TYPO3 Mentorship Program: Sessions Compiled
Here is a recap of what I learnt during the mentorship program...
Table of contents
Introduction
The TYPO3 Mentorship Program was a really interesting and insightful experience. Divided into sessions led by a mentor. I got a really good introduction to the CMS and an inside look at what makes TYPO3 tick.
Below is a brief summary of each of the sessions I had with my mentor Tomas Norre and links to the full articles
01 - Hello TYPO
The first session was a 'getting to know' session - of TYPO3 and of Tomas.
A lot of it consisted of a walkthrough of the TYPO3 backend, where to get information and how to install TYPO3.
02 - Editing Content
In the second session, we looked at the one of the reasons TYPO3 exist - managing content. How TYPO3 structures and handles content as a CMS.
We went over the concept of pages in TYPO3 and how most content elements live one kind of page or another. This structure of having content in a content element and a content element in a page is what is referred to as structured content in TYPO3
03 - Typoscript
We then had a look at the configuration language of TYPO3 sites - Typoscript
This is used in two main ways:
- Templates: For the rendering of the frontend. You can have as many templates as you want, but they are all later merged into one main template.
- TSconfig: For settings in the backend.
Typoscript is how you make create and modify settings for how you want things to work on your TYPO3 site.
For all intents and purposes, there needs to be a revisit of this somewhere during the program.
04 - Contact Forms
We then looked at forms in TYPO3, what fun that was...
On any site you make, you are most likely going to be getting visitor information. Be it to sign up to use features or subscribe to a newsletter.
In any of these cases, this visitor info will be captured through forms. TYPO3 is no different.
The advantage of TYPO3 forms is that they come ready to work after minimal configuration. There are virtually no limits to the type of forms you can create in TYPO3.
05 - Extensions
This session focused on one of the strengths of TYPO3 - extensibility. How you can add to your TYPO3 installation and make it unique from anyone else's.
We looked at the TYPO3's extension library and how to install and configure extensions. To that effect, we installed the News extension on our site
06 - User Access
We then looked at user access and permissions...
User access being what you allow users to see - both frontend and backend users
User permissions being what those users are allowed to do.
To illustrate this, we created a user and user group that only had access to the News extension we added in the last session.
07 - Multilanguage Features
In this session we looked at the other strength of TYPO3 - it's multilingual capabilities.
We looked at how TYPO3 is able to cater to people all around the world, in part through the tireless efforts that have put their time into translating it.
There are two main places that you would employ TYPO3's multilanguage features:
- In the site content for the frontend
- In the backend for your various user groups.
The power of this becomes evident when combined with User Access. Where you can have different kinds of backend users working on the same site in the language they are most comfortable in.
08 - Site Package Customisation
What's the point of having a site if you can't customise it?
That is where the TYPO3 Site Package comes in. A site package is a container that holds the configuration settings for your TYPO3 site - it is a layer on top of your site's settings.
The site package allow you to overwrite existing existing parts of your site without breaking everything. Owing to the nature of the site package, even if something doesn't work as expected, the rest of the site will still work.
To that effect, we moved all the customisations we had done so far to a site package.
That is where the TYPO3 Site Package comes in. A site package is a container that holds the configuration settings for your TYPO3 site - it is a layer on top of your site's settings.
The site package allow you to overwrite existing existing parts of your site without breaking everything. Owing to the nature of the site package, even if something doesn't work as expected, the rest of the site will still work.
To that effect, we moved all the customisations we had done so far to a site package.
09 - Fluid Templating Engine
Afterwards, we looked at how TYPO3 employs DRY(Don't Repeat Yourself) to avoid repeating things and streamline the creation of TYPO3 sites.
TYPO3 uses a templating engine called Fluid. This helps in the layout and abstraction of things that lead to how your site will end up looking.
Using the Fluid Template Engine you also gain the ability to debug your site and make sure is working as intended.
Fluid Templates and the Site Package work hand in hand.
10 - Approaching Web Projects
After a break, we came back and talked about how TYPO3 manages its releases and keeps consistency in delivering on user needs.
Accomplishing this consists of TYPO3's:
- Release Cycles: All the work that goes into maintaining TYP03 versions ensuring that each user has a viable working version that is supported
- Support Stages: These are the various stages that a TYPO3 version will continue to get support. These stages are in important in giving users either time to upgrade to a newer version or to stick to the ont they are currently on.
We touched on some of the ways you keep track of what needs to be done and progress on these tasks.
Tomas then explained to me the difference between Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment not just in words, but by showing me how these processes work in the the TYPO3 crawler he helps manage.
11 - DevOps and Maintenance
Your TYPO3 installation doesn't magically continue working correctly all by itself. There are things you have to do to keep it running smoothly.
That is what we went over in this session:
- Checking of logs
- Handling of errors
- Scheduling of any recurring tasks
Tomas showed me where in the backend you do all of these tasks, how you schedule other tasks and reading of the logs.
12 - Evaluation & Summary
In the second to last session...
that makes no sense though, it's the first to last not second, so why do we say it is? English makes no sense. Anyway, I digress...
This session was a summary and evaluation of everything we did, as well as some questions Tomas had for me...
13 - Interview Your Mentor
To close it all off I got to ask Tomas questions I had not related to TYPO3.
You can check out his answers here
Conclusion
There is another call I am going to have with Daniel to talk about what I can do next.
I am also checking out NITSAN tech. Sanjay Chauhan mentioned to me that they have launched TYPO3 Headless, which I am curious how they accomplished that.
Thank you for reading, let's connect!
Thank you for visiting this little corner of mine. Let's connect on Twitter, Polywork and LinkedIn