Extension management

Extensions are managed from the Extension Manager inside TYPO3 by "admin" users. The module is located at Admin Tools > Extensions and offers a menu with options to see loaded extensions (those that are installed or activated), available extensions on the server and the possibility to import extensions from online resources, typically the TER (TYPO3 Extension Repository) located at typo3.org.

Interface of the Extension Manager showing all available extensions.

The interface is really easy to use. You just click the +/- icon to the left of an extension in order to install it and follow the instructions.

Installing extensions

There are only two (possibly three) steps involved in using extensions with TYPO3:

  1. You must import it.

    This simply means to copy the extensions files into the correct directory into. More commonly you import an extension directly from the online TYPO3 Extension Repository (TER) using the Extension Manager. When an extension is found located in one of the extension locations, it is available to the system.

    The Extension Manager (EM) should take care of this process, including updates to newer versions if needed.

    Another convenient way to install extensions is offered by using Composer (https://getcomposer.org/) along with the TYPO3 Composer Repository (https://composer.typo3.org/). The TYPO3 Composer Repository includes all TYPO3 extensions that are uploaded to TER.

  2. You must load it.

    In legacy installations not based on Composer an extension is loaded only if it is listed in the PackageStates.php file. Extensions are loaded in the order they appear in this list. In Composer installations, all extensions in the composer.json are considered as active.

    An enabled extension is always global to the TYPO3 Installation - you cannot disable an extension from being loaded in a particular branch of the page tree. The EM takes care of enabling extensions. It's highly recommended that the EM is doing this, because the EM will make sure the priorities, dependencies and conflicts are managed according to the extension characteristics, including clearing of the cache-files if any.

  3. You might be able to configure it.

    Certain extensions may allow you to configure some settings. Admin Tools > Settings > Extension configuration provides an interface to configure extensions that provide configuration settings. Any settings - if present - configured for an extension are available as an array in the variable $GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['EXTENSIONS'][extensionKey] and thus reside in typo3conf/LocalConfiguration.php.

Loaded extensions can be fetched with TYPO3\CMS\Core\Package\PackageManager::getActivePackages(), available in both frontend and backend of TYPO3.

This will return an array of TYPO3\CMS\Core\Package\Package objects, containing the data structure for each extension. These include the properties:

Key

Description

packageKey

The package key (or extension key).

packagePath

Path to the package. Can be used to determine, if the extension is local or global scope.

composerManifest

A large array containing the composer manifest. (the composer.json of the extension, if it exists)

packageMetaData

Properties of the ext_emconf.php configuration of the extension, like its constraints (depends, suggests, conflicts), version, title, description, …,

The order of the registered extensions in this array corresponds to the order they were listed in PackageStates.php in legacy installations.