[TYPO3-templavoila] TemplaVoilà maintenance support

Wed Mar 18 06:20:44 CET 2015

Hi All interested in TemplaVoilaFramework working in TYPO3 6.2 LTS

Here is the link to the Framework for TemplaVoila

https://github.com/busynoggin/templavoila_framework/tree/develop

For TYPO3 6.2 you would need to use the development branch
How to use it is described very good here:

http://www.busynoggin.com/extensions/bn_templavoilaframework/

As in TYPO3 6.2. TYPE = HTML is no more existing you need to replace this
part simply in all existing framework templates with TYPE = TEXT

And if you or other people reading this thread are using TemplaVoila
Framework Version 1.* Skins (Like those published in TER) they need to add
one line to the top of their typoscript_constants file in the
TemplaVoilaFrameworkSkin folder.

typo3conf/ext/
...skin_nameOfSkin/typoscript/skin_constants.ts

plugin.tx_templavoilaframework.renderMode = 1

just insert that line at the top and make the changes described above in
skin_typoscript.ts and you can use all TemplaVoila Framework Skins Version
1 in TYPO3 6.2 with no further changes.

Important to know for people who want to keep TemplaVoila and the
TemplaVoila Framework also in TYPO3 6.2 + and later 7.0 is to know that you
need to be VERY structured and careful when converting a 4.5 or 4.7 site to
TYPO3 6.2. Think first and than convert - write down your plan.

Try to update all your extensions to the latest Version available in your
current Version you are running. If the Extension has even higher Versions
it is advised to deactivate that extension for the moment. i.e. Powermail
is one of those!

If you are running 4.5 LTS - 4.7 than try to use the smoothmigration
extension - http://typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/smoothmigration
The reference Index is write important - DON'T - ignore the yellow notes in
TYPO3 6.2. Install tool upgrade wizard. simply do it, even it might take
longer time or you need to use ssh!

We even deactivated TemplaVoila and the TemplaVoilaFramework itself while
converting to TYPO3 6.2. and installed than the newest Versions from git
(Framework For TemplaVoila) and from TER (templavoila) and than ran over
the upgrade wizard again. and done the reference new again.

With absolutely NO PROBLEMS All elements have than be referenced to the
exact same position where they were before in TYPO3 4.5 or 4.7 and only one
additional step had to be done after converting all our
TemplaVoilaFramework Skins to be able to be used in TVfW Version 2 (like
described above)
It is a search and replace task best done in an editor i.e. CODA - and you
are done. The same with inserting the new topline in constants.

After we did the complete conversion of the TemplaVoila Framework Site to
TYPO3 6.2 we had to insert all skins again with

WEB - Template - choose the root page of the site - Info/Modify - *Edit the
whole template record*
<http://lgv.thaipo3.com/typo3/mod.php?M=web_ts&moduleToken=1825d0d2556028da796dcd10f72d5763100b6420&id=27557#>
- Skin Selector - and choose the skin which has been active in the old site

That is all what actually needs to be done.

This conversion is much much faster than any conversion to any other newer
templating methode or framework - i.e. flux, moox, gridelements based stuff
like t3sbootstrap or themes. and it is working more or less instantly with
all the comfort you had before in your templaVoila Framework site.

Translations are where they should be and you don't need to click multiple
times to get to the elements you want to translate
No content will be displaced i.e. even in the wrong order or in a mixed
order and you would need to readjust all elements manually - like not
seldom happening when converting a site to flux or t3sbootstrap.
If you are having problems with converting your templaVoila Framework site
to 6.2. get in touch with us and we are happy to help and see what the
problem is and how it can be solved.

