[TYPO3-irre] FE rendering for IRRE

[JoH]

Hi Johnny,

> I have used IRRE on a few projects recently and watched your podcast
> on ICE when it hit the web.  I am very interested in the concept and
> this thread answered a few questions for me but I would like to take
> it further and ask you about your usage of ICE.
>
> Have you used ICE in a production environment?

No, since it's currently in the state of a proof of concept that has been 
presented at T3DD07.
Of course it's working but there are still a lot of missing features and 
bugs to fix.
The major problem is that it doesn't work with an unpatched version of 4.1.1 
as soon as you are using multiple elements with RTE.
Additionally the ICE flavors are still not completed, since the planned 
feature of assigning predefined CSS to elements and boxes is still missing.
Rounded corners and background colors are working though (just as in the 
fancy corners extension).
Another problem is, that copying an ICE box will copy all inline elements to 
the same page, which makes it impossible to use some kind of content 
repository.
Since one basic concept of ICE is a separation between a content repository 
and the boxes that can be placed by the layouters later on, i never used in 
in production environments yet.

> Would you recommend investing time into code diving your currently
> available work for immediate projects with short time constraints (2-3
> months) to an experienced developer?

Basically it should work if you
a) don't use multiple RTE elements and
b) don't need separation between content and boxes

> Do you have any funding for this project currently?

Not yet, it's just something I did in my spare time and my personal goal is 
to reach beta state for a presentation at T3CON07.
Of course we can talk about sponsoring if there are some feature requests 
that can't wait until end of september.

> Is any documentation available via SVN/CVS or other means regardless
> of state?

Currently there is only code, but if you run into problems feel free to 
contact me via PM.

> Are you working with the ECT in some manner regarding ICE and
> associated extensions?

Since there are no associated extensions except the ICE xxx extensions I 
didn't see a reason to do so.
ICE is using a feature that is already implemented in the core and the rest 
of the functions is for FE-rendering mainly based on TS and for creating the 
correct editing forms in the BE.
So there is not much to coordinate since it should run flawlessly with the 
major extensions and.
It should work even in TV but the idea was to create some kind of advanced 
FCE that can be used _outside_ of TV and should be easier to handle for the 
average editor.

> Very small list indeed but would be good information to have straight
> from the developer.  Thank you for your time and I am glad your
> working on this, via your podcast I am understanding it could make a
> very great impact.

Well, the podcast just showed a very small piece of ICE, namely the 
graphical header element with a flexform to setup the GIFBUILDER parts.
The really cool stuff you can do with ICE is about creating complex content 
elements based on very small chunks and render them using HTML templates or 
two other types of default rendering.
Additionally you can use the original content elements as well and combine 
them inside an ICE box with the smaller chunks and you can assign ICE 
flavors with rounded corners and individual CSS to each of them.
ICE boxes can be nested as well.
After creating those elements the editors can reuse them (by simple copy and 
paste) wherever they like, but since each field is an "exclude field" you 
can setup the whole process so that they can only change the content but not 
the layout and/or the style of the elements.

If you contact me via PM maybe we can connect via skype later on ...

Have a nice weekend

Joey