension key you really want? Now you have the possibility to contact the extension owner to ask him if he really needs the key.

Upload your extension directly on typo3.org

Close to the edit button on the page “Extension keys” you will find a new button named “Upload”. There you get an upload form where you can set an upload comment and upload a ZIP file of your extension. The guide to upload an extension is displayed on that page, too. In the course of the TER cleanup process and as announced in January, the requirement for an explicit version range of a TYPO3 extension has been deployed. You can find an extensive coverage of the subject at <link http: typo3.org news article announcing-ter-cleanup-process>typo3.org/news/article/announcing-ter-cleanup-process/.
Don't be shy. You can let the team know what you think of the work they did here below in the comments. You can also <link http: forge.typo3.org projects team-t3o-relaunch-week issues report>check the issues for the project or submit one. You can also fix an issue. Let us know what you think, how you feel and <link http: typo3.org participate>participate to make TYPO3, Neos, Flow or typo3.org better.