How You Can Help¶

Everyone can contribute to the TYPO3 documentation and contributions are very much appreciated.

Important

These are just examples to get you started. As a contributor, you are not restricted to this. If you can make useful improvements, do it! Some of the best contributions come from starting with something that bothers you the most.

Make Minor Changes¶

If you see a typo, a broken link, something is outdated or you can make improvements in any way, do not hesitate to click on "Edit on GitHub" and make the change yourself. See Workflow #1: "Edit on GitHub" for a walkthrough.

Fix Issues¶

See Find issues. As a new contributor, specifically look at issues with the label good first issue.

Review Pull Requests¶

-- new, added August 10, 2019

Find an open pull request and review it.

Some pull requests make changes in documentation describing an aspect of TYPO3 you may know well. Help in this area is very much appreciated!

Write New Content¶

-- new, added August 10, 2019

Write missing content.

Add Diagrams¶

updated December 18, 2021

Often things can be conveyed more easily if visual aids like diagrams are used in conjunction with text.

You can create UML diagrams such as class diagrams, sequence diagrams and cheat sheets.

Here are some examples:

Page in the documentation with a diagram¶

Get started with PlantUML diagrams

Create Cheat Sheets¶

-- new, added August 11, 2019

Look at the existing cheat sheets and check if they are up to date:

List of cheat sheets

You can create further cheat sheets and add them to this list.

Replace Outdated Images¶

Replace outdated images, for example in the TSconfig Reference reference.

Look at Images for information about how to embed images with reST.

Add YouTube Videos¶

Add some new YouTube videos from the TYPO3 YouTube channel.

See Embed YouTube videos for information on how to do this.

Review Manuals¶

-- new, added August 9, 2019

Pick a manual and start reviewing it. If you find something that needs fixing or something is missing, either fix it or write an issue for it, if you cannot make the changes yourself.

Tip

Usually, there is one branch for each major TYPO3 version in a manual. Please focus your efforts mostly on the latest main branch, to get that up to date and ready!

You can for example start with:

t3extbasebook:start : This currently needs some work in all branches. Check if the text is up to date and technically correct. Also, the text needs to be shortened in some parts and language improvements are necessary (grammar, style). For the main branch, you can check off this review list once you have started reviewing. This makes it easier for other reviewers to just skip the parts that are already ok.
TYPO3 Explained: The same applies as for t3extbasebook:start except that "TYPO3 Explained" is generally in much better shape. Still, you can help by reviewing and checking off this review list

Tip

If you don't have write access to a GitHub repository (which is usually the case if you just started), you cannot check off the checkmarks in the review list. In that case, just leave a comment in the issue.

Once you start and are confident that you can make progress, you may want to talk about your intentions in the #typo3-documentation Slack channel (as this is a bigger change). You can also mention if you need help (because reviewing an entire manual can be quite too much to do for one person).

You can check here to see the current review status of each manual:

Review Status

Teach¶

If you are already familiar with the workflow, you can help others to get started. Whenever you are at a TYPO3 event (Sprint, Barcamp, etc.), on StackOverflow or in a Slack channel and someone finds something missing or a problem in the documentation, help them make the necessary changes themselves.

Motivate¶

Thank others for their contributions (for example on Slack, Twitter or personally).

Spread the Word¶

Tell others about things in the documentation, that are new, that you found interesting or that helped you in any way.

Remind people, that everyone can contribute!

Tweet (hashtag: #TYPO3). Additionally, you can use #T3Docs, #T3Contribute, and @T3DocTeam.

Review documentation¶

Pick a manual and start reviewing it.

If you find something that needs fixing or something is missing, either fix it or write an issue for it and add a warning.

More information: Guidelines for reviewing manuals

Blog About Your Contributions¶

Telling a real life story may help others to make the decision to contribute. It's your story, so you decide what's in it, but here are some ideas to get you started:

What gave you the motivation to contribute?
How did you benefit from contributing? For example, what did you learn?
What advice can you give others?

Make Suggestions for New Content¶

Sometimes you can directly add content in a manual or create an issue for it.

But, what if you are not sure, where the new content should go or if it should be created at all?

If this is the case, either:

Raise the question in the #typo3-documentation channel on Slack
Or, add a comment with your suggestion to this general issue: What content is missing in the documentation?

Add Information from the ChangeLog¶

Important

This is already being taken care of by the TYPO3 Core Team. For each release, the Changelogs are checked and official documentation is updated. This mostly concerns TYPO3 Explained and the references.

Regardless of this, if you find something missing, you can add it yourself. Or ask in Slack #typo3-documentation if you can help out.

Check Spelling¶

Check spelling for consistency. For example, compare spelling of title and headlines to The TYPO3 Writing Style Guide on typo3.org.

Is spelling of proper nouns correct?

See Spelling for more information, use the online tool https://capitalizemytitle.com/ to check title spelling.

More Ideas?¶

Do you have more ideas to add to this list? Either add them directly to this page using one of the two workflows or contact us and make your suggestions.