TYPO3 Core

I'll write here some of my toughts about this topic

I think that "multichannel" means that the CMS must be able to "tailor" its output, for example the
templates or even the content to different devices or scenarios

e.g. the screen of my computer is a "channel"; my smartphone is another "channel";
search engines are another "channel"; an RSS reader is another "channel"; even the printer is another "channel". (I think that NEOS has a similar concept called "dimensions")

TYPO3 is already able to "tailor" the output using the typoscript conditions
and today, with fluid and fluid_styled_content the possibilities have increased: it is possible to set a different TemplateRootPaths, etc using conditions.

But there are at least a couple of drawbacks
- there is not (as far as I know, correct me if I am wrong) a reliable way to detect mobile devices (WURFL extension has been abandoned as far as I can see)
- the conditions are not very easy to manage.

How about this idea (just a draft):
it could be nice to assign a whole typoscript template to a "channel"; I imagine something like this:

- introduce a new type of record, called "rendering device"
- the "default" rendering device is the "screen", that means "everything" if there are no one else (it is auto-created like the default file storage under fileadmin )
- the typoscript template must be associated to the rendering device
- of course you can add other rendering devices
- "rendering devices" can be determined in at least three ways:
1) querystring (e.g. adding "&print=1")
2) internal TYPO3 functions (add WURLF to TYPO3 core?)
3) custom php logic provided by a developer

Well, that sounds very interesting! OK, but HOW do we do that? Out of the box?

@ Riccardo: A working smartphone recognition is possible to implement: with an user function, a PHP class (i.e. http://mobiledetect.net) and a condition... But multi channel are not about only smartphones and tablets.

What's with Facebook & Co? There is an extrension like cc_facebook_publisher. But only for tt_news!

Carsten

If everyone agrees, I would change the tracker of this issue to "story" or "epic" because this topic is huge, and this issue could be the "container" of all related subtasks that will come in the future about this topic.

I would also suggest to open a discussion on Slack (I don't know if on a dedicated channel or on the cms channel)

Ext:context is compatible with version 7.x and 8.x now https://typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/contexts.

Could it be sufficient to consider this issue closed?