[TYPO3] 5th column?

[Alex Heizer]

Hi Erik,


Erik Svendsen wrote:
> Hello Tapio,
>
> I have some comments!
>   
>
> I don't think many want to kill the classic page module, it has its uses 
> (and a lot of users/developers are used to it). But a lot of us are moving 
> away from the traditional table based column approach for websites, to a 
> tableless content area approach (I did it two years ago). And some of us 
> find TV as the best way to template this kind of approach. Also because you 
> can give the users/editors easy names for the area, like top content, left 
> box, middle content, right box, bottom content (who maybe tells more than 
> left, main, right etc). And you can nest elements.
>   
This brings up an issue that I face with TV, and even though it's a good 
addition to the methods people can use to create templates I'm not 
inclined to use it. For each site, you may have a number of editors who 
need to be taught to use the system. By customizing the area names and 
layouts, you will need to create new documentation for each site that is 
set up. Even if you standardize on a set of names for all of your 
customers, the layouts may change. If you standardize on a layout for 
all of your customers the names may change. If neither change, then a 
custom BE layout doesn't become a selling point for TV, but the fact 
that my names and layouts may be different than yours means I'll still 
need custom documentation for my customers.

And as far as tableless content areas, many people have been using the 
classic template building method for tableless designs for years, so 
whether to use TV in this case is just a personal preference.


> Maybe you feel that TV is buggy and a bad piece of extensions. But why is 
> it one of the most popular extensions in the TYPO3 world. Could it be that 
> a lot of people see something you don't. And this is maybe the reason why 
> a lot of people recommend it (including me).
>   
There are somewhere around 200k unique IPs that connect up to the TER, 
and TV has been downloaded around 59k times. This means if nobody has 
downloaded it more than once (like for upgrading to new versions) that 
less than a third of the sites have downloaded it. So not everyone is 
using it, but it does mean that people are trying it out. The template 
autoparser seems to be a more popular way for people to make templates, 
based on downloads, so maybe there is something there a lot of people 
see that both of us don't! ;)  ...also, the classic way doesn't have to 
be downloaded at all.
>
> I feel your use of word *hate those people*, telling loud that TV is "crap" 
> (even if some people who really know TYPO3 would say something else), and 
> always pushing tm_contenaccess as the solution for everything about usability 
> (which it isn't, it's only an intermesso until version 4.5/5) isn't doing 
> anything good, makes a lot of us annoyed and even stop reading your posts. 
> And thats a pity, because some of your ideas are good.
>   
Well, "hate" is a very strong negative word, and we should always be 
positive if we want to keep moving forward. TV isn't "crap", it's just 
not for everyone (it is even listed as "an alternative" in its 
description, and only adds a layer to the existing BE interface). The 
point is, it isn't for everyone, so it also gets tiresome to hear people 
talk about how it's *the* future of template building for TYPO3. I think 
until both sides stop using that kind of talk there will continue to be 
both sides. The biggest thing that I always come back to when making my 
choice is that I haven't found anything that I need TV for that I can't 
do the traditional way, but doing things the traditional way means I can 
send my clients a standard set of documentation, including any 
documentation or videos on the T3 website, and have them be able to 
learn how to edit in their site quickly.

Cheers,
Alex

>
>