Roadmap for TYPO3 v14 — the High-Level Objectives and Strategic Goals

The Product Strategy Group has selected six high-level objectives for TYPO3 v14. The details will be ironed out over the next months, but contributors and contributions are already welcome. If you see an area where you would like to contribute, please feel free to contact us, and we will include you in the process.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://typo3.org/article/roadmap-for-typo3-v14-the-high-level-objectives-and-strategic-goals

It is disappointing that even in this major version there is no mention on frontend editing.

If you really want to achieve the “Roadmap Objective 1 - User Experience (UX) Improvements” goal with “a modernized backend user interface” and “optimized for speed and usability” and “clear and intuitive interface” what could be better in the mind of an editor than allowing to operate directly in the website’s graphics and see in real time what is happening in the frontend?

GitHub - FriendsOfTYPO3/frontend_editing: TYPO3 CMS Frontend Editing I unfortunately can’t do it all by myself.

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Probably because Frontend Editing is a TYPO3 hot potato! :thinking:
Why, why not frontend editing?
WordPress has it - Neos has it - Drupal has it…
Is it only a technical issue, or is it more an issue of value / necessity?

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I’ll try to answer the concerns by @ctoffolo and @stigfaerch from my perspective as a member of the Product Strategy Group and a previous developer on the FriendsOfTYPO3/frontend_editing extension (“frontend_editing” from here on).

We all agree that TYPO3 should have intuitive editing available. The high-level objectives are indeed high-level. Specific features, like frontend editing, did not belong in that context, so they weren’t mentioned in the article.

If you look at frontend_editing (an editor based on CKEditor that directly edits content in any compatible frontend implementation), neither WordPress nor Drupal has that type of feature built into the core.

To take one example, the Gutenberg editor, which is available for both WordPress and Drupal, is a backend block editor that can be made to resemble the frontend to a greater or lesser degree. It is not true frontend editing.

This has good reasons, and true frontend editing, like the frontend_editing extension provides, may not be what we want to put into the TYPO3 Core. Especially if we want the TYPO3 Core to be as widely compatible with different frontend implementations as possible.

Frontend_editing has shown to be an excellent sales too that removes any worries about UX that the client might have. However, more advanced features are very hard to implement, because you have to bridge concepts from TYPO3’s backend with how they are implemented in the frontend. Those differences can be very complex! The extension’s JavaScript can also interfere with JavaScript used in the frontend. As a result, the extension is hard to maintain and keep compatible.

I believe intuitive editing in TYPO3 must to take into account TYPO3’s decoupled nature and support structured content. The editor itself is just one of many UX improvements related to intuitive content management and editing. Some features might come in v14, others later.

The frontend_editing extension is great in isolation, and it may work well for you and many others, but from experience, I have come to believe that it is not a solution that can become the universal solution in the Core.

On stage at the All Questions Answered session at T3CON24, I said that recent versions of Gutenberg may have features that makes it implementable in TYPO3 and that supports our content structure. But that doesn’t mean it has to be Gutenberg or that Gutenberg will work in the end. We need to figure out what’s right for the long haul.

That’s why Rachel’s article is inviting people in with their ideas and a willingness to contribute. You’re very welcome to join the work! :slight_smile:

The NEOS guys seem to be doing it pretty well.

For goal #1 I suggest to keep the promises made in the far past, instead of redesigning again.
e.g. it was a decade ago, when we wanted to get rid of the pagetree iframe and extjs, it was back then promised that we can drag and drop CEs not only on the page itself but also to other pages in the pagetree.
Another example: Frontend editing was mentioned here already, the history of that feature is nearly as long as the history of TYPO3 itself :wink: (I do not need it, i also do not really prefer it, but I really can understand users who are waiting for that feature for such a long time to be angry").
Not to forget about the fact, that drag and drop in the page tree used to be much more usable before the last redesign. Nowadays you need a lot of good luck to drop at the right place, as the places are so tiny, where you could drop.
Integrate EXT:save for saving with a shortcut, well known to most casual computer users, Ctrl+S.
Bring back the save and close button. If you do not like save and close buttons, make it configureable, so you cloud get it out of your way.
I always need a couple of extensions to bring back removed core functionalities …

Just saying, this is possible in v13.

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Wow! This is cool! Wasn’t aware of it! “Woohooo!” :man_dancing:

And keyboard shortcuts also work in v13:

https://docs.typo3.org/m/typo3/tutorial-editors/main/en-us/HelpInside/KeyboardCommands/Index.html

CTRL + s for save
CTRL + SHIRT + s for save & close