TCA Definition

This chapter explains how to create a field that makes it possible to create relations to files.

TYPO3 provides a convenient API for this. Let's look at the TCA configuration the image field of the tt_content table for example (with some parts skipped).

'image' => [
    'label' => 'LLL:EXT:core/Resources/Private/Language/locallang_general.xlf:LGL.images',
    'config' => \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\ExtensionManagementUtility::getFileFieldTCAConfig('image', [
        'appearance' => [
            'createNewRelationLinkTitle' => 'LLL:EXT:frontend/Resources/Private/Language/locallang_ttc.xlf:images.addFileReference'
        ],
        // custom configuration for displaying fields in the overlay/reference table
        // to use the imageoverlayPalette instead of the basicoverlayPalette
        'foreign_types' => [
            // ...
        ]
    ], $GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['GFX']['imagefile_ext'])
],

The API call is \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\ExtensionManagementUtility::getFileFieldTCAConfig(). The first argument is the name of the current field, the second argument is an override configuration array, the third argument is the list of allowed file extensions and the fourth argument is the list of disallowed file extensions. All arguments but the first are optional.

A call to \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\ExtensionManagementUtility::getFileFieldTCAConfig() will generate a standard TCA configuration for an inline-type field, with relation to the sys_file table via the sys_file_reference table as "MM" table.

The override configuration array (the second argument) can be used to tweak this default TCA definition. Any valid property from the config section of inline-type fields can be used.

Additionally, there is an extra section for providing media sources, that come as three buttons per default.

Which ones should appear for the editor to use, can be configures using TCA appearance settings:

$GLOBALS['TCA']['pages']['columns']['media']['config']['appearance'] = [
   'fileUploadAllowed' => false,
   'fileByUrlAllowed' => false,
];

This will suppress two buttons and only leave "Create new relation".

On the database side, the corresponding field needs just store an integer, as is usual for relations field:

CREATE TABLE tt_content (
   image int(11) unsigned DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL,
);