Introduction Package

The Introduction Package is of great importance to TYPO3 and with the improvements in TYPO3 and changes in the internets around us an active maintenance policy is vital to bring newcomers and long-time users the latest and greatest of TYPO3 all served up in an easy installable package.

Currently there are 3 IP packages. One for 4.5 LTS, on for the current release (4.7) and we will start one for TYPO3 version 6.0 (Back To The Future). New features, improvements and additions will all be done the 6.0 version, while the other packages will be in maintenance mode.

New faces in the team are: Michael Cannon, Sven Reuter, Sven Wolfermann and Stefan Rotsch. Still on board are Peter Beernink, Oliver Hader, Jens Hofmann, Zach Davis and yours truly.

The team will have regular 1 hour bi-weekly meetings and will communicate through a new mailing list dedicated to the IP.

Some of the subjects discussed in the meeting are multi-language (for now we assigned French, German, Italian and Chinese in the team), replacing tt_news by extbased news and implementing a responsive frontend. Things on the todo discuss list are: externalising typoscript, using FLUIDTEMPLATE instead of automaketemplate, frontend editing (ALOHA?) and a preview workspace. Of course there is also a whole list of smaller issues and tasks to be dealt with.

The Introduction Package was initially built at the User eXperience Week 2009. The IP is very important for the adoption of TYPO3. It is easy to install and immediately shows features of TYPO3 and best typoscript practices. The team should ideally consist of a mix of developers, integrators and editors

The team is looking for new enthusiastic members willing to spend a few hours every month to keep the package up to date. Please send an email to ben.vantende@typo3.org if you want to participate.
Team tasks

1. clean-up forge issue tracker
2. brainstorming
3. refactoring of the install mechanism to be more flexible for other packages
4. tackle the multilangual thingy and define translation process
5. integrate state of the packages into continues integration (at least selenium test)

The Install Tool will feature another step where the Introduction Package can be activated. This will get rid of the dreaded "Template Not Found" error many first time users encounter. Patrick Broens has almost finished templating the Install Tool that will open up many new possibilities with the Install Tool. Furthermore the Introduction Package will feature best practices for using TypoScript and CSS. Although time is short we also aim at having a new Getting Started document. Many key documents like TSref and TSconfig are in the good care of the Documentation team now lead by Francois Suter.

We definitely need some manpower to finish the tasks that lay ahead of us. If you have any questions or want to offer your help please contact ben@typo3.org

With the Demo Package we introduce a site that can be installed using a fourth step in the formerly known as 1-2-3 installer. The Demo Package features best practices concerning amongst others CSS, Typoscript and naming conventions. The content of the site guides new users through TYPO3. The Demo Package will definitely bring more users TYPO3. Team 2 is dedicated in maintaining and innovating the Package.

Thanks everyone for a great eXperience at T3UXW09.