Typo3
Typo3 is a content management solution developed in php. The result of many years of work by a Danish guru by the name of Kasper Skårhøj, the product was finally released at the end of 2000, and since then a very active community has developed, firstly in Scandinavia, then in Germany and now in France the USA and Canada. Typo3 has a very professional interface with a high quality finish, worthy of the best commercial products.
A comprehensive content management tool
It is primarily a very comprehensive content management tool, as described in Smile's white paperdealing with this topic.
. You can produce the entire contents of a website taking into account everything that involves: multi-level menus, search engine, access management for contributions and for reading, template wizard for page layout etc.
... and a portal
Typo3 is also a portal. It manages the customisation of pages according to user identity which means that it knows how to display a selection of content on a given page according to the user's rights. Typo3 can be expanded using plug-ins, whether they are management plug-ins for the administration interface - database management MySql, management of the LDAP directory - or user orientated plug-ins included on the site - surveys, forum, calendar, newsletters, search etc.
Smile has developed 60 sites using Typo3
Smile has amassed several hundreds of days working on Typo3 and has developped 60 websites using Typo3. Smile has collaborated with the website Dassault Systèmes, alongside Kasper Skårhøj. The following companies have put their trust in us: BHV, Armée de l'air, Dassault Systèmes, CCI, PCI, Projectif, Spie, Facéo, CNIL, Château de Versailles, Institut National de l'Audiovisuel, Cidil, RATP, Glamour, Souriau, Agence de l'Eau Seine-Normandie, PROLEA, PSA, Crédit Coopératif, IPSOS, SAS, ETS, IPSOS, ... Smile provides open source plug-ins During our projects using Typo3, Smile has developped many plug-ins. Some are very specific and are only useful for a specific project and therefore there is no use publishing them. Open Source plug-ins published by Smile meet the requirements of the most demanding websites and represent a major leap forward in the types of features that Typo3 is able to offer. Smile has released the following plug-ins to the open source community: Workflow, Categorisation, Quizz and Glossary. Workflow plug-in This development was made possible by our client AESN, l'Agence de l'Eau de Seine Normandie. One of the few weaknesses of this CMS, undoubtly one of the best on the market, has been resolved with this content validation workflow in Typo3. The possibilites this plug-in provides are: smile_workflow: The validation of a page by going through stages: 'draft in preparation,' 'page proposed and under validation,' 'validated and ready for publication' and finally 'published.' An administrator can identify as many different workflows as they want, by attributing an identifier to each workflow. Each workflow is identified by user groups authorised to approve a page at each stage of the validation process. The administrator can then link a given workflow to a given set of pages. This indicates that the modifications made on these pages are subject to this workflow. This allocation is automatically attributed to sub pages following a principle of inheritance. When the status of a change pages, Typo3 works out the group of users concerned by the next stage in the validation process and sends an email notification to these users. The users concerned have workflow dashboards through which they can look at the validation status of their contributions but also the pages that are awaiting their validation. The user can then accept the page, refuse it or add a comment. In the last case, the page is returned to the user group in charge of the previous stage. We must stress that these workflows operate by user groups and not individually. It is often an important part of workflows because the absence of one person will not block the movment of the workflow. It is only necessary for one member of the user group to validate the page for it to move onto the following stage. And finally the workflow system provided by the smile_workflow plug-in can also be used for removing pages! Therefore an administrator can identify a workflow and call it 'wf-news' specifically for the validation of news pages and a workflow 'wf-finance' specifically for validating finance pages etc. The workflow 'wf-news' indicates that users in the group 'dircom' are entitled to work on the validation and publication stages. The workflow 'wf-finance' indicates the users in the group 'dircom' can submit pages for validation but only users in the group 'dirfin' can validate them and finally, pages assigned to this workflow must be authorised for publication by a user from the 'webmaster' group. This shows how workflows can be differentiated in many different ways to meet different requirements for different types of content. Categorisation plug-in With this categorisation plug-in, Typo3 can finally access different levels This development was made possible by our client PROLEA. Categorisation, is the association of content to one or more categories. Therefore content talking about a pair of basketball shoes could be linked to categories about: basketball, clothing, sports medicine, etc. This concept is similar to one used in taxonomy, that consists of organising a group of entities in an appropriate way to reach a certain goal. It is a biological term used to categorise living organisms into an ordered system. But in this sense, each species is classified in one single place which does not have to be the case for categorisation. The plug-in smile_categorization provides categorisation functionality to Typo3. This plug-in can be seen as a new way to reproduce content in pages other than the one for which it was created. You can already do this with Typo3 but only by using an item by item approach: the user goes to the landing page, they select the option 'I want to add existing content to this page,' you select the content from another page and it's done. This approach is not always satisfactory and does not allow for real categorisation. Firstly, we often need an approach that 'starts from the source,' which means that it enables you to identify multiple reproductions of content when it is created . What's more, categorisation follows a logic of reproducing according to rules as opposed to by position. In other words it is not because we put it there that any given content appears on a page, it is because it has certain properties, meaning that it is because it belongs to a certain category that it has appeared here. Therefore category structures enable you to easily create menus with alternative topics. Now we will take a look at how this plug-in works. You begin by identifying one or more category structures, then you identify the relationship between some content and one or more categories. This is an optional stage: some content will only be relevant to one category whilst other content could be relevant to various categories. Once the content has been categorised, it is possible to reproduce it according to the categorisation system. This enables you to create more than one way of browsing a site, meaning vistors are offered an alternative way of browsing a site other than using the main menu. More specifically, the functions of this plug-in are: Categories are identified by creating 'category'. type pages. 'Category' type pages behave like ordinary pages: they can have their own content and can be linked to each other according to a category system. 'Category' type pages, automatically display categorised content, i.e content assigned to this category. Category type pages can also be hidden if automatic reproduction is not desired. Categorised content can be presented in its entirety or partially with a link to the original page's content. Finally a specific plug-in can be placed on any page to reproduce content from different categories with different reproduction options. li> Glossary plug-in You can create a list of words with their meanings, and let Typo3 automatically insert links whenever the word is found in a text. Other plug-ins that will soon be published include: e-Groupware plug-in: for integrating e-Groupware in Typo3 to make a real content and services portal with integrated e-mail, agenda, document sharing etc. Single Sign-On CAS (Central Authentication System), plug-in for centralised single sign on using Typo3 to propagate to linked applications truly following the logic of a portal. CAS is the standard for open source SSO, and can easily be integrated with business web applications regardless of their technical environment.