@JOEY

"telling me to not feed the trolls" start thinking again who is trolling I
would say! Sorry.

a) TemplaVoila, a templating solution that helps integrators to connect
> existing HTML-Layouts with TYPO3 CMS via predefined XML structures for
> pages and custom content elements.
>

TemplaVoila is like FLUX using XML but with the benefits
- very easy to work with translate
- easy to move elements around with drag and drop
- easy to reference elements
- very easy to insert none referenced elements
- it can work with really huge sites with no problems
- huge in terms of pages or of multidomains or of translations

The reason why this is like it is right now, is probably the announcement
that TemplaVoila won't be maintained anymore in the past. Fortunately this
has been now proven totally wrong and IMHO TemplaVoila might be more alive
than ever if people would know that it will run even in TYPO3 7.0. People
liked TemplaVoila for its user friendliness, especially when used with the
Framework for TemplaVoila. The Webempowerd Church and poeple like Ron Hall
and Jeff Segars did a great job setting all of this together - and it is
alive! Companies could svae a lot of money if they simply would consider to
use TemplaVoila also in TYPO3 6.2. and TYPO3 7.0 and instead start
supporting those two people who made all of this possible!
Those who did not gave up on TemplaVoila!!!

b) Gridelements, a content structuring solution that helps TYPO3 users
> to group their content elements within different containers, that can be
> created the same way as the backend layouts of the core.
>

It is a nice thing which is actually NOT at all needed if you are using the
Framework for TemplaVoila or FLUX or MOOX etc. Yes JOEY it might have been
a great idea - like I thought - some years ago! By the way JOEY we have
used gridelements in some sites we have been setting up with t3sbootstrap.

c) THEMES, a set of extensions that provides the base to easily create
> or just use different standardized TYPO3 themes based on different
> templating and structuring solutions.
>

Before 2009 there were quite important people like Gideon So from Hongkong
who created very easy way to structure the elements in the backend using
TemplaVoila, Drag and Drop, Tabs, etc or also Micha Barthel with his great
"Distribution" t3s idea.

About at the same time I created a set of utilizing the YUI Framework for
TemplaVoila. Already here it was possible to exchange one template with
another without loosing the content. Already inserted content flipped after
a change to the right position. Still some sites are running with it! :-)

In July 2009 Ron Hall released the Framework for TemplaVoila
- this made setting up templaVoila sites very very simple and even better
the first time ever it was possible to exchange template skins which were
actually much more than only skins already at that time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNvdpJQjb9g

This was teh point where I dropped the support of the yui idea and instead
started supporting Ron's idea and Framework For TemplaVoila. We helped a
lot of people to setup their sites, modified templates etc.

In 2011 I was in need of a way to manage many domains and users for each
domain in TYPO3 and this is why I came in contact with Kay Strohbach. He
had developed the sitemanager. We both loved TemplaVoila and the way the
Framework for TemplaVoila was working. Unfortunately since 4.5 it was no
more great fun - like it is now again since 6.2. - to work with TemplaVoila
as always and always again things stopped working or causing problems.

In 2012 mobile responsive design was getting more and more important and
Bjoern Hahnefeld started a very interesting Thread on the German
Mailinglist in June 29. - [TYPO3-german] TYPO3 + mobile Endgeräte

Here i.e. THEMES get mentioned:

Auch in Bezug auf Responsive designs kannst du dir sehr viel von Wordpress
> abschauen. Da gibt es unzaehlige Templates und sehr viele Frameworks die
> bereits fertige Wordpress templates bieten. Diese lassen sich oft einfach
> in ein TYPO3 Template umwandeln ;-)
>
> Auch bei Kay Strohbach - http://themes.kay
> -strobach.de/de/themedirectory/start/ - resize es einmal oder lass es auf
> deinem Mobile anzeigen :-)
>
> Dieses Template wurde mit fluid erstellt.
>
> Willst du ein Framework dass bereits HTML5 ready und auf TV basiert, so
> werfe einen Blick auf "March8" im TER.
>

At this time it was using TemplaVoila and fluidcontent based templates.
Also an importer for Framework for TemplaVoila Skins and one for WordPress
skins was available and made by Kay Strohbach. Until that point we had lots
of skype talks with lots of ideas and Kay understood it very good and
realized most of those ideas as it would have been the easiest job at all
to do. Great job! The idea behind the wordpress adapter was actually if
TYPO3 could easily utilize the huge repositories of existing wordpress
skins the discussion about non existing templates in TYPO3 would have an
end. Kay simply did it! :-)

At that time gridelements was already around but had problems with
translations and some other things so it was not at all in consideration in
using it.

