TYPO3camp Berlin 2015 - we were there!

The TYPO3camp Berlin took place from June 19-21. As we supported the camp again this year as a premium sponsor, Wolfgang Wagner was there as a representative of jweiland.net.

Traditionally, the camp started on Friday evening with the warm-up party. This was an opportunity for all participants to get to know each other and get to know each other. Of course, old friends and acquaintances also met up again.

The official part began on Saturday morning. After a leisurely first (or second) breakfast, the session planning began.

Here are a few words about the sessions I was able to attend.

Extension Themes

Kerstin Finke showed how to create your own TYPO3 theme with the help of the extension <link typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/themes - external-link-new-window "Themes in TER">Themes. The concept of "themes" has been known for a while from other CMSs. With their help, the appearance of a TYPO3 website can be changed with just a few clicks, without the user necessarily having to have in-depth knowledge of TypoScript, HTML or CSS. Themes and the associated planned ecosystem are still at a relatively early stage of development. For example, a marketplace is planned where themes can be purchased free of charge or for a fee (premium themes). WordPress users will be familiar with this concept from platforms such as Themeforest.

Future of TYPO3 CMS

TYPO3 Product Owner Mathias Schreiber was also present at the camp, together with some of his core developer colleagues. In this session, he and Frank Nägler gave an outlook on the future of TYPO3. Some very interesting things are being planned here, e.g. for localization. The current concept of the default language is to be discarded in order to implement a much more flexible approach. This will allow not only localization but also internationalization. The backend will of course also be further optimized and improved. A new implementation of the page tree is also on the agenda, which should then also offer more convenience, especially with regard to multilingualism.

TYPO3 7 Backend

The session by Felix Kopp and Frank Nägler followed immediately afterwards. The two started with a look back at the history of backend development. The foundation stone for today's backend in TYPO3 7 was laid back in 2011/2012. At that time, standards for the design of backend modules, forms, etc. began to be developed. Based on these standards, it was then possible at some point to give the backend a general visual overhaul. The extension <link typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/styleguide - external-link-new-window "Styleguide im TER">Styleguide was also briefly presented, which can be a useful aid in the development of backend forms.

Localization (Internationalization)

Andrea Herzog-Kienast and Andreas Wolf spoke about the localization and internationalization of content. Andreas first showed the current status and also pointed out problems that can occur with certain requirements.

These problems are to be solved in future by a new concept that does away with a default language. Locales are to be supported so that language configurations such as de_DE, de_AT or fr_CH, de_CH, it_CH can also be implemented. The content can then be adapted much more easily to regional differences within a language or country.

Andrea also presented the extension <link typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/l10nmgr/ - external-link-new-window "l10nmgr im TER">Localization Manager. This allows pages or content to be easily exported/imported in a form that makes it much easier to work with external translators, for example. Translators no longer need access to the TYPO3 backend, but receive a file with the content to be translated.

Usergroups self-help group

As last year, the topic of user groups came up again this time. Göran Bodenschatz from the TYPO3 Usergroup Berlin and myself as representative of the TYPO3 Usergroup Bodensee invited to a discussion round. Topics included: how to start and organize a user group, how to make it known. How to find participants and encourage them to participate regularly and actively in the user group.

One result of the round was also to simplify contact between the user groups. In this way, an exchange of experiences can also take place. It was decided to open a joint Slack channel.

Contribution

In this session, Mathias Schreiber showed the various possibilities for participating in the development of TYPO3. Slack was presented as a current means of communication. Mathias and Frank Nägler showed some of the possibilities that Slack offers. They also talked about the bug tracker Forge and the tool Forger. All links can be found in the <link de.slideshare.net/NeoBlack/typo3-contribution-for-beginners - external-link-new-window "Slides on the topic of contribution">Slides

Custom elements

Custom content elements have long been a big topic in the TYPO3 world. Even though Templavoila, Gridelements, DCE (and many others) now offer various possibilities for this, Oliver Thiele showed a way to implement the whole thing almost exclusively with TypoScript. The basis for this is a small extension of his own, but without any dependencies on other extensions. An image slider from the Bootstrap framework was used as an example. The <link github.com/oliverthiele/ot_bootstrapslider - external-link-new-window "Custom Content Element">source code can be found on Github.

Caching

The last session by Nicole Cordes dealt with caching in TYPO3. Nicole explained, for example, which "Clear cache" button in the backend actually has what effect. She also presented the various caching mechanisms and how to use them effectively in your own extensions. Details can be found in the <link de.slideshare.net/cpsitgmbh/typo3-caching-cpsit - external-link-new-window "Caching in TYPO3">slides.

Conclusion

After that, the camp was almost over. The last sessions were followed by the farewell and the now traditional awarding of the <link www.typo3-wanderpokal.de - external-link-new-window "The Way of the Challenge Cup">TYPO3camp Challenge Cup. Mathias Schreiber successfully defended the title he won in Stuttgart and won again this time, albeit in absentia. Congratulations, Mattes!

So the TYPO3camp Berlin 2015 actually went by far too quickly again. It was a great and informative event that was also a lot of fun. Many thanks to the organizers, the helpers, sponsors and above all all the participants!