2020

Fluid start page

2020-03-12

A Fluid start page was created in "TYPO3 Explained". This reflects the importance of Fluid in TYPO3 and the multiple ways it is now used in TYPO3. A Introduction to Fluid subpage was added as well.

The Fluid page serves as an overview of various ways to use Fluid in TYPO3 as Fluid is now no longer used only in developing Extensions with Extbase & Fluid as was the case when it was initially introduced.

As next steps the documentation could be further restructured, moving for example general Fluid information that is not specific to Extbase / Fluid from the Developing TYPO3 Extensions with Extbase and Fluid to "TYPO3 Explained".

TypoScript Reference

2020-01-26

We made several changes to the TypoScript reference and documentation for the topic TypoScript in general.

Summary

  • Renamed to "TypoScript Templating Reference"
  • Menu was restructured
  • Consolidated older versions (finalized migration, ...)
  • Added introduction, links to other information and quick links to start page

In more detail:

../../../../_images/tsmenu-before.png
../../../../_images/tsmenu-new.png

Menu before and after restructuring

  1. It was pointed out that the "TypoScript Reference" menu was confusing in parts: some functions (such as calc and objectSplit) were found under "Objects and Properties", top-level objects were hidden in a rubric "setup" etc. This resulted in things not being found where they were expected. We managed to simplify the menu and sort the topics accordingly.
  2. The use of objects and object types was used inconsistently, some types were referred to as "objects" and vice versa. Especially, the term "cObject" was used inconsistently, sometimes to refer to the type, sometimes as synonym for "content objects". We corrected the use of these terms in some places and added a glossary.
  3. We renamed "TypoScript Reference" to "TypoScript Templating Reference" because the term TypoScript has 2 meanings and in this reference we mean TypoScript templating and not (primarily) TypoScript syntax (which is handled in TypoScript Syntax in "TYPO3 Explained". See decisions.typo3.org for discussion about this topic.
  4. The chapter "Introduction" contained no introduction into the topic - this is a common problem in the documentation: There is a chapter "Introduction" where you expect to find information about the topic or what the manual is about and often this only contains very little information about the manual, credits, how to give feedback etc. For this reason we renamed the current Introduction to "About this manual", moved it to the end of the menu and added a real Introduction.
  5. We linked to other manuals where topics are handled in depth (TypoScript in 45 minutes and "TypoScript syntax" in "TYPO3 Explained"), both on the start page and in the "Introduction"
  6. We added the chapter "Using and setting TypoScript" to the older versions <= 8.7. Previously it only existed for versions 9.5 and master (10). (This is due to the fact that the migration of some manuals - like "TypoScript Syntax and in depth study" was done for version 9.5 and had not been performed for previous versions. This is now being done, step by step.)
  7. We added "TypoScript Syntax" to older versions <= 8.7 in "TYPO3 Explained".
  8. Added quick links to start page

Further improvements:

  • The topic of using objects and objects types was addressed but could still be improved.
  • Additionally, a number of pages could be improved. For example, the page FLUIDTEMPLATE could use a better introduction.

If you would like to help with this, please look at the open issues.

Change in Intersphinx Linking

2020-01-03

When linking from one manual to another, we previously always linked to the latest (master) version of the manual. For example, if you were reading a section in "TYPO3 Explained" for TYPO3 version 8.7 and were referred to the "TCA Reference" by clicking a link, you would continue reading information for the latest TYPO3 version (currently, the not yet released as LTS version 10.2). Changes between TYPO3 versions are minimal most of the time, but significant in some cases (for example, see Changelog for 9.0).

This caused the following problems:

  • People who were aware of this but wanted to continue reading documentation for the same version had to click multiple times (to jump to the requested version) before continuing.
  • Often, readers were not aware of this and did not notice the change in version. They would then assume, the information was correct for the version they started reading in.

Reading documentation on docs.typo3.org should not require knowledge about such technical details. It should be possible to read and click, regardless of how the documentation is separated into repositories.

These problems were pointed out in the #typo3-documentation Slack channel, we created an issue and now changed the procedure, so that links across manuals link to the documentation for the same TYPO3 version.

../../../../_images/version-link.png

Link to "TCA Reference" from "TYPO3 Explained" version 8.7

参考