On 13 June 2013 I posted on the English mailinglist:
THEMES - the tool for Designers, Template Builders and Content Creators
And of course when I post often the same people jump in immediately - funny
- @Joey - and at that time it was YOU!

"I think that many will agree that having packages and themes will help
> improving the user base of TYPO3 CMS. So I won't comment on that part.
>
> Nevertheless there is one thing I would like to avoid: Replacing one
> "golden hammer" with another. That said, I still highly appreciate what is
> going on with fluidcontent, themes and gridelements. But please don't make
> the same mistakes that have been done when TemplaVoila was introduced as
> "futuristic template building", since this will raise expectations that we
> might not be able to fulfill later on."
>

This is what you wrote - and you wrote much much more - people can read it
on the mailinglist archive.

We expect to release those theme packages until the end of 2013
>

This is also what was written there but until now there is not even one and
we have 2015.

Those two years lots of people have been waiting for Themes and again and
again we tried it but either a gridelements Version was not available or
some other things where causing problems already by the installation, so
customers did not like it! Even they saw the videos Kay had made with using
fluidcontent templates and liked it a lot.

Meanwhile I would say templavoila has risen from the dead and is even
running meanwhile in Version 7 while FLUX, THemes, MOOX, etc still are
facing their problems beside others.

Yes Alexander, not even I believed that this actually will ever happen that
TemplaVoila will be like it is right now - Very easy to use! - Especially
in comparison to all other templating frameworks right now.

In the same Thread later Xavier brought it to the point about TV (in a
response where Joey was promoting gridelements)

I really love TS but we all should agree that TV succeeded in removing
> this first barrier for newcomers as you don't have to learn "much" of TS
> (if at all) to start enjoying TYPO3. Of course, really quickly, you'll
> have to dig into it but not before having seen "wahoo, I can map my
> template or at least most part of it easily, TYPO3 rocks!".
>

TYPO3 is great and highly configurable but the challenge now (at last)
> to gather more users and spread the word is to remove most if not all
> entry barriers while keeping the flexibility we have for more powerful
> users. I love having systematically various way of being able to
> configure something or perform an action but other CMS have more success
> by simply having 1 single way of doing something, perhaps something
> worth thinking of
>

Kay summarized his Idea of THEMES!

Hi,
>
> as developer of themes, i need to say, that even themes can't do magic ;D
>
> But building websites is most times relying on similar elements.
>
> That's what themes tries to make easy and to solve the dayly tasks :D
> To achieve that we need a rock solid foundation of elements which can be
> easily reused and extended :D
>
> Regards
> Kay
>

and Joey again contered to promote Grid Packages! but those Grid Packages
arenot at all what was actually meant to be THEMES! I hope you agree Joey!
THEMES is much more!

And this is what we want to provide with Grid Packages.
> Actuallly we want to go even a step further and get rid of templates as
> well.
> ...
> Backed up with a crowd funded budget this should be doable until the end
> of the year.
>

and Jigal stepped in to summarize about the bashing of TV

---

So this is history but might help you to get the whole picture!

When the cook book came out people discussed that is only a collection of
(of course modified) solutions from threads of the mailinglists. Now it is
themes etc. well some people are good self marketers others are not - as
they probably complain to much - haha. But both have their right to exist!

---

The situation right now is that the initial idea of THEMES to get all
people together to concentrate on one single great method did simply not
work out. We failed! and this is sad as exactly to bring everyone together
would have prevented to loose people in the past and in the future.

We started using fluidcontent, fluidpages, flux, gridelements based stuff
like t3sbootstrap, we tried again and again themes but never used it in
production and right now we have even more solutions than before with
TemplaVoila / Automaker and standard Templating.

