[Typo3-dev] I don't want to fork!

[David Bruehlmeier]

Hi,

> You don't have to pay the price if you insert one field tt_adress.
> fe_users will get a TCA based checkbox modifying the TCEform:
> Use adress data from tt_adress? [ ]
> Maybe a wizard would be good here, to create the related adress directly
> while editing the fe_user account.
> tt_adress will get a checkbox:
> Is main adress of the owner? [ ]

interesting discussion and very similar to thoughts I've had for some 
time. I think a good solution might be to have a central table for all 
(business-) partners, may it be real persons or organisations. This 
table holds all attributes like address, birthdate, contact-information, 
legal status, etc. Additionally, this table can hold references to other 
tables (like fe_users, be_users, more?). A sync mechanism makes sure 
that the redundant data (e.g. the e-mail address in fe_users) is kept 
consistent (for backwards compatibility).

If you agree this is a valuable solution, I'm very happy because it is 
exactly what my extension 'partner' offers 
(http://typo3.org/extensions/repository/search/partner/)! :-) The 
current version has the sync-mechanism to fe_users still built in, but 
I'm currently moving the sync-part into a new extension, because I want 
the extension to be modular. The new sync-extension also includes a 
mechanism to sync with tt_address.

<promotional>
On top of that, the extension can also handle relationships between 
partners, so you can for instance build families or groups (e.g. a club 
structure). Each partner can have an unlimited number of 
contact-information (such as e-mail addresses, phone numbers, etc.). And 
the data model is based on the xCIL/xCRL standards from OASIS so it 
should be fairly easy to exchange data with other partner-management tools.
</promotional>

I have recently been playing with the thought of trying to get a group 
of extension developers together who currently offer extensions with a 
similar focus with the goal of creating a future for tt_address. This 
new tt_address should IMO be based on the thoughts layed out above 
(central storage for common partner-attributes, syncing with dependant 
tables for backwards compatibility). It might be a nice project for 
TYPO3 5.0.

What to you think?
- Dave.