Creating a new Distribution

This chapter describes the main steps in creating a new distribution. It should not be considered as a full fledge tutorial.

Concept of Distributions

Distributions are full TYPO3 CMS websites ready to be unpacked. They provide an easy quick start for using TYPO3 CMS. The most well known distribution is "The official Introduction Package". Distributions can most easily be installed in the backend Extension Manager in "Get preconfigured distribution", it lists all available distributions for the given core version.

A distribution is just an extension enriched with some further data that is loaded or executed upon installing that extension. A distribution takes care of the following parts:

  • Deliver initial database data
  • Deliver fileadmin files
  • Deliver configuration for a package
  • Hook into the process after saving configuration to trigger actions dependent on configuration values
  • Deliver dependent extensions if needed (e.g., customized versions or extensions not available through TER)

Kickstarting the Distribution

A distribution is a special kind of extension. The first step is thus to create a new extension. Start by registering an extension key, which will be the unique identifier of your distribution.

Next create the Extension declaration file as usual, except for the "category" property which must be set to distribution.

Configuring the Distribution Display in the EM

You should provide two preview images for your distribution. Provide a small 220x150 pixels for the list in the Extension Manager as Resources/Public/Images/Distribution.png and a larger 300x400 pixels welcome image as Resources/Public/Images/DistributionWelcome.png. The welcome image is displayed in the distribution detail view inside the Extension Manager.

Fileadmin Files

Create the following folder structure inside your extension:

  • Initialisation
  • Initialisation/Files

All the files inside that second folder will be copied to fileadmin/<extkey> during installation, where "extkey" is the extension key of your distribution.

A good strategy on files (as followed by ext:introduction) is to construct the distribution in a way that it can be unloaded after initial import and removed from the file system.

To achieve that, when creating content for your distribution, all your content related files (assets) should be located within fileadmin/<extkey> in the first place, and content elements or other records should reference these files via FAL. A good export preset will then contain the content related assets within your dump.

If there are files not directly referenced in tables selected for export (for example ext:form .yml form configurations), you can locate them within fileadmin/<extkey>, too. Only those need to be copied to Initialization/Files - all other files referenced in database rows will be within your export dump.

Note you should not end up with having all your site configuration (TypoScript files, logos, css and so on) within fileadmin. This is considered bad practice. The main site setup should be an extension, keep in mind that fileadmin is for editors. In case of the introduction distribution, the main site setup (templates, content elements, ...) is included in the extension bootstrap_package, and ext:introduction has a dependency to this. This way, ext:introduction only provides the database dump and the asset files, while ext:bootstrap_package is the real site setup. This ends up with only content related stuff being located in fileadmin, delivered by ext:introduction.

Database Data

The database data is delivered as TYPO3 CMS export data.xml. Generate this file by exporting your whole installation from the tree root with the import/export module.

警告

Do NOT include backend users in the dump! If you do, you end up having your user on other systems who loaded your distribution. Give the export a special check in this area. Having your backend user in the dump is most likely a security vulnerability of your distribution if that distribution is uploaded to the public.

The file has to be named data.xml (or data.t3d, where the .t3d format is harder to maintain). The dump file must be located in the Initialisation folder.

It is also possible to have referenced files (images / media) in an own folder called Initialisation/data.xml.files/ - a good export preset should prepare that.

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Due to core bugs, importing extracted files from standalone file folder only works since core version 8.7.10 and 9.1.0. For older target core versions, files must not be extracted (tab Advanced options), but directly included in data.xml.

Another core issue prevents loading data.xml if it is bigger than 10MB. In this case the only option left is going with data.t3d

Exporting the correct data can be a bit tricky to get right. It is a good idea to create an "Export preset" within the Export module for that and deliver an sql dump of that preset within the distribution. The introduction distribution comes with a maintained sql dump that could be useful as kick start. Just load that row into table tx_impexp_presets and adapt to the needs of your distribution. The ext:introduction preset is configured as:

  • Export db data as data.xml
  • Export only referenced FAL file relations into data.xml.files directory, do not just export all files from fileadmin
  • Do not export be_users (!)
  • Do not export some other tables like sys_log and friends

Distribution Configuration

A distribution is technically handled as an extension. Therefore you can make use of all configuration options as needed.

After installing the extension, the signal hasInstalledExtensions is dispatched. You may use this to alter your website configuration (e.g. color scheme) on the fly.

Delivering Custom Dependencies

Normally extension dependencies are setup in the Extension declaration file.

However sometimes, extensions are not available in the TYPO3 Extension Repository (TER), or you need to deliver a modified version. Therefore, a distribution can act as its own extension repository. Add unpacked extensions to Initialisation/Extensions/ to provide dependencies. Your main extension has to be dependent on these extensions as normal dependencies in ext_emconf.php.

Extensions delivered inside an extension have the highest priority when extensions need to be fetched.

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This will not overwrite extensions already present in the system.

Test Your Distribution

To test your distribution, simply copy your extension to an empty TYPO3 CMS installation and try to install it from the Extension Manager.

To test a distribution locally without uploading to TER, just install a blank TYPO3 (last step in installer "Just get me to the Backend"), then go to Extension Manager, select "Get extensions" once to let the Extension Manager initialize the extension list (this is needed if your distribution has dependencies to other extensions, for instance ext:introduction depends on ext:bootstrap_package). Next, copy or move the distribution extension to typo3conf/ext, it will then show up in Extension Manager default tab "Installed Extensions".

Install the distribution extension from there. The Extension Manager will then resolve TER dependencies, loads the database dump and will handle the file operations. Under the hood, this does the same as later installing the distribution via "Get preconfigured distribution", when it has been uploaded or updated in TER, with the only difference that you can provide and test the distribution locally without uploading to TER first.

警告

It is not enough to clean all files and the page tree if you want to try again to install your distribution. Indeed, TYPO3 CMS remembers that it previously imported your distribution and will skip any known files and the database import. Make sure to clean the table "sys_registry" if you want to work around that, or, even better, install a new blank TYPO3 to test again. Tip: Optimize creating the empty TYPO3 instance with a script, you probably end up testing the import a couple of times until you are satisfied with the result.

More Information

The introduction extension is a good starting point to see how distributions are handled in practice. It also comes with an impexp preset to easily export database data with correct settings and dependencies.

Some additional backgrounds can be retrieved from the blueprint for this feature.