EXT: KB Content Table¶

What does it do?¶

The KB Content Table Extensions primarily allows a User to insert a Table as an Content Element and insert Content Elements into each cell. This is what was already supported in the previous version of this extension. But the extension has been completely rewritten and many new Features got implemented. Here a short list.

• Completely Flexform based
• Table configuration via Flexform tabs (Locking)
• Templating(Save table templates to storage folder and reuse on a user/group basis)
• Normal or RTE mode (Content elements inside cells vs. Rich Text Editor fields)
• Inter operablewith standard clipboard
• TemplaVoilacompatible
• Configuration of cell properties via new “mustache”optionSplit:)

Creating the content element¶

To do this just go to the Page Module (Either the traditional or the one from Templa Voila) and click the create new content element button as you would do when creating a “Text” or “Text w. Image” content element. You will have a new option at the bottom of your normal elements replacing the default table. (This can be disabled when installing the Extension). When you selected the new multi-colored Content Table element you will get to the well known record edit screen of TYPO3. If you are not using TemplaVoila you will have to save the record in order to see the table wizard icon instead of a text area. If you use TemplaVoila the record is already created in database as soon as you see the record edit screen and the table wizard icon will be there from the beginning. If you saved the form once or used the wizard to initialize the everything you will see the Flexform containing the Table Settings and other tabs. If your are an administrator your edit area will look like this, if you are a normal user you will have less tabs:

Now you could start to enter data in the Flexform defining the settings for the starting <table> tag.

The Tabs¶

Here is a listing what the different Tabs are for. If a Tab is visible for Users and Adminsit is explained further in the User (this) section. If it is just visible for Admins it gets described in the Administration section of this manual:

Using the Wizard¶

To activate the table wizard just click on the red-bordered wizard icon. A new page will appear in the right TYPO3 frame which will look like this if you are an admin or aren't restricted in any way:

On the top right you have a select box which you can use to switch the table to a bigger frame or to no frameat all (“Edit table”). In this mode the table will alway use the full width.

The cellproperties can be edited by clicking the well known edit pencil in the middle of a cell (between the move up/down arrows). The properties dialog will appear below the table wizard and look like this, some fields could be disabled if you are not allowed to edit them (This screen shothas been taken in “Edit table” mode. With smaller frames it will be possible that lines are broken):

Move Row/Column/Cell: With the Buttons for Move up/down/left/right you can move each row/column/cell in each possible direction. There is a move right and move left button next to each other although those two buttons have the same effect. The intention is usability.

The delete button can get used to delete a complete row or column.

The create new content element icon does what its name implies that it does :)

The create new column/row icon create a new record or column.

Below the Location information on the Left side you have the default save, save and close and close buttons. It may be misleading that changes to the table like moving a row or deleting a column is saved as it is done and not after pressing the save button. The save button is just for saving changes to the cell properties.

In RTE mode you dont have (5) but can edit the cell properties and also the RTE content with (2).

Selecting a template¶

If you have the necessary access rights and there are ready made templates you can select a pre-made template and your actual table (best try with a newly created) will get changed to the template. The template can have default settings for some values so your configuration possibilities are restricted but this is for achieving a common CI all over your site. You admin made the settings in such a way that the table always looks good together with the rest of your site - and you don't want to change that.

To select a template just edit to the default content element edit screen (not the table wizard) where you normally edit a content element. There you have a tab called “Template” in the Flexform. Select it by clicking on it.

Then the only option you have is to select an already existing template. Choose an existing template from the select box and click the Save Button of the element. After saving the new template will override the actual content and design.

WARNING: If you select a different template, then switch to another tab and make some changes, and want to just save the changes you will have to reset the “Select Template” drop-down box to “None”. Else your actual template will be OVERWRITTEN !!!

The RTE Mode¶

In When you set the checkbox “RTE Mode” in the Tab “Table Setting” then you will not be able to insert content elements into each cell but have an RTE for each cell. Currently each RTE has to be implemented on its own as there isn't a Javascript API for getting and setting the RTE content. If this would be possible this general API could be used but now each RTE must be handled on its own. So the only currently supported RTEs are:

• Default RTE (Windows IE)
• RTE HTMLArea (Windows IE & FF & NS, Linux FF & NS)

perhaps if another RTE becomes popular it will also be added.

Currently if you have both the standard RTE and RTE HTMLArea installed then under Windows IE the standard RTE will be used. In all other cases will rtehtmlarea be the only working choice.

Currently there is no software implementation of copy & paste for RTE content. Cou can just copy and paste it using the clipboard of your OS.

Caching¶

Normally pages from TYPO3 which are generated on the FE are cached by the T3 caching mechanism. To render a table with 40 rows takes a huge amount of time as a large XML has to get parsed several times. So it is best practice to not set pages which contain Content Tables to no_cache except for debugging purposes (And don't forget to set it back ! I told you !)

Character Sets¶

Currently the extension is tested with utf-8 and iso-8859-1. It seems to work in all browsers which support the RTE Area except Netscape which isn't tested (Mail me for information). The tests with utf-8 were made by setting forceCharset to utf-8 in the Install Tool.

Table Locking¶

This tab is used for locking the values which generate the starting <table> tag.

Cell locking¶

This tab can be used for locking the values/properties of each cell, which mostly describe the opening <td> tag of each cell, to some values. All of the fields in this table use the “mustache”(Schnurrbart) optionSplit. It is called this way because it is two optionSplitsinserted in each other. And the inner one needs another split token for which I choose “ ~*~ “ which looks like a mustache, instead of “ |*| “ . But this if further explained in the Chapter configuration with some examples.

Action locking¶

This gets used for defining which actions a User can perform on the table. For each possible action there is a optionSplitted field which defines the rights.

