[TYPO3-project-4-3] TYPO3 Distribution Concept for 4.3

[Benjamin Mack]

Hey all,


"After discussion with Jeff" (I always wanted to use this line too ;-)), 
we came up with a neat idea on how to finally get a new freesite package 
going, hopefully for 4.3. This can be used as a principal distribution 
concept to package your own TYPO3 flavor.

For a new freesite / starter package, it'd be great to do some basic 
tasks already taken care of. We thought of these steps that should be 
necessary:

  * Adding some additional files / DB data to the package
  * Having some optional latest extensions installed out-of-the-bx

These steps should be automated and be done right after the 
1-2-3-installer without any further notification, just as an addon to 
step 3. Through this "hook", companies and organizations can easily pack 
their own distribution as well.

Basically we imagine something like a distrib/ directory that contains
  * a distrib_install.php file and
  * a distrib_insall.sql file.

The installer then checks after step3 if the distrib/ directory exists. 
if so, the SQL file will be included and the PHP file will be executed.

Please note, we will *not* change the shipped typo3_src package itself, 
we're talking about the "freesite" package (or whatever you want to call 
it) that will be having this additional stuff, so people can get a site 
in TYPO3 up and running very quickly.

The simple freesite package would then consist of this:

  * The typo3_src package
  * TemplaVoila (yes, unless someone other than myself who does not like 
TV gets his butt up to actually code this idea before I do)
  * A t3d package, including a default pagetree, a templates folder with 
some TypoScript examples, a datastructure and a couple of template 
objects (maybe from Ron Halls TemplaVoila Framework), a nice default 
theme for the FE (something like the one in the wec_starter package).
  * The latter two being in the distrib/ directory, the 
distrib/distrib_install.php script would then install TemplaVoila and 
import the t3d package. (or maybe it could fetch the latest TV from TER, 
but it sounds more complicated ;-)).

The cool thing about this is that the distrib_install.php script allows 
a lot of flexibility as it's pure PHP (e.g. for companies and 
organizations to get out-of-the-box working solutions done) and does not 
require a lot of changes in the Core itself (that's why I'm still aiming 
for a 4.3 inclusion).

If no one comes up with a better idea and is willing to code this, I'll 
probably get my hands dirty to see what changes are needed for the Core. 
How the freesite package itself will look like then, what will be 
included and when it will be released, does not really matter for now. 
The most important thing for now is that the 1-2-3 installer will be 
ready for this.

However, once we have this package automatically created by a script, we 
can add it to our releases list next to the dummy and the typo3_src 
package again.

What do you think?

All the best,
Benni.