[TYPO3-dev] Replacing/exchanging a field if a specific extension is loaded

[Stefan Geith]

Hi Thasmo,

Thomas "Thasmo" Deinhamer schrieb:
> Imagine there's a TCA field 'author varchar(255)' where someone could 
> enter the author's name. But now if e.g. tt_address is installed, it 
> would be cooler to have a 'select' field to choose an address/contact from.
> 
> How could I solve this the best way?
> 
> The main concern I have, is about the SQL definition and the naming of 
> the field. Should I call the field 'author_name' if the extension is not 
> installed and call it 'author' if it IS installed?


1. I think you should always have the default-field 'author_name'
    and a field 'author' that can hold the reference to an address-field

2. In TCA.php you can check if address-extension is enabled
    an decide, whether field 'author_name' or field 'author'
    is included to the fieldlist of the types-Array.
    BUT: both fields must be defined in the columns-array
    of TCA.

3. In my extension, I use 'ext_conf_template.txt' to define the
    extensionname and the tablename for such references.
    Then I let the user decide to use 'tt_address' or 'sg_address'
    or his own address-extension or even none ...

    In TCA I do this by e.g.
    $confVars = unserialize($TYPO3_CONF_VARS['EXT']['extConf']['xyz']);
    ...
    'author' => Array (		
       ...
       'config' => Array (
          'type' => 'group',	
          'internal_type' => 'db',	
          'allowed' => $confVars['myAddressTable'],	

Hope this helps ...

/Stefan