Creating Templates¶

If you have fully configured a table you may want to archive your work and make it reusable so others can easily make pre-designed tables. This gets achieved by templates.If you have finished configuring your table and locking (Also content elements will be copied if template is configured that way) finally press the save button again wherever you are and switch to the content element edit screen where you have the Flexform.

IMPORTANT : Don't forget to save your changes. Unsaved changes will not be stored in the template.

Then choose the tab “New Template” . I will shortly explain what the Fields are for.

• Overwrite Existing If you choose some existing template from this drop-down box the selected template will get overwritten if the rest of the form is filled out correctly.
• Name If no existingtemplate is selected in “Overwrite Existing” and a name is given here then a new template with this name will get created.
• TSConfig Name This is the name the template will have for TSConfig configuration. This is not used actually but is required for future compatibility intentions.
• Storage Folder This is the storage folder where the templates get stored to. You must select some “General Storage Page” in the Page Header of your Site Root-Page. Else no Storage Folders are configured. This is the same as for Templa Voila DS and TO records.
• Allowed BE Users Just those BE Users will have access to this Template
• Allowed BE Groups If the User is a member of the herein listed groups or one of the allowed BE Users he will have access to the template.
• Content Mode This selects whetherthe new table has empty content, the content is copied from the template table (if it still exists), or is referenced (also just if it still exists).

Note that a new template gets just created or an existing one overwritten if a Storage Folder gets selected. If “overwrite” is selected no name needs to be given - the template will just be untitled.

FAQ¶

Can I set different lockings for different users ? No. Actually it is just possible to set lockings which get applied to any non-admin user. I will implement better access restrictions in the future ... Perhapsusing some ACL extension.

Why is such a complicated thing as Option-Split chosen for configuration ? If you ever have learned to configure menus with optionSplit to do some tricky things you will already love it ... And if you get to know what powerful things can be done with optionSplit in conjunctions with things like tables you will never want to miss them again.

And this mustache makes the mess perfect ? If you understand simple optionSplit you should understand mustacheoptionSplit after reading section “Configuration > mustacheoptionSplit”.

How does locking inter operate with templates. It's simply this way: The complete table and all it's locking information is stored in the template and copied to the actually edited table when a template is selected. So the complete locking will be used 1:1.

Applying the patch¶

If you have a TYPO3 version below 3.8.0 you will have to apply a patch to your source code for Templating and Locking to work properly. You need this patch exactly from versions from and below 3.8.0beta2. If no other version than 3.8.0 is out at the point when you read this document then you will have to check out the latest sources from CVS. Do that by reading the sourceforge TYPO3 CVS pages.

To apply this patch just change in the directory “TYPO3ROOT/t3lib/”

and execute the following command on your UNIX shell (don't know what to do under windows :)

patch -p 0 ./class.t3lib_befunc.php < TYPO3ROOT/typo3conf/ext/kb_conttable/patch_t3lib_befunc_hook.diff

Hopefully the patch will succeed. Afterwards you will be rewarded with the full functionality of the extension. You don't have to worry that you source code get's messed up. Just a simple hook gets added.

mustacheoptionSplit¶

First of all you will need to know what optionSplit does. If you see a string like:

1 |*| 1 || 0 || 1 |*| 1

You should not be scared. If you are you should first read:

TSref 3.1.4 optionSplit

If you are already advanced read on.

cell-empty ~*~ cell-header |*| cell-default |*| cell-default

a07020 |*| a07020 ~*~ ffffff ~*~ a07020 |*| a07020

Insert Column before = 1
Insert Column after = 1 |*| 0

Page TS Config Configuration¶

This extensions does at the moment only rarely support Page TSConfig configuration. It will become more advanced in the future as you can already see from the Templates which got a TSConfig name.

Here are the preliminary configuration options.

tx_kbconttable.likeAdminsUser = 1,5,tester
tx_kbconttable.likeAdminsGroup = 1,8

EM Configuration¶

When you install this extension via the TYPO3 EM you should get presented a configuration screen after creating the required table (changes) which shows you some options to configure. Some of them will also be configurable via TSConfig in the future (Make requests to me: what option and how !)

Fast mode¶

In this mode the cell properties can't get edited in the T3 record editing screen (alt_doc.php) but rather only in the table wizard. This is because the properties are stored in a serialized array which increases performance compared to XML.

When fast-mode gets enabled or disabled or when updating from a previous version without fast-mode (But above 0.1.0) then the table gets automatically converted to fast-mode when saving the first time in the table wizard. You will notice the changes in the Flexform only after this task.

FAQ¶

Do i have to use optionSplitall the time ?If you simply want to lock all cellwidth values to one value just write the value in the locking field. Then all values will be set to the same value. This is also why “-1” is the default for all select fields. It means to don't lock all values.

I don't get that optionSplit what shall I do ?Just do it after a combined principle reading TSref 3.1.4 optionSplit and trial-and-error by using the locking fields. Just log into TYPO3 twice (Tip for Firefoxusers: start Firefoxwith option -ProfileManger (edit shortcut or call from commandline) and create two different profiles) once as Admin and a second time as User. Then lock some fields and look what happens.

Version :¶

0.0.0¶

0.0.1¶

0.0.2¶

0.1.0¶

0.1.1¶

0.1.2¶

0.1.3¶

0.1.4¶

0.2.0¶

0.2.1¶

0.2.2¶

0.2.3¶

0.2.4¶

0.2.5¶

0.2.6¶

0.2.7¶

0.2.8¶

0.3.0¶

0.3.1¶

0.3.2¶

0.3.3¶

0.4.0¶

0.4.1¶

0.4.2¶

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