TYPO3 4.0 Beta 1

 

TYPO3 4.0 marks the fourth major release of TYPO3. It enhances and extends functionality and usability for TYPO3 users and developers. This beta release will allow us to spot bugs in the initial stages, and fix them before they have a chance to proliferate.

TYPO3's fast innovation development rate is driven by the 19 core developers and 20000 member community, who provide product direction, core development, testing, translation, and extension development.

As a TYPO3 community member, we look to you for insights about the functionality and the direction that TYPO3 should follow to meet your needs. The TYPO3 core developers invite you to experience and test the new features and report any bugs that you might find, so that the 4.0 release can not only be the best release of TYPO3 in terms of features, but also in quality, stability, and security.

 

Moving Forward: New Package Concept - Drop All Global Extensions

Unlike past releases, TYPO3 4.0 will include only one source package, one site package, and one package containing both the source and site packages:

• typo3_src: CVS core - no global extensions
• dummy: A skeleton archive containing all local directories (fileadmin, typo3conf, typo3temp, uploads)
• typo3_src+dummy: A compilation of the typo3_src and the dummy archives, which is ready for use on sites with only one TYPO3 instance

All archives will be published as tar.gz and zip files, with the only difference being the zip archives will still contain duplicate directories instead of symbolic links (for use with Windows and FTP sites).

As an additional change, TYPO3 4.0 will not ship with any global extensions! The developers decided to empty the typo3/ext/ location for personal use to the server administrators. This could be especially useful for installations that share one source (just make sure you check for required database changes - hint: superadmin.php!).

Because of the removed global extensions, your site could break with lots of errors because TYPO3 tries to access selected extensions which are however not present anymore.

A solution for this is underway. However for beta1, users will need to adjust localconf.php => $TYPO3_CONF_VARS['EXT']['extList'] manually.

 

Project Overview

TYPO3 4.0 was attended by a lot of projects. You can view the whole list of projects at the TYPO3 Association website: association.typo3.org/index.php

Below is a status overview of those features that are now ready for testing. Although they might not be 100% free of bugs, the developers want to invite you to look at the new features and especially test the steps listed below:

 

PHP4+PHP5 Compatible

Project is finished; nothing to test.

 

TemplaVoila 1.0

It has been decided that TemplaVoila will not be published as a System Extension; therefore it will not ship with the Beta package. However, you can download the current release here:

robertlemke.de/en/resources/extensions/templavoila/resources.html

Todo:

• Solve additional bugs from which are reported from now on
• Integration of integrity check / reference handling for safe and easy element deletion
• Until 4.0 final: Possibly add additional features if time allows, but nothing promised
• Documentation: In January if time / money allows

Test:

• Many bugs have been fixed (see Changelog) - are they really gone?
• Multilanguage features should now work fine
• Clipboard integration is new - any problems?
• Sorting field is now handled - do older extensions (like Directmail, etc.) now work flawlessly?
• Does workspaces integration work fine?

 

Workflow

Project is making good progress, but not yet ready for testing.

 

Versioning / Workspaces

Todo:

• See "TODO.txt" in typo3_src, section "Versioning/Workspaces". Not all items are planned for implemention with 4.0!
• Fix bugs that have/will be reported

Test:

• Workflows in daily usage => is it stable and is there anything that requires a more detailed explanation?

Have a look at this document to find out more about it: 130.228.0.33/t3dl/src/workspaces_beta_release.pdf

 

Digital Asset Management 1.0

It has been decided that DAM will not be published as a System Extension; therefore it will not be shipped with the Beta package.

A development snapshot of the upcoming version 1.0 of the DAM system is available at typo3lab.colorcube.de/dam.html. Please have a look at this page for changes and news. This snapshot is not for production use, and might have bugs or may not even work as expected.

Todo:

• A few smaller functions missing in the file module
• Integrated category management (remove Categories module)
• Language support (underway)
• Clipboard functions
• Context menus

Test:

• Daily usage => is it stable and is there anything that requires a more detailed explanation?

 

Extension Manager for TER 2.0

Making good progress, but not yet ready for use. A beta release is planned for mid January.

 

TER 2.0

The final TER2 testing server will not be ready until the beta release of the Extension Manager.

 

New Default RTE

The extension "rtehtmlarea" is finally available as a system extension. Please test it and give feedback in the mailing list "typo3-project-rte".

 

Improved Element Browser

This feature has been postponed due to missing resources.

 

DBAL 1.0

DBAL is now available as a system extension. Most of the work is finished, although it needs additional testing.

Test:

• Basic
• Enable DBAL and set the handler type to "native". Then just try to do everything you can in the BE and FE and see if it works.
• Advanced
• Configure it to use PostgreSQL, Oracle, ....proceed like above.
• Configure mapping of field/table names. Proceed like above. Mapping should be tried in "native" mode as well.

If something does not work, enable debugging in the DBAL configuration. This should produce a log that contains the error(s). Submit that to the bug tracker, tx_dbal; and attach as much debugging output as possible: PHP error log, database log, DBAL debugging output, a detailed description of the setup used and the action tried.

 

Indexed Search 3.0

Test:

• Please test that Indexed Search works as it should
• You might want to test the new "Indexing Configuration Records" for cron-job based editing, but it requires the extensions "crawler" and there is no documentation yet.

Todo:

• Documentation
• Additional small features (see TODO.txt inside sysext/indexed_search/doc/)

 

Data Integrity Check / Cleanup Functions

Test:

• The new "reference index" is in the beta. (Use "Tools > DBint" to build reference index). A long mail about it was posted on the dev-list mid-December. Please test the index by building it, using the site, changing content, and checking if index integrity is maintained. If not, please find the reason and report it.

Todo:

• Implement integrity check and clean-up tools. See "TODO.txt" in typo3_src-core, section "INTEGRITY / CLEAN_UP / REFERENCE TRACKING"

 

Accessiblity - changes to CSS styled content

The following features are implemented:

• accessible tables
• The update wizard for accessible_tables will be published in a final version of this extension - all data can be used in the updated css_styled_content
• The P-tag has been removed from table cells
• accessible menu/sitemap
• accessible mailform configuration

To take care of the changes which are not fully backwards-compatible, an update wizard for the install tool has been written. Directly after an update, the frontend output will still be the same, and if you plan to use the new features, the update wizard will guide you through the necessary steps.

In a new installation of TYPO3, the new rendering of CSS styled content is activated by default.

Todo:

• Integration of css_styled_imgtext into CSS styled content (underway). css_styled_imgtext is a CSS based implementation of the "Text with Image" and "Image" content types (from tt_content).

 

Zapped Gremlins

Exceeding expectations, the Gremlin Zapper Department was able to fix more than 40 Gremlins up to now (although 7 of them are currently under review).

See typo3.org/development/projects/zap-the-gremlins/ for more information.

 

Other Changes

• An important change was made in the class t3lib_parsehtml. It speeds up the page rendering by optimizing the parsing of a template structure. The change was widely tested but IF you notice any problems with changed website output, then it might be caused by this change. In this case, please add a notice to the bug 1685

 

Download

You will find the packages of TYPO3 4.0 beta1 on SourceForge.

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