[Typo3] Helping new users - was [menu item image gets cut off or truncated]

[Alex Heizer]

Hi Vincent,

Vincent wrote:

> I finally found most of my answers to these questions.
>
>I have been watching discussions indicating that the typo3 community
>would like to see typo3 become better known and in more wide spread use.
>Especially in countries such as the US, which is where I am.
>
>Typo3 is a wonderful package and it deserves to be more wide spread.
>However, you people do not seem to be trying very hard to help new users
>come aboard.  Not one experienced person came forward to help with these
>questions.  It would have only taken a couple minutes to direct me to
>the "TypoScript By Example > Standard templates > static_template"
>section of the documentation.  That answered most of these questions.
>But it was days before I discovered it on my own after asking the
>questions on the mailing list.
>
>When it does not appear that the community is willing to spend 2 or
>3 minutes to save a newbie days, it makes one concerned that they are
>going to be ignored and completely on their own if they choose typo3 and
>have a show stopping problem that they cannot solve on their own.
>  
>
I agree. That's why I stopped asking questions on the mailing list about 
2 years ago...

>Another example of why new users are not as attracted to typo3 (speaking
>for myself initially).
>
>I look at at other cms sites and most of them have links to themes and
>templates to help new users get started more easily.  One of the cms
>packages I recently evaluated, Xaraya, is even having a theme
>competition to build up their collection of themes that they can offer
>their users.  Typo3, so far as I can tell, is the most powerful cms of
>all of them for creating themes, yet there are no links to any kind of
>a theme page with screen shots that I have found on the typo3 site.  I am
>surprised by this considering how much longer typo3 has been around.
>  
>
If you mean interface themes for the backend, there are a few cool 
skins, and there is a script that can convert a Linux/KDE icon set into 
a T3 theme. As for premade templates, that would definitely be cool. 
I've seen a few developers/designers mention this idea, but it may be a 
case of not enough hours in the day...

>Because of this, I almost did not give typo3 enough of a chance to know
>that it was so much more powerful and feature rich than the other cms
>packages I have found.  If I had not already spent substantual time on
>typo3, I would have likely chosen something like xaraya.
>
>So far, I have only found one site that offers typo3 templates with
>screen shots, and it is a church.  Hah!  go figure.
>
>http://webempoweredchurch.com/gettingstarted/templates/
>
>The official typo3 site really should have something like this.
>  
>
Definitely! It is in the plans for typo3.us to have a couple of premade 
sites with extensions installed that you can just drop right in.  The 
webempoweredchurch.com is a really cool T3 implementation, and a lot of 
work went into it.

We're glad you stuck with it, and took your time to offer your 
experience. There are definitely plenty of opportunities for any 
community to improve the way we help and support each other, and new 
opportunities present themselves as the community develops and grows. 
Having a good community is important, to help out new users and make 
sure that they get their site up and running quickly. Then, hopefully, 
the not-so-new-anymore users can remain a part of the community to help 
new newbies with their experiences. hint, hint... ;)

In any case, keep an eye on the changes that are happening, especially 
on the US T3 mailing list. A lot of the criticisms you bring up are 
being worked on by a great team of people.

Alex