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TYPO3 Blog Extension for Version 9 With New Features

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When a new major TYPO3 version gets released, extensions need to be made compatible too. TYPO v9 LTS was released a few weeks ago and we’re glad to be able to serve with a new version for the TYPO3 Blog Extension (9.0.0). An update for LTS version 8 (8.7.2) is available for download too. Hooks have been updated, the code has been cleaned up, several bugs have been fixed and best of all, a couple of neat new features have been added.

New features

  • Allow comments on comments
    Insightful comments and constructive critique are valuable. One of the best new features in the TYPO3 Blog Extension is the ability for users to comment on comments, and for more users to comment on those comments. For this, Disqus support was added.

  • reCAPTCHA
    The extension provides integration with Google’s reCAPTCHA service to protect users against spam and other types of automated abuse.

  • Notification of new comments by email
    You can turn on notifications to get emails when new comments are made.

  • Turn RSS feeds into search engine friendly URLs
    SEO is a hot topic for any website owner. Both readers and search engines should understand what a page is about just by looking at the URL. This new blog feature customizes your RSS feed and makes them easy to read and search engine friendly. We provide a config for the new routes feature in the core and you can read more about this in the README document. The route enhancer config has not been finalized yet, but it’s a good start and you can simply include it in your site configuration.

  • Display related posts
    Related posts can now easily be displayed based on matching categories and tags of the current open/shown/displayed blog post. You can also configure the threshold limit for the relevance of specific categories and tags.

  • Auto approve comments after first approval
    This feature allows you to create a whitelist of commentators and to automatically approve their comments after checking their email.

  • Social Media Wizard
    Consistent visual content across all your channels is important. Create engaging images for Social Media (even as a non-designer). The wizard adds both the title of the blog post and the author to the image and the text can be changed if chosen.

Other features have been added too. Read more in the changelog or on Bitbucket.

Why blog?

Blogs are a vibrant component of many modern enterprises. They’re a way of sharing helpful information, stories and updates in an easy way. The TYPO3 Blog Extension is an easy-to-use and slim extension that is built on TYPO3’s core concepts. Any part of the blog can be freely positioned and styled, e.g. the posts, comment forms or the sidebar. You can therefore easily combine your blog with any other content on your site or with other plugins.

How the TYPO3 Blog Extension works

  1. Easy to use for non-technical users
    The TYPO3 Blog Extension makes blog management less technical and more user-friendly. The essential functions of writing and publishing content, or of adding images and videos are easy to handle. Just like the TYPO3 core, it comes with a WYSIWYG editor. Anyone who can use word processing software will have no problem using the system to create and publish blog posts.

  2. Every blog post is a page in the TYPO3 backend page tree
    TYPO3 has a tree structure that lets you easily organize your content. The TYPO3 backend page tree lets you group pages or plot elements in a hierarchical way and see the structure at a glance. You can shuffle the pages and folders around, and much more.
    The TYPO3 Blog Extension gets integrated into your backend and uses the exact same structure. Every blog post gets added as a page (page type: blog post) and can be created and edited using the page module. Creating a new entry is done by drag & drop to the page tree. All of the TYPO3 feature are at your disposal, e.g. access rights for users, workspaces, multi-language support and page permissions to hide or display single entries. You can also use all of your content elements and any other elements, including backend layouts, custom content elements or plugins.

  3. Flexible positioning
    Each part of the blog can be used independently, e.g. the comment form, a sidebar or displaying a list of blog posts. All of these elements can be used as individual content elements and can therefore be positioned and used in any way you want.
    For example, you can use the sidebar widget on your homepage to showcase your latest entries, the comment form on a separate page or you can position the sharing buttons wherever you want.

  4. Customizable templates
    Templating is done via Fluid templates. If you just want a quick blog installation, use the templates provided by the extension and add your stylesheets. If you want your blog to have a custom look, then you can replace the templates and styles with your own. For more information check out the blog template extension.

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Get in touch!

Slack brings the TYPO3 community together, giving everyone a shared workspace where conversations are organized and accessible.

Your feedback on the new version of this extension is more than welcome. Come along and join us in our #t3g-ext-blog Slack channel to get in touch with the developers. As always, thank you for reading and if you find this post helpful, please share the link on your network.