[TYPO3-dev] Once again - the future of TYPO3 templating/grid approaches

[Christoph Moeller]

[Excuse the URL styling, my user can't post links]

Dear TYPO3 enthusiasts,

as a followup to the (german) Facebook thread https : // www. facebook. com/mittwald/posts/650380621683779 I'd like to get some of your opinions concerning the current (and future) state of TYPO3 templating approaches.

At the moment, IMHO, there are too many options to implement templates and content elements in TYPO3. To name a few, let's start with an unfinished google doc (unfortunately partly german, as well) that we started some months ago in the Cologne user group TUGCGN: https :// docs.google. com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AohD__5Djk3PdERmNHFzR0lwdWhGajdDTTIyc0NDN1E&usp=drive_web#gid=0
Access is open to all. Feel free to modify or translate. As it is, the document shows like 12 or 13 different approaches.

Having built and maintained TYPO3 websites for over ten years now, we see a clear increase in complexity, risk and cost when it comes to choosing a templating and content element approach "for the next couple of years". 

TemplaVoila, as a very complex extension, has had its era - which is over now - and leaves many customers with a pile of problems. This, on top of the 6.2 upgrade chores, makes many of our (probably any agencies') customers think about the long-term cost implications of running TYPO3 for complex sites.

Of course, there's Fluid as a really cool templating engine (which our non-PHP-savvy frontend devs really love, btw). And there's Backend layouts in the core, which do work for most simple use cases - and hey, they're in the core, so no need to worry about upgrades, right?

There's Joey Hasenau's EXT:GridElements which does work very well in most cases for the more complex grid approaches for content elements, even with drag'n'drop mostly working.

And there's a ton of individually developed extensions aiming at changing the TYPO3 templating and content element creation game, e.g. the startnext project "TYPO3 Mask" (see above FB post), EXT:dce by Armin Vieweg, Claus Due's "Fluid Powered TYPO3"and many github repos carrying Twitter bootstrap or Zurb foundation setups including loads of TS to get started, etc. - and probably there are many, many more approaches that noone (except the agency that created them) is aware of.

All this is great, of course, and it's a good sign for the well-running eco-system around TYPO3. I do like that drive, please don't get me wrong.

But unfortunately, from time to time the maintainers of some essential extensions leave their projects for whatever reasons. Let's stick to the TV example, or take Dmitry's feelings towards RealURL. Whenever I asked my employees what they disliked most about TYPO3 during the last couple of months, the No.1 answer was "stability and compatibility issues with essential low-level extensions (RealURL, TV, GE, ...)". In other words, it takes a huge amount of time to dig through forge, web, github, whatever to find out how to get something essential up and running in a new project using the latest stable TYPO3 core. Before you ask, we're giving back most of the workarounds and patches to the authors of the respective extensions, of course, and things get better all the time. But choosing the right approach, in general, used to be much easier, and that's what I think needs to be thoroughly re-thought.

How shall the TYPO3 project as a whole cope with this? Should the TYPO3 association take influence and sponsor the development of _the_ templating feature-set to be included in future core versions? Should the existing extension authors be asked to cooperate, e.g. by sponsoring templating code sprints? Or should this be "ignored" as it is, and let the broad masses decide which approach "wins" in the long run (until it is abandoned, again)? 

I strongly feel that it might be a good thing if all authors of any of the many templating and grid extensions sat down together to exchange their ideas on the topic. And to pull in one direction, with the common goal to make things easier to understand for developers, customers and newbies. And to get some kind of a stable, common solution included in the core, maybe, one day? 

I know, the question how or if the TYPO3 Association should or should not influence technical directions of the TYPO3 core has been asked many times before. But don't some of you think that important aspects such as templating/content elements, ease of use, understandability, long-term stability and predictability should be taken care of in a more centralized way? 

I personally don't think any extension author should be offended by being invited to share her/his knowledge at an organized theme sprint, with the common goal to create something even better. Even, if the Assoc or the EAB or whoever with "knowledge and balls" proposes the requirements, upfront.

Looking forward to your opinions, folks. 
And please remember, no offense to the many cool approaches around. I'm just aiming at ending the IMO unbearable, kinda selfish fragmentation.

Thanks and my best wishes to all of you
Chris