This Month in TYPO3 - January 2019 - Issue #10

The new year started with exciting new projects like the TYPO3 book project and a couple of interesting blog posts.

Created by Peter Kraume

We’re very interested in your feedback on these posts. Please share your thoughts in the comment section at the bottom of this page, including if you like it, or if you have suggestions on how to improve the This Month in TYPO3 series to make it more useful for you.
Furthermore, we’d like to encourage you to blog about TYPO3, whether it is about your editor experience or discoveries as a TYPO3 developer. Each and every article is valuable for the TYPO3 community!

Table of Contents

  • TYPO3 Core
    • TYPO3 9.5.4 and 8.7.23 security releases published
    • TYPO3 8.7.24 released
  • TYPO3 Association and TYPO3 Company
    • Association Recap 2018
  • Upcoming Events in the Next Two Months
    • TYPO3.org Sprint, 10 February
    • T3BOARD19, 9 to 16 March 
    • TYPO3camp Venlo, 14 to 16 March
  • TYPO3 Ecosystem & Community
    • Developing the TYPO3 Website Builder ‘toujou’
    • Aimeos – Ultra-Fast E-Commerce for TYPO3
    • TYPO3 Book Project
    • WordPress Gutenberg vs. TYPO3 Content Elements
    • The Famous “Page is being generated” Message of TYPO3
    • Four Hidden Gems Every TYPO3 Editor Should Know
  • Development
    • A Modern Gallery with Mask
    • Embed Google Tag Manager by Extending TYPO3 Site Module
    • TYPO3 Content Caching
    • Use symfony/form Component in Extbase Controllers
  • Extensions
    • pxa_siteimprove 1.3.0
    • placeholder_images 1.0.0
    • cal 2.0.0
    • sessionplaner 1.0.1

TYPO3 Core

On January 22nd TYPO3 9.5.4 and 8.7.23 security releases were published. Some security fixes can be considered as breaking changes in order to apply strong security defaults. Please read the security bulletins carefully - manual adjustments concerning backward compatibility are described there as well. Read more

Unfortunately, a regression was introduced with the security releases which was fixed with TYPO3 8.7.24. For details about the release, please consult the release notes. Read more

TYPO3 Association and TYPO3 Company

The work the TYPO3 Association does goes on mostly in the background and is not as visible as development related tasks and milestones. But the Board and the Expert Advisory Board are proud to be able to reflect on a solid list of achievements for 2018. Over the course of last year, the Board had 21 regular board meetings and four Quarterly Summits. The last in-person meet was back in October in Berlin, Germany. Here is an insight into this meeting and the work in 2018. Read more

TYPO3 Ecosystem & Community

Developing a website builder that provides perfectly fine TYPO3 websites: Read about DFAU’s motivation to boost website quality. Serving companies. Kick-starting websites. Supporting the community. The mission is in its name. This is ‘toujou’. Read more

Aimeos is full-featured, scalable and ultra-fast e-commerce for TYPO3. What’s behind the project? Why is the framework so flexible and well-suited especially for complex online shop projects? Take a tour through the architecture of Aimeos. Read more

Elli Ludwigson of Open Strategy Partners (OSP) is working on an amazing new project to create a guide to TYPO3 CMS and the surrounding community. With the support of the TYPO3 Association, this project and resulting TYPO3 guidebook will support the expansion of TYPO3 usage globally and encourage users from all backgrounds to understand and explore the CMS and community. The outcome of the project will be a published, hardcopy book in the traditional sense, as well as individual chapters and a website. Read more

In a blog post, Luisa Sofie Faßbender from Marketing Factory highlights the pros and cons of WordPress Gutenberg and TYPO3 Content Elements. One of the main reasons why lots of people prefer WordPress over TYPO3 is the alleged simpler and more intuitive editing experience in the backend. Read more

Once in a while, every TYPO3 user stumbles over the message “Page is being generated” within their TYPO3 website and wonders if this message can be removed. In his blog post, Richard Haeser explains why you get this message and what you can do about it. Or why you shouldn't … Read more

Some of the greatest things about TYPO3 are unknown to many, but they can save you a lot of time. Among hundreds of features, the Pixelant staff has picked out four hidden gems they think every editor should know. Read more

Development

If you care about security, you should check the latest security advisories about TYPO3 core versions and extensions with security problems and some public service announcements, e.g. regarding username and email address enumeration. Read more

The most website galleries are not very complex. Mostly a list of thumbnails with a lightbox zoom and browse possibility is enough. In his blog post, Gernot Ploiner, creator of the Mask extensions, explains how this can easily be reached without a separate gallery-extension. Read more

In his blog post, Georg Ringer describes how the Sites module of TYPO3 9 can be extended and how the information can be extracted and used later on. Read more

TYPO3 provides a comprehensive caching implementation which is built into all parts of TYPO3. In his blog post, Daniel Siepmann explains how to configure TYPO3 to make content caching work without deactivating it. Read more

Alexander Schnitzer has published a proof of concept on how to integrate the symfony/form component in extbase controllers. He wants to raise a little awareness for how great it is to use composer to setup TYPO3. Read more

Extensions

With EXT:pxa_siteimprove the developers at Pixelant provide the official TYPO3 integration of the popular digital optimization intelligence platform Siteimprove which is now compatible with TYPO3 9. Read more

Christian Eßl recently published EXT:placeholder_images, an extension for easily generating placeholder images inside TYPO3, utilizing at a given moment either local image generation or images generated from placeholder.com's API. Read more

EXT:cal, which provides a huge variety of calendar functions to TYPO3, has been made compatible with TYPO3 8 LTS and 9 LTS by Jan Helke. Since this is a breaking release you should check the changelog for further information. Read more

If you’re organizing a TYPO3camp or a similar bar camp like event you should have a look at EXT:sessionplaner to ease the planning and display of sessions. Read more