Now people can choose between:

MOOX - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dL-VImR2x8
a really cool FLUX way which is unfortunately NOT compatible with THEMES

T3BOOTSTRAPTV - http://t3bootstraptv.de/de/typo3-bootstrap/ - build by Sven
Wappler
a nice mobile responsive TEMPLAVOILA way based on Bootstrap 2
It is unfortunately NOT compatible with THEMES

T3BOOTSTRAP - a very very stable solution build by Sven Wappler -
http://t3bootstrap.de/de/typo3-bootstrap-template/ - using BOOTSTRAP 3
a very stable FLUX way which is unfortunately NOT compatible with THEMES

don't mix it up with the "s" version:

T3SBOOTSTRAP - it is using gridelements Version 3.x and has been build by
Helmut Hackbarth
http://t3sbootstrap.de/t3sbootstrap/
another cool GRIDELEMENTS way which is unfortunately NOT compatible with
THEMES

BOOTSTRAP-PACKAGE - one click install made by Benjamin Kott-
a distribution which is also NOT compatible with THEMES
http://www.herzogkienast.de/typo3-cms/artikel-und-berichte/bootstrap-package.html
she used gridelements before she writes!
It is unfortunately NOT compatible with THEMES

FLUX - https://fluidtypo3.org/ - which tries to bringthe comfort known from
TemplaVoila to TYPO3 using another methode but until now did not get there
where TemplaVoila already has been years ago!
It is unfortunately NOT compatible with THEMES

SPECIALITY DISTRIBUTION - created by Fabian Udriot
https://github.com/Ecodev/typo3-cms-speciality-distribution
Again it is unfortunately NOT compatible with THEMES

THEMES - http://www.typo3-themes.org/ - by Kay Strohbach and others
The plan is to release a theme distribution once TYPO3 6.2 is production
ready.

The great thing is that in THEMES Packages for any other Framework are
possible, so why not simply using and integrating the stuff based on
templavoila here ;-). It is already possible to use Framework Skins!

The architecture is extremly flexible and powerfull. We are also able to
> use themes originally designed for TV Framework.

...

and there might be many others

A conversion to those above stuff can be made easier by using sf_tv2fluidge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcSnlfB2ol4
https://gist.github.com/derhansen/0ba6442dde45e741d15c
http://typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/sf_tv2fluidge

OR have a look at Busy Noggins Framework For TemplaVoila Version 2
http://templavoila.busynoggin.com/
https://github.com/busynoggin/templavoila_framework/tree/develop

---

Summary:

THEMES could be great if ALL those mentioned people above would start
making their stuff running with THEMES so that THEMES could be interchanged
like in wordpress, or drupal or many other mature CMS.

Until than IMHO The Framework for TemplaVoila is still the most stable and
secure solution and it is based on TemplaVoila which is fortunately running
already in TYPO3 6.2 and TYPO3 7

Great Job and thanks to the 2 maintainers of TemplaVoila.

Crowdfunding is a nice tool as long as the time is not eating all the
butter from the bread already and leaves only the breadcrumb after the
funds have been reached. IMHO TYPO3 had been developed to one of the best
CMS because it did work until several years ago without delaying stuff like
crowdfunding campaigns but instead with motivating others to help promoting
things and inspiring to share, developments, extensions i.e. cooluri is a
great example where this happened! and now it is actually templaVoila were
it happened thanks to the two maintainers who did not gave up!

So if you don't want to kill templaVoila don't start crowdfunding (and wait
until the funds are available) but instead look for other solutions how to
get fundings. Companies will save a lot of money when they would continue
using TemplaVoila and if they could contribute parts of those savings it
might help.

"And as long as the core does not provide the one and only solution for
> proper templating I am pretty sure this small war will continue."
>

Alexander that's it - exactly - it is sad and this was it also in the past
and one main reason why people moved elsewhere.

Thanks for all your work Alexander (and Team), Ron and Jeff and Kay (and
Team)!

