[TYPO3-english] [TYPO3-project-4-3] Announcing TYPO3 4.3.0alpha3

[Oliver Hader]

The TYPO3 Core Team is proud to announce the third alpha release of
TYPO3 version 4.3. Get a short overview of the most important changes.

So, what's new in this release?

*General*

Integration of Extbase and Fluid

Extbase and Fluid are backports from FLOW3 to bring MVC and a very
flexible templating engine to TYPO3 v4. Extbase can be used in TYPO3 4.3
for frontend extensions only, but it's planned to support backend
modules in TYPO3 4.4 as well. The techniques used by these two packages
are the same as in FLOW3/TYPO3 5.0. Thus, it's possible to develop
future-proof extensions now and easily migrate them to TYPO3 5.0 it is
released. Having Extbase and Fluid in TYPO3 v4 is an important milestone
in the transition to TYPO3 5.0. The extension blog_example [1] is
available as a demonstration of how Extbase and Fluid can be used.
Note: Since Extbase uses PHP Reflection, PHPdoc comments must be enabled
to ensure Extbase working properly. eAccelerator must be compiled with
"--with-eaccelerator-doc-comment-inclusion" for example. Otherwise
eAccelerator must be disabled in order to make Extbase work.

Integration of RSA authentication service

Using public-key cryptography allows sensitive data to be transfered
over a secure channel, even if the website does not support HTTPS. This
feature allows password data to be stored as a salted hash value. The
RSA authentication service can be used in the frontend and backend by
enabling the system extension rsaauth.
Note: The service requires either the openssl PHP extension or the
openssl binary.

Integration of autoloading for PHP classes

With this feature, only the files that are really needed for an
application are loaded into memory. This results in a dramatic
performance improvement. The PHP files are looked up using a registry
file that returns a simple array mapping PHP class names to the
corresponding file names. The file t3lib/core_autoload.php contains all
core related classes of t3lib and tslib. The file ext_autoload.php
provides similar data for individual extensions. The extension
"extdeveval" helps generate these autoload registry files automatically.

*Backend improvements*

Integration of a mass file uploader

Uploading files is now available with an optional Flash Uploader which
shows a nice widget with information on the upload progress. It makes it
possible to select multiple files at once. Enable the Flash Uploader by
checking the appropriate checkbox in the User Setup, reload the backend
and make sure that your browser has the latest version of Flash (Flash
v9+) installed.

*Frontend improvements*

Cleaning up CSS styled content

CSS styled content was split into separate files for each compatibility
versions of TYPO3 (3.8, 3.9, 4.2 and current). When including the static
template of css_styled_content, a specific version must be chosen.

Image rendering and GIFBUILDER improvements

The profile data of images is now cut off by default to reduce file
sizes. This behaviour can be modified or disabled in the install tool or
by setting the TypoScript property "stripProfile" on IMAGE objects.
GIFBUILDER now supports automatic line breaks by defining a maximum
width of the element to be rendered. The new TypoScript properties are
"breakWidth" and "breakSpace".

*Next steps to climb the TYPO3 4.3 hill*

Please test this alpha release as much as possible, especially the new
features from the first two alpha releases and those described above! If
you're using one of the new features in a project already and discover
bugs, please report them immediately to http://bugs.typo3.org/ [2]!

If you're upgrading from a previous TYPO3 version, please make sure to
execute the database analyzer and update wizard in the TYPO3 install tool.

During the next few weeks, we will release a beta version which defines
the "feature freeze" and locks down the development of new features. In
the beta phase we will continue with fixing bugs only before turning to
release candidates and the final version of TYPO3 4.3. This means that
you can expect the final version to be ready in July 2009.

For a detailed overview of the features planned for TYPO3 4.3 and their
progress, have a look at the TYPO3 v4 Development Page [3], the
bugtracker, and the ChangeLog. The list of pending documentation [4] in
the wiki describes the new properties and tells how they can be used.

You can download the packages at http://typo3.org/download/packages/ [5].

MD5 checksums:

ab3d8d6d4311b33ce1db0fe193273608  dummy-4.3.0alpha3.tar.gz
59deeda2d5285e1922d46691830a6821  dummy-4.3.0alpha3.zip
47124c54b8a34a4f00e390174780bc28  typo3_src-4.3.0alpha3.tar.gz
0c0bea78ac580564fb1904a227262ced  typo3_src-4.3.0alpha3.zip
8774acde8abe834023ecbb40b05fb391  typo3_src+dummy-4.3.0alpha3.zip


Rock on!
Olly


Links:
[1] http://typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/blog_example/current/
[2] http://bugs.typo3.org/
[3] http://forge.typo3.org/wiki/typo3v4-core
[4] http://wiki.typo3.org/Pending_Documentation
[5] http://typo3.org/download/packages/

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-- 
Oliver Hader
TYPO3 Release Manager 4.3