Attention

TYPO3 v7 has reached its end-of-life November 30th, 2018 and is not maintained by the community anymore. Looking for a stable version? Use the version switch on the top left.

There is no further ELTS support. It is recommended that you upgrade your project and use a supported version of TYPO3.

Adding documentation

If you plan to upload your extension to the TYPO3 Extension Repository (TER), you should first consider adding documentation to your extension. Documentation helps users and administrators to install, configure and use your extension, and decision makers to get a quick overview without having to install the extension.

The TYPO3 documentation platform https://docs.typo3.org centralizes documentation for each project. It supports different types of documentation:

  1. The full documentation, stored in EXT:extkey/Documentation/.

  2. The single file documentation, such as a simple README file stored in EXT:extkey/README.rst.

We recommend the first approach for the following reasons:

  • Output formats: Full documentations can be automatically rendered as HTML or TYPO3-branded PDF.

  • Cross-references: It is easy to cross-reference to other chapters and sections of other manuals (either TYPO3 references or extension manuals). The links are automatically updated when pages or sections are moved.

  • Many content elements: The Sphinx template used for rendering the full documentation provides many useful content elements to improve the structure and look of your documentation.

For more details on both approaches see the File structure page and for more information on writing TYPO3 documentation in general, see the Writing documentation guide.

Tools

Although it is possible to write every single line of a full documentation from scratch, the TYPO3 community provides tools to support you:

  • A Sample Manual is available to be immediately copied into your own extension.

  • The Extension Builder optionally generates a documentation skeleton together with the extension skeleton.