[Typo3] XML Feeds

[Maciej Kompf]

bvten> Hi Maciej,

bvten> Can you elaborate on that? Where do you see these 12 layers? Sounds like
bvten> a nice case. Is your extension of interest to other TYPO3 users/developers?

let me count those TemplaVoila layers:

1. I divided the page into logical, independent objects like headers,
   menu items (yes, I build the menu each time from the scratch in
   templavoila), I keep them on separate page and mapping mechanism
   built into the tool takes them and puts their ids into templavoila
   xml page definitions

2. the articles are written directly to the database (tables pages and
   tt_content) and put into normal typo3 page structure

3. the customer prepared logical mapping diagrams between all the
   objects in simple, one text file
   
4. templavoila pages with instances of the articles are put together
   by mapping mechanism using the mapping file from layer 3. and each
   TemplaVoila page is being built each night from about 25-30 simple
   objects (from layer 1 and 2)

5. we may consider page template as another layer

6. html template done by the designer is again a logical layer

7. usual templavoila Data Structure is another typo3 gem that maps
   parts of html template to logical objects from layer 1.

8. cascade style sheets is a layer of communication between designer
   and programmer - remember to set naming standards at the beginning
   but what's important - thanks to templavoila we needen only one!
   html design from the designer  - it made him happy :)

9. logical db structure is only a technical layer, but we must
   consider this because we write directly to the db

10. file structure (images) uploaded is another thing

11. typo3 cache mechanism comes into way and you have know something about
    its behaviour

12. the page rendered in the browser is the last thing what the visitor
   is looking at


I am not sure that this is the best way of building websites, but:

- it is for sure the most complicated way :) (if there is something
you can divide in more layers, let me know - I will consider it)
- there is no layer I could leave out without loosing some important
functionality
- the majority of the code was written during one night, that I will
never forget. At 3 AM I was lost between 3 layers and started getting
very, very strange results - if the coding session would last for
days, not hours, very hard to find bugs could be left out.
- and last, but not least: it works :)


I will say it again: when I work with Kasper's ideas, my mind wants to
explode. He is genius!



Unfortunately my extension is coded in Borland Delphi, I do not see
any perspectives to move it to PHP, but I offer my help to anyone
that would like to do such a port.

-- 
Best regards,

Maciej Kompf

metavector
independent typo3 & iScala consultant



bvten> Maciej Kompf wrote:
>> Hello Eric,
>> 
>>   We are doing XML to typo3 on everyday basis for 2 years already for
>>   a local newspaper in Poland (www.glos.com). The problem is that
>>   we had to write our own tool which takes xml and writes it into
>>   internal typo3 tables. It sounds complicated, but it's not so
>>   difficult. It depends on how much control of typo3 you want
>>   to give to the outside world. Our last version of the tool
>>   works well with TemplaVoila, we did it in january and will never
>>   forget this challenge. My hats go down to Kasper! TemplaVoila is
>>   very clever, multi-level thing - I counted about 12 layers between
>>   raw data and rendered page in browser, and all layers play their
>>   role well.



bvten> gRTz

bvten> ben