[TYPO3] Beginner extending cms/ext_tables.php ?

[Matthew Manderson]

Regards

Any advice on the right way to extend cms/ext_tables.php?

I need to increase the subtitle field size to more than the coded 256
characters.

'subtitle' => Array (
        'exclude' => 1,
        'label' => 'LLL:EXT:cms/locallang_tca.php:pages.subtitle',
        'config' => Array (
                'type' => 'input',
                'size' => '30',
                'max' => '256',
                'eval' => ''
        )
),

I created a kickstarter extension and then edited the files:

In my ext_tables.sql file:
#
# Alter table structure for table 'pages'
#
ALTER TABLE pages modify subtitle text NOT NULL

This sql does not run?

In my ext_tables.php file:

<?php
if (!defined ('TYPO3_MODE'))    die ('Access denied.');

// ****************************
// Extend 'pages'-table
// ****************************

if (TYPO3_MODE=='BE')   {
        // Setting ICON_TYPES (obsolete by the 
        // removal of the plugin_mgm extension)
        $ICON_TYPES = Array();
}

        // Overide columns:
        $TCA['pages']['columns'] = array_merge($TCA['pages']['columns'],Array(
                'subtitle' => Array (
                        'exclude' => 1,
                        'label' => 'LLL:EXT:cms/locallang_tca.php:pages.subtitle',
                        'config' => Array (
                                'type' => 'input',
                                'size' => '30',
                                'max' => '1000',
                                'eval' => ''
                        )
                ),
        ));

t3lib_div::loadTCA("pages");
t3lib_extMgm::addTCAcolumns("pages",$tempColumns,1);
t3lib_extMgm::addToAllTCAtypes("pages","subtitle;;;;1-1-1");
?>

This code does not overide the system default?

Any ideas?

Thanks
Matthew