DEPRECATION WARNING

This documentation is not using the current rendering mechanism and is probably outdated. The extension maintainer should switch to the new system. Details on how to use the rendering mechanism can be found here.

FAQ

Question: What is the recommended way to create grid element configurations?

Answer: Even though you can easily create record based grid elements configurations using the grid wizard, the recommended way is to go for file based configurations with unique configuration names instead of autoincremented IDs. This will make sure each of your configurations will work on several systems even though someone might already have created record based configurations there. The most important advantage is that you can put these files into your favourite versioning system and deploy it just like any other code for your project.

Question: Are Grid Elements a full replacement for TemplaVoila?

Answer: Grid Elements are a replacement for the backend related features of TemplaVoila, since they will provide you with structured views of containers and additional functionality like drag & drop, references and handling of unused elements. But they will not provide any kind of mapping tool to connect existing HTML elements to these structures.

Question: How can I connect my HTML templates to the structures?

Answer: They can be connected just like the page templates by using the TEMPLATE or FLUIDTEMPLATE objects of TypoScript. You will even get prerendered virtual fields containing arrays or sets of elements to put into the subparts and markers of a TEMPLATE or into some variables of a FLUIDTEMPLATE.

Question: Can I still use my TemplaVoila FCEs?

Answer: Yes you can, since there is a flexform field, that Grid Elements make use of, although it is not recommended for the creation of new elements. But you will have to provide your own TypoScript setups for the frontend output of these FCEs.

Question: Why is it not recommended to use the flexform for the creation of new content elements?

Answer: The major problem will be to get the content out of these flexform structures when you try to collect it while you are not on the same page. Since there will be no normalised datastructure it can be very hard to just create things like teaser menus or other kinds of collections.

Question: But how should I create new content elements with individual input fields then?

Answer: It’s very easy to provide a new CType for the tt_content table with the TYPO3 API since this table already offers you lots of different fields to make use of. Just create the TCA structure and add a new content type via an extension, provide some TypoScript for the frontend output and – voila – here you go with a new content element.

Question: Is it possible to create new elements based on grid containers?

Answer: Yes – but again this is currently not recommended, since you would have to provide a fully fledged tt_content record for each and every part of this element. We are working on a concept with a drastcially reduced table though, that can be connected using Grid Containers. With this approach it will be possible to create new elements based on basic content snippets like Headline, Image, Text, Table and so on.

Question: Why do you reload the page after D&D actions but the TYPO3 core does not?

Answer: The reason for this decision is the behaviour of the TYPO3 core while working on page content. When an editor is working at some content, others will be notified only, when they open the editing form of that particular content element. While working with D&D within a larger editorial team it happens quite often, that people change content of the same page at the same time. Just imagine the mess that could happen without reloading the current state of that page. So as long as there is no locking of content available in TYPO3, we will stick to this behaviour.