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

[Daniel Smedegaard Buus]

Erik Svendsen wrote:

> 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

Hi Erik,

Just to let you know, I'm currently following your TYPO3 4.0 Norwegian
guide, and I like it a lot! The guides (all of them) seem to get better as
you've been around the system a bit. A lot of the "what the fudge do they
mean by XXX?" are gone ;)

Cheers,
Daniel