[TYPO3-core] RFC: removing symlinks

[René Fritz]

This is just for discussion.

For a long time the usage of symlinks was discussed and I think a version 
number 4.0 might be the right time to remove them. In fact they are not 
really needed.

I started removing t3lib symlink from the typo3/ folder.

in init.php I changed:

define('PATH_t3lib', PATH_typo3.'t3lib/');

to:

$temp_path_t3lib = @is_dir(PATH_site.'t3lib/') ? PATH_site.'t3lib/' : 
PATH_typo3.'t3lib/'; // if there's only a t3lib folder in typo3/ (backend 
only)
define('PATH_t3lib', $temp_path_t3lib);

The surprise, all seems to work well.

Of course the images in the backend disapper. Moving t3lib/gfx/ to typo3/gfx/ 
solve this problem. Images in gfx are BE icons anyway for 99%.

Searching in the sourcecode find 64 places where t3lib/gfx/ is used hardcoded. 
Most of them can be changed without problem to gfx/.

In TS gfx/flags/ and gfx/fileicons/ are used.
flags are in tslib/media/flags/ anyway. We could make a copy of the fileicons 
too.

the gfx/ol/ (plus/minus for pagetree) might be moved to t3lib because they are 
related to t3lib_treeview.

Downside:
I guess a few extensions will be broken, but only because they don't use 
PATH_t3lib or reference icons with t3lib.


I haven't tested yet FE editing and removing tslib symlink.

What do you think?

René


-- 
René Fritz
TYPO3 Association - Active Member
http://association.typo3.org/