[TYPO3-hci] One night with Typo3...

[Johannes Reichardt]

Hi there!

Fortunatly i am the laziest typoscript programmer you can imagine :) - 
but still got my way through the pitfalls most of the time. So here i 
want to share my "User expirience" i had last night - maybe to get some 
insights on how typo3 and typoscript "feels" if you don´t work everyday 
with it and dream about typoscript code already.

1. hour
I have quite a big project with self-made extensions i want to change 
from ground. Therefore i have to make a copy of my whole Typo3 site. 
First off i think "damn that takes hours" but then i realize i was 
wrong. Just a copy of the db and a copy of the typo3 folder along with 
the change with one line of code in the typo3conf (the db) - and i have 
an exact copy to work with. Great!

2. hour
i want to change my template. therefore i take the old one and get 
annoyed by all these strange configs that are not really template 
related to my opinion. but hey - i just copy everything and change the 
parts i understand. i want to change my site from a complex table-based 
bunch of html 4.0 transitional to a neat and well structured xhtml 1.0 
site. everything goes fine and is done quickly (just minutes) but then i 
get a problem: typo3 throws by default a html 4.0 transitional doctype. 
Once again i am annoyed that i cant change everything from top to end 
but have to go my way through "headers" and "doctypes" and certain 
"bodytags" - i would even prefer adding the "</body></html>" myself 
instead of having an overzealous CMS that does things for me i don´t 
want it to. I feel like "shut the fuck up and let me do what i want". At 
that point i find a typoscript snippet that says it configures Typo3 for 
xhtml 1.0: config.docType = xhtml_trans (or something like this) - i am 
happy to insert it but unfortunatly there is something wrong with it. IE 
doesn´t like the typo3-auto-made-doctype-declaration and cripples the 
layout.

3. hour
I found the typoscript snippet that allows me to change the doctype 
declaration freely. Now everythings works but it took me almost an hour 
to get around this very unexpected problem.. Now my new Template works 
99% - that was still quick and i am happy. I change some output from my 
extensions, i am able to remove many code in my php because xhtml doesnt 
demand many configuration if set up well. That part is a breeze and i 
love typo3 again.

4. hour
Based on my CSS happyness i try to configure htmlarea for it and quickly 
get annoyed again. It removes lots of my code, the documentation feels 
partly like a joke. i go like "what? i just wanted to add some styles 
and enter some text - wahahahah". I am completly overhelmed by the RTE 
configurations. My template grows bigger and bigger and i am not quite 
sure which configurations are necessary and which not. I feel like 
calling 0900 RTE-EXPERT but couldn´t even explain what goes wrong. Tons 
of configurations places from TS template, Constants, default TS in the 
extension and the extension php pop into my mind. All factors that are 
very time consuming. 2 hours later i give up for now - i was quite tired 
anyway. Also not sure about the differences of the rte versions. 
Diversity vs. simplicity - that seems to be the question ;)

6. hour.
go to bed. Happy.

Thats very typical working day for Typo3. Lots of strange default 
behaviours you have to configure, lots of very specific typoscript 
configurations instead of directly editing the whole thing like you 
would do without typoscript. If that would be removed and typo3 wouldnt 
add any "configuration overhead" and other cheeky things it could be 
soooo cool i can´t even think about it!

Another problem with typoscript is the fact that you really have to work 
with it a lot to get to do it right. But i simply don´t need it so i 
don´t work with it. Thats quite stupid for learning ;)

- Johannes