Typo3 Tutorial

TYPO3 is an Open Source content management system (CMS), distributed FREE of charge. Typo3 is suitable for enterprise websites and for intranets. The basic Typo3 installation offers rich flexibility; there are also lots of extra ready-made modules and interfaces you can install on your software.

SiteGround Typo3 Tutorial includes the following sections:

• How to install Typo3 instructions - Typo3 installation through Fantastico and Manual installation of Typo3 through web installer
• Typo3 administration
• How to change Typo3 themes
• Typo3 content management - creating pages, content and element types
• Password protected pages in Typo3 - creating groups and users, creating restricted pages in Typo3
• TYPO3 user management - setting up users' permissions
• Uploading and managing images in Typo3
• Typo3 hosting services with free installation of Typo3 CMS on your site.

You may use this tutorial for your own use. You may not distribute it in any form without the express permission of the publisher. You may provide a link to the publisher's web site, where this tutorial can be used from. This tutorial is provided free of charge and without any warranty of any kind.

Manual installation of Typo3

To install TYPO3 manually, please, download the latest version from http://sourceforge.net/projects/typo3/ and upload the archive on your server. Using the File Manager from your cPanel extract the contents to a directory or to the root folder if you want TYPO3 to be accessible at yourdomain.com.

Make sure that you've created database, user and that you've granted privileges to that user from the "MySQL Databases" function in your cPanel. (Please, take a look at SiteGround Joomla tutorial for more detailed instructions about how to create MySQL database and MySQL user and how to grant the proper permissions)

If you have installed TYPO in /test directory open http://www.mydomain.com/test/typo3 to continue with the TYPO3 Install Tool.

Type in the username and password for the MySQL database you've just created. Leave "localhost" as Host and click Update localconf.php. On the 2nd step select the name of the database that you have created and click Update localconf.php. On the 3rd step click Import database and you're done!

TYPO3 Administration

Backend

In the backend there are a lot of modules in the menu to the left. Each module has it's own content. Since you are the administrator you have access to all modules. There are other "normal" users that have access only to the modules you select! Try to click the different modules in the menu to look around.

Pagetree

The header "Web" in the menu is called a "main module" and all the modules listed under it are "sub modules". All modules under the "Web" module will show a dual view in the content frame - the page tree and the content module. The page tree can be expanded/collapsed by clicking the plus/minus icons. This works like the folders on any PC. The page tree is a directory structure where web pages are organized in a hierarchy with main pages, sub-pages, etc.

Keep in mind that if you click the page title you will see a content from the module in the right frame and if you click on the page icon a context menu will appear. In this menu you can select options relevant to this page.

TYPO3 Themes

When TYPO3 generates webpages the frontend engine combines unformatted content from the data source (database) with a HTML template defining all the formatting. The template record is a control element that instructs TYPO3 how to handle certain branch of the page tree.

Creating a template record

To create a template record for a page, select Templates from the left menu and click on the page title. In the right frame it will open a page where you can select to create a template for a new site based on one of the standard templates or to create an extension template that allows you to enter TypoScript values that will affect only this page and subpages. Select a template from the drop-down menu and click "Create template for a new site".

Making changes to the template

To edit the template record select List from the left menu and click on the page title. In the right frame click on the Pencil next to the name of the template you want to edit.

You will be taken to a page where you can edit many different parameters of the page. The Constants field is often the place to change values for the standard templates. After saving the template record, click "Clear all cache" in the "Admin Functions" menu. Always do that if you edit the template records directly and not from the Template module.

The constant editor

The constant editor can be found in the Templates module from the drop-down menu on the right.

You can access many options there, there are explanations for most of them and there are various categories. You can change logos, backgrounds, margins and many many more. Play with them and see what happens.

TYPO3 Content Management

Creating pages

Creating new pages in Typo3 is very easy. Click on the "Web" icon for the menu and click "New". Select the wizard option to help you to find the right spot to insert the page.

A form for a New page will appear and you can enter the title of the page and other settings.

Click on the second diskette icon that says "Save document and close".

Creating content

Now when you have a page ready you can click on it's name from the pagetree to open the content module in the right frame. Select "Create page content" for a list with the content element types. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Content element types

There are many page content element types available and combining them is the key to create diverse web pages.

The longer down in the list is the element the more advanced or rare it is. The most used elements are the "Text" and "Text w/ image".

Notice that some of the elements includes a wizard. For example the "Table" element is like the "Text" field, but with a "Table wizard" button on the right. Click on it to proceed to the wizard.

TYPO3 Password protected pages

Now you know how to create pages for all the world to see. What if you want only certain people to be able to access them.

Create users/groups

Before you can create access restricted pages you must first have one or more frontend users and groups.

There are two kinds of users - frontend (orange icon) and backend (blue icon). A frontend user (also called website user) can log in to the website, but cannot change content. A backend user works in the backend and is concerned with changing the information.

Since frontend users (like pages, content elements, articles, etc) are just database elements they can be created the same way as for any other element. First click the page icon of the page where you want to create the user. Then select the "Website user" element and enter the required information.

Create login forms

Click the page module, then click on the name of the page. Click "New content". Choose login form from the content type. Select a position, name it and save it. If you enter a page reference in the "Send to page" box the login will be submitted to that page. This is used with the other box so the user is directed to the access restricted section directly.

Create restricted pages

Now you have some users and groups. Let's restrict some access. Select a section for the menu to appear and click Visibility settings. There you can set up the access to be only for the members of certain group. You can also select to include the subpages. If you add more groups then you can create different access rules for different users! Another useful options are "Hide at login" and "Show at any login". "Hide at login" is useful if you have pages with information only relevant for users not yet logged in. "Show at any login" is the opposite. If you are logged in you are shown the page. No need to be a member of particular group.

TYPO 3 user management

Backend users

The backend users are located in the root of the page tree. From the list module click on the globe icon and choose New from the context menu. The new record list will appear. Select Backend user. A quite large page with many options will open, where you can select for example which modules the user can access and many more.

User permissions

For every backend user you can select which Modules, Folders, Pages, etc to access. From "File Mounts" you can mount certain directory to the user's Filelist module. The "DB mounts" points which page from the whole page tree to become the root page for the user. That way you can give to specific user a specific part/s of the page tree. Just set the fields value to that page.

Each page has a permission setting for access like the file system on a Unix server. There is an owner user, an owner group and then permission settings for each in five different categories: read page, edit page, delete page, new sub-page and page content. You can set and view permissions in the "Access" module.

TYPO3 Images

If you want to manage the files that are behind the scenes the Filelist is the place to go. It has a folder tree and a list view of files in the folders. The default folder for admin users is the "fileadmin" located under the TYPO3 folder. These files are not used on the website directly. If you want to use them you can either link to the files from content elements or pick the files in the process of selecting files for content elements.

Instead of uploading the files with the "Browse" option one by one you can select multiple files already on the server. After saving the files are attached to the record and moved to the upload/pics folder where TYPO3 stores images attached to page content elements.

Browsing the image archive

If you use the images module instead of Filelist you will have a larger view of the images.

The functionality is similar to Filelist. You can also enable little thumbnails in the Filelist module.

Uploading images

You can upload images to the archive through FTP. But you can also upload directly in the File module. Just click on the folder icon and the menu will appear. Clicking Upload files will bring up a form where you can upload files. The context menu also allows renaming, coping, deleting, etc.

Please, feel free to contact us if you have any questions or recommendations about this tutorial at: tutorials 'at' siteground.com