[TYPO3-dev] Fields in the TCA that does not exist in the DB

[Mads Brunn]

Franz Koch skrev:
> I think most of you will confirm, that these features are of general use 
> and that it therefor might be cool if they can be simply switched on or 
> off for any TYPO3 record - may it be a page, a news entry, a forums 
> post, a regular content or some custom extension nobody knows of.
> 
> In the regular way of TYPO3, you would have to alter the TCA of every 
> table you like to provide with the feature (like Mads is trying it) - 
> may it be categories, comments, ratings or whatever. It's not a bad 
> thing, but there might show up several 'sub-extensions' for numerous 
> extensions, enabling just one additional feature which is not that nice. 
> The second 'problem' is, how to disable one of these features for a 
> certain record? Those options then would have to be provided by the 
> extension itself, probably every author provides a different way to 
> control that and thus it will not be very nice in terms of usability.

Well, not from an administrators point of view. But the 
$TCA[tablename][ctrl][EXT][extkey] = blablabla - thing is actually 
documented in the Core API. But I get your point.

> So I was thinking of a new feature for TYPO3, providing a API and 
> management system for those extensions. With API I mean either something 
> like a special service those extensions can register in, or some special 
>    extension manager calls for registering the extension. Then TYPO3 
> knows about the extension and can provide some features, like:
> - showing a list of possible 'additional features' that can be enabled 
> for the current record
> - providing common configuration settings, like enabling, disabling and 
> alignment (insert before or after the record)
> - maybe by clicking on one of the 'special features' in the list, a 
> small configuration panel expands (f.e. flexform driven)
> 
> I could also think of a small BE module in which the features can be 
> enabled or disabled for selected db-tables. So it would be easy to 
> manage those features.

Although I like the thought of a table-configuration BE-module that 
extensions can hook into, I think what we need is a more flexible way of 
configuring an extension. Something that goes beyond the 
"ext_conf_template.txt"-way.

I've been thinking of an extra option, "Setup" in the selector-box on an 
extensions detail-view in the EM (next to "Information","Edit files", ect).

This option should work more or less like the UPDATE-option (See 
http://tinyurl.com/2dd5ks) and be triggered if e.g a class.ext_setup.php 
file present in the extension folder. This way the extension author 
could provide his own interface for setting up the extension that was 
not limited by the syntax of the "ext_conf_template.txt"-file.

I think it would be quite easy to implement this if we allowed sub-sub 
modules in the EM (as in the Web->Functions module).

Just my five cents

Best regards

Mads Brunn