TYPO3

CMS Report's Top 10 Content Management Stories of 2014

Welcome to the last article of 2014. This year, CMS Report published over 280 articles related to content management systems, content strategy, business strategy, and information technology. During this time we also declined about an equal amount of articles that weren't quite right for our readers. In each case, I'm grateful for the many authors that submitted their articles for review and publication. 

Introducing TYPO3 Neos 1.2

Somewhere along the way, I admittedly lost sight of TYPO3. It's not that I ever thought TYPO3 wasn't a good content management system but it never seemed like there was ever a lot of exciting things to write about TYPO3. When a CMS has a history that dates all the way back to the late 1990', well it's difficult to shake it off as as anything but a legacy application. So in my slumber I failed to notice that there was a new CMS on the radar, TYPO3 Neos.

CMS Expo: The Right CMS For Government

The use of content management systems in government is a personal and work interest of mine. There is actually a lot of diversity in what governments need their CMS to do and I'm curious to see how well the panel handles that diversity. Tony White, Ars Logica, is the moderator for this panel. 

Leaders from Featured CMSes will be on-hand during this panel discussion to participate in a live analysis of the CMSes, asking probing questions of each, to determine how their represented Content Management System (and supporting community and infrastructure) best meets the demands of today's governmental needs, whether at a municipal, state or federal level.

Represented on this panel are: Lee Middleton (SilverStripe), Shaun Walker (DotNetNuke), Brian Colhounyan (TERMINALFOUR), Benjamin Mack (TYPO3), Ken Wasetis (Plone), Jeff Kline (Accrisoft), and Casey Neehouse (Umbraco). The following questions were asked either by the moderator, Tony White, or audience members. The panels' answers to these questions are paraphrased.  

What features in your CMS make it a good choice for government?

  • Plone - Government is already actively using Plone. Plone can address complex and flexible workflow. Import/export capability for security purposes.
  • TYPO3 - Addresses accessibility (Section 508 in US government).
  • Umbraco - Lots of state agencies are switching to .Net CMS. Umbraco and Dotnetnuke are .Net CMS. Section 508 compliance. 
  • Accrisoft - Local government is the specific client for this company...delivering a turnkey solution.
  • TERMINALFOUR - The UN is a client. Multi-language is why the UN chose TERMINALFOUR for their CMS. 
  • SilverStripe - SilverStripe sees government as partners and have built a very robust product that can be used by government.
  • DotNetNuke - Microsoft has helped partner with DotNetNuke which has been a positive in introducing DNN and open source to all level of governments.

CMS Expo: TYPO3 Overview

I'm sitting here in the first session of CMS Expo. I've chosen the track that included the TYPO3 Overview session because TYPO3 is one of the few content management systems at the conference I know little about. Yes, I've heard the name TYPO3 but that is about the CMS. Benni Mack, Release Manager for TYPO3 version 4.4, is speaking. I don't know if you can consider this blogging "live" but I'll update the past as the session goes on.

TYPO3 is a mature, enterprise-level, open-source content management system that has been actively developed for ten years. There are currently over 500,000 installations of TYPO3 worldwide. TYPO3 has over 4000 freely available extensions, has been translated into over 30 languages, and is actively being developed in a community of over 100,000 users. The TYPO3 package has been downloaded more than 1.2 million times from Sourceforge and is used by enterprise-level organizations worldwide.

Benni Mack presenting TYPO3 at CMS Expo 2011

Notable remarks presented in this session:

  • TYPO3 is marketed as "THE enterprise CMS in Europe". Forty percent of municipalities in the Netherlands use TYPO3. This CMS is really big in Europe. I hope to ask why they are having a difficult time breaking into the United States market.
  • Element-based CMS that sits on PHP and runs on mySQL (and other databases).. Effective Image Manipulation, Flexible Content Elements (Drupal and other CMS users may know this as CCK).
  • TYPO3 is completely community driven with backing. TYPO3 released under GPLv2 in 2003 and TYPO3 Association in Switzerland in 2004.
  • TYPO3 has a core...with an extension system. Benni has a sign on his slide with "Warning: It's real open source". However, core is definately stable and most extensions work. Extensions can also be installed by one click from typoe3.org. Something we're finally seeing more and more in other open source CMS.
  • Media assets handled in some in core, but there is a host of extensions that can handle the variety of multimedia as well as manage it.
  • TYPO3 is good in "complicated setups" found in the enterprise. TYPO3 is good for long life cycles found in the enterprise. 

