Flux and FED 5.0 released.
Dear developers,
Some news about these versions:
- Flux and FED 5.0 are compatible with 6.0.
- Flux no longer suggest the "gridelements" extensions since drag and drag is supported natively.
- FED 5.0 marks the end of updates for the Fluid Page and Fluid Content Element features as well as any ViewHelper which has a counterpart in EXT:vhs. In the future the respective Fluid integration features are provided by EXT:fluidpages and EXT:fluidcontent (2.0+), both of which work without FED installed and use the exact same configuration settings. When each of these extensions are installed they override the corresponding feature in FED.
You can still use a Flux+FED setup but new features will be added only in the three new extensions: Fluid Content, Fluid Pages and VHS.
Best practice with the new versions
Because of the division into multiple extensions you can greatly limit the installed code so it better fits your specific requirements. It should be clear to you what the individual extensions each do - so to describe the interplay between them consider these use cases:
The minimalist: Page templates using FLUIDTEMPLATE in TypoScript with EXT:vhs to support rendering. Menus etc. in either TypoScript or Fluid. The only case where Flux is not required - has best performance but very limited features.
The extensionist: Flux used to further extend Extbase plugins with configuration and nested content element support. EXT:vhs optionally used to assist rendering of those plugins. EXT:fed optionally used to provide useful Service and Utility classes as well as sets advanced and purpose-specific ViewHelpers not found in EXT:vhs.
The page base: Flux for UI definition, Page templates using EXT:fluidpages, EXT:vhs as support for rendering - and simple, traditional content elements (plus of course plugins). If used on 6.0 you can even define and bring to life Backend Layouts by using flux:flexform.grid in a page template.
The TemplaVoila mutant: Flux for content UI definition, Fluid Content by using EXT:fluidcontent. Has limited support but does enable the use of, and building of, Fluid Content elements on a TemplaVoila site. Naturally does not play well with EXT:fluidpages.
The Fluid Page and Content site: Flux for content and page settings UI definition, Fluid Pages using EXT:fluidpages and Fluid Content elements using EXT:fluidcontent. Rendering assisted by EXT:vhs.
The give-me-everything way: EXT:flux, EXT:fluidcontent, EXT:fluidpages, EXT:vhs and EXT:fluidwidget to provide even more base features to work with.
The legacy: Flux and FED working in the current state of features, using one or both of the Fluid Page and Fluid Content features. As necessary or desired each of those features can be overridden by simply installing the corresponding new offspring extension. Allows an easing-in period where you can gradually replace the page rendering basis, the content basis, the rendering-assist ViewHelpers and finally drop FED if your site otherwise does not require anything but those two features and a nice, big collection of general purpose ViewHelpers.
Recommendations
For 6.0 installs it is hugely recommended to use a combination of Flux, Fluid Content and/or Fluid Pages and finally VHS for rendering support.
For the best experience in general - and if allowed by your requirements - consider using TYPO3 6.0. That being said: at least until LTS is discontinued care will be taken to preserve compatibility - but not necessarily new feature availability - with 4.x branches. An example of a feature impossible to use on 4.x branches is the Backend Layout integration.
Anything else?
Just two things for your consideration:
The generic Services, Utilities, Resource and base classes from FED may at some point also be migrated to an offspring extension. At which point FED will become almost entirely legacy, not counting a small collection of ViewHelpers. These ViewHelpers, being highly purpose-specific (i.e. Google maps, jQuery tabs etc) will in all likelyhood simply be discontinued and remain in FED as legacy.
Because of this, any dependency on FED in extensions such as EXT:dialog and EXT:notify will be cleared out and replaced with dependency on Flux itself and EXT:vhs / EXT:fluidwidget as needed. It is however not possible to give an ETA on when this will happen - so for a while still, installing those extensions still will require FED to be present.
Kind regards,
Claus