On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 7:50 AM, Jo Hasenau <info at cybercraft.de> wrote:

> Dear Andreas.
>
> Someone pointed me to this thread, since you are (again) spreading a lot
> of FUD recently. So I would like to clarify some things once and for all,
> even
> though people keep telling me to not feed the trolls.
>
> I'm not going to discuss that any further, but just give some first hand
> information, so people will know what is actually going on.
>
>  As announced by Joey Themes will be probably quite costy in future
>> so that former TV customers actually do not intend to switch to
>> gridelements but rather stay with TV and than if this won't be
>> continued leave TYPO3 at all.
>>
>
> As usual you are mixing up 3 different things here, which are
>
> a) TemplaVoila, a templating solution that helps integrators to connect
> existing HTML-Layouts with TYPO3 CMS via predefined XML structures for
> pages and custom content elements.
>
> b) Gridelements, a content structuring solution that helps TYPO3 users
> to group their content elements within different containers, that can be
> created the same way as the backend layouts of the core.
>
> c) THEMES, a set of extensions that provides the base to easily create
> or just use different standardized TYPO3 themes based on different
> templating and structuring solutions.
>
> You can install Gridelements completely without THEMES, so the possible
> price for some of the upcoming themes does not matter at all for that
> decision.
>
> The first official THEMES base package has been made with Gridelements
> and Bootstrap, is available completely free in the TER and can be used
> to create as many Bootstrap theme packages as you like.
>
> We even used the crowdfunding income to buy some unlimited design
> licenses to be able to provide some nice looking themes for the TYPO3
> community in the TER. Even though the original design was a commercial
> one, the unlimited license gives us the option to relicense it and
> create a new product, which again will be available for free.
>
> Of course there will be other themes, that might use another licensing
> concept, but they will have the usual prices as you might know them from
> template monster, wrapbootstrap or other shops. So claiming that themes
> will be "quite costly" is just plain wrong and misleading.
>
> But of course you can create similar base packages with TemplaVoila,
> Flux or whatever you prefer, since THEMES is just the umbrella
> extension, providing the selector, the configurator and other useful stuff.
>
>  With gridelements it is similar as the benefits are actually not
>> those they proclaimed and again it needs a lot of custom work to
>> adjust and keep up with their development and what most don't like is
>> the fact that newest versions are often needed ie by themes but not
>> available due to that crowdfunding stuff.
>>
>
> Actually you don't need any custom work to keep up with Gridelements
> development, since the TSconfig and TypoScript setups still work the
> same way as they did years ago. We just provided new features and fixed
> problems with workspaces and the like, but the code is as backwards
> compatible as possible.
>
> There was just one breaking change between 4.5 and 6.0, but this was due
> to the fact that we had to keep pace with the core development, which is
> the reason why we are still providing 2 different versions for 4.5.x and
> 6.x.x
>
> Latest versions have always been available in the official GIT
> repository, so people have always been able to get what is necessary
> i.e. for the THEMES Bootstrap base package. And something you might not
> be aware of: Gridelements itself is NOT necessary at all to work with
> THEMES, you just have to make sure to create your own themes then and
> have them based on another solution for containers and grouping
> elements. The introduction package for example is fully compatible to
> THEMES (and can already be selected as a theme) and it uses zero
> Gridelements, but a huge number of Backend Layouts for pages instead.
>
> We used the crowdfunding campaign as a kind of voting, which is why we
> waited for the end of the campaign before we started to develop the base
> package that the majority of people had voted for.
>
> But the crowdfunding never prevented Gridelements or THEMES being publicly
> available. Actually it did just the contrary, since together with the
> T3A budget and additional private sponsoring we had for Gridelements it
> enabled Kay, Thomas and myself to invest more time into development and
> writing documentation and it paid some license fees for nice looking
> designs we are currently working on.
>
> So again this is just plain wrong and misleading.
>
> Therefor I kindly ask you to stop spreading completely wrong statements
> about the development, the financing, the dependencies or the future
> plans of Gridelements and THEMES, since you are not involved in any of
> these actions at all, so most of your statements are totally unfounded.
>
> For people who might read this, it is highly recommended to follow the
> issue trackers, news tickers and twitter timelines to get information
> about what is really happening.
>
> Have a good night.
>
> Joey
>
> --
> Diversity:
> Die Kunst zusammen unabhängig zu denken
> The art of thinking independently together.
> --
> Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johasenau
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/bunnyfield
> Xing: http://contact.cybercraft.de
> TYPO3 cookbook (2nd edition): http://www.typo3experts.com
>
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