I asked the question on there thought about the limited size of the TYPO3 community here in the United States. Both speaker and an audience member says TYPO3 has started to really push their presence in the US in the past couple years. This CMS is just waiting for its moment to be seen as the platform choice for a larger Web site.

List of Fake Content Management Stories from April Fools Day 2011

For the blogger, the most difficult day of the year has to be April Fools' Day. This is the day where jokes are played and stories are made  up. Computer geeks and CMS junkies easily get into the spirit of this celebrated day by pulling all kinds of online pranks. One of my fondest April Fools memories is from 2007 when the official Japanese and Russian Drupal sites migrated for a day from the Drupal CMS over to Joomla!. Good times, good times. The folks over at ocProducts have gotten into the 2011 April Fools spirit by announcing ocPortal 7 with HTML6.

I need your help! Please help me keep track of all the CMS related April Fools' stories that you find online.  Please feel free to add to my list by of content management pranks via a comment below or through Twitter. If you prefer to tweet the story instead I suggest we start using the Twitter hashtag: #aprilfoolscms.

List of Fake Content Management Stories on April Fools Day 2011

  1. ocPortal - ocProducts announces ocPortal 7 with HTML6
  2. Drupal - Announcing CertifiedToSUCK.com
  3. TYPO3 - New paradigm for TYPO3 4.6 development
  4. Drupal - Announcing the Drupal Retail Store
  5. Joomla - Joomla Templates from YOOtheme
  6. Real Story Group  - No more content management
  7. Sharpened.net - The End of the Keyboard and Mouse
  8. IBM developerWorks - Scrum Alliance 2.0
  9. CMS Made Simple - Intuit Announces Acquisition of CMS Made Simple
  10. Enano - Enano merges with Joomla!
  11. EpiServer - EPiFAX 1.0 Released
  12. Plone - Plone Announces New Release Naming Scheme Effective April 1

TYPO3 goes for long term support with TYPO3 Version 4.5 LTS

I received an email from someone that wanted me to talk about TYPO3 Version 4.5 LTS. The suffix “LTS” stands for “Long Term Support”. For the first time a TYPO3 version will be maintained by the TYPO3 Core Team significantly longer than the usual release cycle would suggest. In 2010 TYPO3 has switched to a fixed 6-month release cycle which means up to now support for a version was only provided for 18 months (only three of the latest three versions actively maintained). The LTS versions will be supported for at least 3 years thus offering a good option for users that don’t need or don’t want to update every 6 months.

TYPO3 LogoTYPO3 is used for a great variety of websites ranging from the smallest private homepage up to large multi-server, multi-language enterprise portals. Upgrading for everyone is reported to be easy, since the development team focused on maximum backwards compatibility with older releases. This provides a very easy and stable migration path to TYPO3 Version 4.5 LTS.

Older features are still supported and the use of deprecated features can be easily tracked in a log file. If you're still stuck in the dark ages of the browser war, you'll also want to note that TYPO3 Version 4.5 LTS is the last release to support Internet Explorer 6 for the Backend.

New features and improvements found in TYPO3 Version 4.5 include:

  • A fast and flexible pagetree based on, configurable Backend layout and rearranged editing forms for pages and content elements.
  • The new LiveSearch box providing instant auto-completion. A similar technology empowers input fields to find connected records in a snap.
  • The whole Backend gets an optical facelift. Icons, colors and the general arrangement of elements were streamlined. Many details were fixed to provide a more consistent appearance and workflow.

Mastering TYPO3 TypoScript

Kshipra Singh from Packt Publishing sent me an e-mail the other day asking us to publish another one of their sample chapters here at CMS Report.   If you recall, we posted an article on one of the sample chapters from a book on Alfresco.  The book this time around is Mastering TypoScript: TYPO3 Website, Template, and Extension Development.  Long name for a title so why don't we dig a little deeper and find out what this book is really about.

TypoScript is a declarative programming language that offers developers, administrators, and designers full control over the configuration of TYPO3 and its template engine. Only with a good command of TypoScript can you leverage the powerful capabilities of the TYPO3 engine, to customize and control all aspects of your TYPO3 sites. If you're serious about TYPO3 as your content platform, you need to master TypoScript.

As before, I don't have the book in front of me and this should not be considered a review of the book.  Instead, I'm only allowing Packt Publishing through this post to give you a taste of what the book has to offer.  You need to decide for yourself if you want to buy the book.  The following is what the book intends for the reader to learn: