[TYPO3-doc] TYPO3 Book... Argh!

[Erik Svendsen]

Hello Daniel,

> The next chapters about admining and developing are excruciatingly
> difficult,
> out-of-context, page after page of typoscript references without
> meaning and
> referencing things that have not been introduced or do not exist.
> I'm now at the "Preparing the HTML template" part. I still lack
> directions
> on
> how and where to integrate the help files, supposing that's what I'm
> missing.
> I get directions such as "In the Templates/Main Templates system
> directory,
> create a new template record..." - but there's no "Templates/Main
> Templates"
> directory ANYWHERE, including the downloaded files from packtpub.
> I'm using the F word more and more, I feel like ripping this terrible
> book apart and smash things. Surely there must be somewhere to get
> some help? I tried writing packt with my question as they invite you
> to in the beginning of the book, but they obviously don't give a rat's
> behind, as they ignore me.
> 
> Please help me. What the sodding fudge am I supposed to do with the
> support files? I can feel my hair turning gray and my veins clodging
> up...
> 
> Thanks,
> Daniel

Your frustration is well known! And even I find the TYPO3 Book difficult 
to follow sometimes. And therefore I use it mostly as a reference, and not 
as a cookbook.

To look at the template problem, the example in the book primarly uses cascading 
templates and a kind of template repository. It makes the use of templates 
much more modular, but are also more difficult to understand when you start 
learning TYPO3 (my opinion). As you already may have understanded, there 
are different ways in how to make the connection between the html part and 
the site. Even if the logic behind the TypoScript are exaxtly the same.

My advice is as follow:
* Put away the book for some days.
* Look at Modern Template Building (look also at page 300 in the book) and 
Futuristic Template Building, and make a choice which approach you want to 
use. The Norwegian tutorial I linked to in another post is using Futuristic 
approach. I see both as good approaches, and the futuristic aren't necessarily 
better than the other. Use one of these approaches, and when implementing 
the TypoScript look at chapter 5.10 and 5.11 in the book. I also think that 
most of the stuff in chapter 5.5 you can forget. I don't use any of the static 
templates, instead I use CSS styled content (an extension).
* Don't botter with the use of cascading templates at this point. It will 
help you in the future, but for your first site it's okay with a root template. 


WBR,
Erik Svendsen
www.linnearad.no