TYPO3 Blog Extension 8.7.1 and 7.6.1 Released

We are pleased to announce that TYPO3 Blog Extension maintenance releases 8.7.1 and 7.6.1 are now available for download. Upgrading your existing TYPO3 Blog Extension is strongly recommended. Both releases include a variety of improvements and the elimination of several minor, non-security related bugs. For more information about the releases, consult the version history overview in the TYPO3 Extension Repository (TER). For more details on the extension itself, consult the documentation.

You can also directly download the zipped extension version 8.7.1 or the zipped extension version 7.6.1 to your PC and install the extension to your site.

If you’re curious as to what’s in the making, read on and find out more about what we’ve been up to lately! But first a bit of background information.

Blogs have become 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 allows you to run a blog and engage more customers in your activities using any type of content: articles, images, video, etc. It’s based on special core features of TYPO3, like content elements and pages. Use all your favourite and well-known elements to create a full blown blog with ease:

• Pages as blog entries

• Use all your content elements

• Flexible positioning

• Customizable templates

• Categorization and tagging

• Be social - share your posts

TYPO3 CMS has clearly defined update and support cycles. The TYPO3 community supports every Long Term Support (LTS) version for three years after release with security and bug fix releases and every 18 months a new stable version is released. This means there are always two stable versions available. At the time of this writing that’s versions 7.6 and 8.7 (BTW: If you’re running an older version, like v6.2, and are breaking out in cold sweat because you’re responsible for your company’s website, you may want to gain peace of mind by finding out more about our Extended Long Term Support for TYPO3).

We provide maintenance for the TYPO3 Blog Extension and make sure that the extension runs smoothly and safely in both of the current TYPO3 LTS versions.

Development and testing activities are driven by the principle of daily build and we’ve been busy adding brand new features to the master version of the TYPO3 Blog Extension. This release will be available as soon as the next TYPO3 CMS LTS version is published in October 2018.

If you’re using a intermediate, sprint release version (TYPO3 9.1 was released on 30 January 2018), you can have a sneak peek at what we’ve been up to by checking out the current master version of the TYPO3 Blog Extension and all of the cool new features.

1. Comment moderation only needed first time round
   The TYPO3 Blog Extension comes with a built-in comment system that allows for community interaction around your content. When someone submits a comment for the first time, it will be held for moderation for you to approve or delete. This allows you to control what appears on your website. This built-in comment system can now be adjusted so that only the first comment of someone needs to be verified.
   If you approve of someone’s comment and they come back to comment a second time, your system will now automatically publish this comment without further verification.

2. Allow comments on comments
   Comments are a way for visitors to add feedback to your posts and pages. Being able to reply to other peoples’ comments engages your visitors, drives discussion and further engagement. To make this possible, we implemented an integration with DISQUS.

3. Google reCAPTCHA
   Spam and form abuse are two critical security related issues. Google reCAPTCHA is an effective security solution that protects your website from spam and abuse, yet allows authentic users to access with ease.

4. Notification of new blog comments via email
   If comment notifications are enabled, the administrator and/or post author (depending on your configuration) will receive an email when a new comment is left on a post they wrote and can respond promptly. This helps to keep readers involved and turn one time guests into regular readers of your blog.

Today’s post comes with a huge "Thank you!" to those TYPO3 community members who took the time to report bugs and to give us feedback as to what features they’d find helpful in their daily work. