[TYPO3-templavoila] TemplaVoila future...

[Philipp Gampe]

Hi Tolleiv,

Tolleiv Nietsch wrote:

> I wrote a short overview why I think continuing TemplaVoila doesn't make
> sense anymore. You'll find the full article in my blog:
> http://blog.tolleiv.de/2013/06/templavoila-future/
> 
> Please use this thread if you'd like to comment on it.

Ok, here we go:


> Why TemplaVoila maintenance should continue:
> 
>* it made TYPO3 attractive for many less technical people (people who don’t 
even understand conditions or loops)

Especially with the specification in brackets, I do not think that those 
people should *create* websites. You would not let someone create a car if 
he does not know the basic laws of physics.
If you mean it in terms of the user interface, then please see below.

>* it contains and combines concepts (language, workspaces, content 
structuring) which aren’t represented anyhow in other solutions

That is not true. The default backend has a language and a workspace 
concept. If you have ideas to improve this, then please share some details.

IMHO both concepts should get some love, please talk with Felix about what 
has in mind for both.


There are various extensions that allow you to structure your content any 
way you like:

fedext extensions, dce, gridelements and a few more

As this is very important for modern "adaptive" layouts, there will always 
be people who try to implement solutions for this.

>* it is still used within the community and various indicators proof that 
it is still very popular
Which indicators? At least devs seem to ignore it??? Or what was your point?
If there are many users, then it should not be so hard to acquire 
contributors or sponsors, shouldn't it?


> Why TemplaVoila should not be maintained anymore:
> 
>* it is not supported by the active contributors at all

That is not true as you can see in the other posts. But active contributors 
to the core are no requirement for an extension to exists.

>* it is constantly under some kind of PR-attack from the other solutions 
(which is very demotivating)

It just shows that is was very popular once and every compares to it.
If others frequently write wrong claims, then just create an FAQ to answer 
to this.
TV has some hard problems that make it being hated by some devs.

>* it lacks a developer “community” or at least a team

Unless there is a company, extensions are always some kind of best effort of 
single persons.

>* it has a horribly outdated documentation which has to be overworked

You should have asked your users to update it.

>* code refactoring is not really possible, the code is horrible to maintain

...

>* it’s concepts can’t be ported anyhow to FLOW/extbase (extbase itself is 
broken when it comes to workspaces or languages – no way to port over 
alternative concepts for these)

http://forum.typo3.org/index.php/t/197058/
At least the easy mapping part can be added easily and will show up for both 
CMS and Neos rather shortly.

The data structure part is broken anyway and needs migration. Although I 
guess someone will come up with something similar for Neos.

The workspace concept is largely broken in CMS anyway. Same is true for the 
different kinds of translation concepts.
If extbase will ever support workspaces (at least read only), I do not know. 
But some people are working on it.
Same is true for l10n.

>* UI wise, Prototype and ExtJS have been used for it and need to be 
replaced with whatever the TYPO3 Core could offer

jQuery is announce since long. The ExtJS story is a sad one, but not your 
fault, neither the one of anybody else. It looked like a good solution at 
the time and turned out to be a nightmare.
We all have expected more from the ExtJS trip.

>* some of it’s concepts need to be reworked (language) to be much more 
useable

IMHO it would be better to put those efforts into the core.

>* the TYPO3 Core changes in a way that extension maintenance is no fun at 
all
Well, compared with our major competitors - Joomla, Drupal and wordpress - I 
think we did a good job here. The main problem are extensions that do not 
use the autoloader (which is there since 4.3).
I guess one would need a full workday to update it to current standards, but 
this should be solve-able with a code sprint.


It is of course sad that you want to discontinue to maintain that 
extensions, but priorities change.
Taken the various points into account, I think it is a good idea to remove 
the extension from TER and maintain it only inside a repository.

If someone want to take over, he can always push it back to the TER.

Cheers
-- 
Philipp Gampe – PGP-Key 0AD96065 – TYPO3 UG Bonn/Köln
Documentation – Active contributor TYPO3 CMS
TYPO3 .... inspiring people to share!