TYPO3 4.3 Multimedia Cookbook

In order to get the most from this book, there are some expectations of prior knowledge and experience. It is assumed that the reader has a good understanding of TYPO3, which can be achieved by reading the introductory tutorials—Inside TYPO3, TYPO3 Core API, and Modern Template Building guide—essential to understanding how TYPO3 works. Basic TypoScript knowledge is required as well.

We will write several extensions in this book; however, we will omit a lot of the details about extension writing, focusing rather on the specifics of the extension. If you're new to extension development in TYPO3, you should look for resources on the subject on www.typo3.org. TYPO3: Extension Development, Dmitry Dulepov, Packt Publishing is an excellent book that covers all of the prerequisites and much more.

There are multiple ways to achieve anything in TYPO3. The best solution depends on the situation, and generally requires some compromises. This book cannot illustrate the best solution to every problem, but attempts to show various possibilities and approaches to problem solving using practical examples.

Most examples assume you have administrator access to the installation. If you are an editor or a designer, and have a restricted access to the system, you should skip the examples that pertain to developers, or ask your system administrator to provide you appropriate access.

While all of the examples presented in this book can be completed using standard tools such as a web browser and a text editor, I highly recommend using an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) if you're serious about web development. IDE would save you time, boost your productivity, and provide insight into your application that is simply not possible with standard tools.

There are a variety of PHP IDEs available for various platforms and budgets. Popular products include Komodo IDE, Zend Studio, NetBeans, and Eclipse with PDT plugin. My weapon of choice is NuSphere PhpED, and you may see examples and screenshots throughout the book that make use of the PhpEd platform. The examples can be transposed to the IDE you're using, but this may require looking in the manual or searching online for the detailed description.

Setting up a Debian server is very easy, because all the packages you need are available through APT (Advanced Packaging Tool). Make sure that the package lists are up-to-date by running:

Shell> apt-get update

Issue the following command while logged in as root:

Shell> apt-get install apache2-mpm-prefork libapache2-mod-php5 php5-gd php5-mysql mysql-server-5.0

APT makes software maintenance easy, as all packages can be upgraded or removed through simple commands. You could install the packages from source, but it would make subsequent upgrades difficult. With APT, you can run the following to update the package cache information and upgrade your system:

Shell> apt-get update
Shell> apt-get upgrade

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

It's highly recommended to do this on a regular basis to apply any security patches. But be careful upgrades could break some functionality!

We can also install some other components to add additional functionality to our system.

ImageMagick

This line will install ImageMagick on your system.

Shell> apt-get install imagemagick

This installs ImageMagick—a powerful graphic processing program. TYPO3 works with GD and ImageMagick, and you can enable the use of ImageMagick in the Install Tool. As ImageMagick is an external program (unlike GD, which is a PHP extension), it is more efficient and feature-rich when it comes to image processing. Therefore, it's highly recommended that you install and enable it.

An alternative to ImageMagick is GraphicsMagick—a fork of ImageMagick with a more stable API. GraphicsMagick is also more efficient, and performs better than ImageMagick, especially on multi-core processors. No changes to TYPO3 are required to work with GraphicsMagick, and it can be utilized as soon as it is installed by using the following command:

Shell> apt-get install graphicsmagick

To verify that everything is functioning correctly, you can go into TYPO3 Install Tool (available when you install TYPO3 as described in recipe Setting up TYPO3), and select Image Processing to check the configuration, then run some tests, as shown on the following screenshot:

Shell> a2enmod module_name 
Shell> a2dismod module_name

Shell> a2ensite site_name 
Shell> a2dissite site_name

Shell> apache2ctl start 
Shell> apache2ctl stop 
Shell> apache2ctl restart

apache2-mpm-worker package, downloaded in the first command line call, is designed to run several threads simultaneously. PHP CGI binary is installed in the same statement.

We then enable the fcgid Apache module, and adjust its configuration. Most installations need to increase the timeout; otherwise, you will be looking at an Internal Server Error if the page rendering takes too long. To further complicate the diagnosis, timeouts are not recorded in logs. We increase the values of IPCConnectTimeout, IPCCommTimeout, and BusyTimeout, along with the ProcessLifeTime. Depending on your configuration, you may need to increase these values further.

Now, when a request comes in to Apache, the PHP CGI process will be launched to handle it. With multiple simultaneous requests, multiple processes will be launched, and run parallel to each other, handling individual requests.

Windows web environment is powered by Internet Information Services (IIS). This component is available in most Windows systems, but not installed by default. In Step 1, we install this missing component. Once the installation is complete, our server is functional and capable of serving files over the Web.

At this point, if you browse to a PHP file on the server through a browser, you should see the PHP source code. The problem is it is not executing—that is because PHP is not yet installed, and IIS doesn't know how to handle PHP files. We solve this problem in Step 3.

