[TYPO3] tt_news plugin template file is persistent... argh!

[Christopher Torgalson]

Hi,

On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 11:45 AM, Andrew Plank
<plankmeister_NO at spam_hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi tt_news experts!
>
> I have discovered an irritation with tt_news, though I think it must be
> something I'm doing, as I can't find other people commenting on the same
> issue...
>
> In my tt_news TS template constants, I have:
>
> plugin.tt_news.file.templateFile = fileadmin/[path to file]
>
> And in the setup I have:
>
> plugin.tt_news.templateFile = {$plugin.tt_news.file.templateFile}
>
> I've used the Object Browser and it's working. It even works in the
> front end! Looks very nice, if I do say so myself... Everything works
> *almost* perfectly....
>
> However, whenever I add a tt_news plugin, the template file on the
> "Teamplte" tab is *ALWAYS* the original in the plugin folder, and I have
> to go in and delete this reference so it's blank in order for the plugin
> to use my own template file. It's getting a little annoying to have to
> do this, when according to the documentation, this value should be
> getting pulled in from the constant I set up?
>
> Or am I missing something?


You're not missing anything; see
http://bugs.typo3.org/view.php?id=8230. This is the supposed 'fix' for
tt_news bug http://bugs.typo3.org/view.php?id=6119 where, for reasons
I cannot understand, the flexform has been given a DEFAULT value of
its own, thus overriding any TS default you might set. This is
contrary to how tt_news and other extensions using flexforms have
always behaved in the past, and is far worse than the problem it was
supposed to fix.

When I contacted Dmitry about it, he said

"…The value in flexform overrides value in TS. To use value from TS,
clear value in flexform.

I am not sure if blank value is better than default."

IMO, this is a severe bug since the result of changing the value of
plugin.tt_news.templateFile has always (since the very beginning) been
to change the default template used for rendering content elements,
and because flexforms are meant to be used to *override* the default
value in selected instances. This change in behaviour makes
experienced TYPO3 end-users very confused indeed, and there is NO
satisfactory explanation that it's possible to give them…


-- 
Christopher Torgalson
http://www.typo3apprentice.com/