Additional instructions for configuring PHP to run on IIS are available in the PHP manual: http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.windows.php

We've just installed the processing side of the application. We can use a DB on another server, or install MySQL.

Once you have moved your database to a different server, you need to point TYPO3 to the new DB host. If you haven't installed TYPO3 yet, refer to the next recipe. Otherwise, select the Admin Tools | Install module in the TYPO3 backend, or if you don't have access to the backend yet, go to http://example.com/typo3/install/ (replacing example.com with the domain name of your site).

Note

Resolving missing ENABLE_INSTALL_TOOL file error

You may get an error, stating that the Install Tool has been locked due to missing ENABLE_INSTALL_TOOL file. This file is a security precaution, preventing anyone from potentially accessing system settings. If this file is present, it is removed after one hour of inactivity for the same reason. But there are several ways to recreate it. If you're logged in to the backend, the easiest way to create the file is to go to User tools | User settings [admin], and under Admin functions tab, click the button Create Install Tool Enable File:

If you don't have access to the backend, you can create the file manually using the following command line or a file explorer:

Shell> touch /var/www/typo3conf/ENABLE_INSTALL_TOOL

Once you have gained access to the Install Tool, go to Basic configuration, and adjust the database access information.

You can now scale horizontally, by adding more processing servers accessing the same database. In this setup, storage becomes a problem. Luckily, most static files needed by TYPO3 are stored in the fileadmin folder that can be mounted from an external resource, such as Network Attached Storage (NAS). See the next recipe Setting up an NFS share to see how this can be accomplished.

We have now arrived at a highly scalable set up. Should the traffic to the application increase, extra nodes—either web servers or database servers—can be added. This also allows for failover in case of hardware or software failure. These setups are more complex and are outside the scope of this book.

You can fine tune the line in /etc/exports to fit your needs. Pay particular attention to access if you want your files to be secure. You could list individual servers as a comma-separated list, and give them explicit permissions to the shared folder.

The folder fileadmin will now be shared by other computers on the network, and could be accessed by several web servers in our scalable architecture. Changes to the TYPO3 code—such as installing extensions or changing configuration values—will still need to be done independently on each server, but all media files can be stored on the NFS share.

In the following section we will see how we can mount a Network File System.

Shell> apt-get install nfs-common

Shell> mount -t nfs hostname:/nfs_folder /var/www/fileadmin

There are several ways to download the latest version of TYPO3 source and the dummy package. The best way to access both is to go to http://typo3.org/ and click on Download. The source package contains all the TYPO3 core files needed for the system, while the dummy package helps create the needed directories and files specifically for your site.

Before you proceed with uploading the files to the web server, you must read the instructions in INSTALL.txt. Installation instructions change often and there may be components of the web server that are required in the future. Installation documentation covers all the nuances of installing the specific version you have just downloaded.

After you have finished installing, explore the Install Tool fully, as it contains a full array of options you need to configure your system. Go to http://example.com/typo3/install to launch the Install Tool (replacing example.com with the domain name of your site).

There is an excellent installation guide available from http://dmitry-dulepov.com/e-books/typo3-installation-and-upgrade.html. It covers setup instructions, as well as steps that need to be taken to optimize and secure the new installation.

In the following section we will cover other methods of importing extensions from T3X files and code repositories.

Shell > svn co https://svn.typo3.org/TYPO3v4/Extensions/dam/dam/trunk

Shell> apt-get install subversion

We will create a very basic template, which will allow us to see the results of the work in TYPO3 on the page. On a real project, you will probably be given a template by a designer.

Make sure to create a template directory under fileadmin, and create a file mainTemplate.html with the following contents:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>Site template</title>
</head>
<body>
<!-- ###DOCUMENT_BODY### begin -->
<div id="container">
<div id="leftContent">
<!-- ###LEFT_COLUMN### -->
Left Column Content
<!-- ###LEFT_COLUMN### -->
</div>
<div id="centerContent">
<!-- ###CENTER_COLUMN### -->
Center Column Content
<!-- ###CENTER_COLUMN### -->
</div>
<div id="rightContent">
<!-- ###RIGHT_COLUMN### -->
Right Column Content
<!-- ###RIGHT_COLUMN### -->
</div>
<div id="borderContent">
<!-- ###BORDER_COLUMN### -->
Border Column Content
<!-- ###BORDER_COLUMN### -->
</div>
</div>
<!-- ###DOCUMENT_BODY### end -->
</body>
</html>

Also, create a new CSS file in the same directory, called mainStyle.css with the following content:

#container {
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
}
#leftContent {
float: left;
width: 200px;
display: inline;
}
#centerContent {
float: left;
width: 500px;
display: inline;
}
#rightContent {
float: right;
width: 200px;
}
#borderContent {
float: right;
width: 200px;
}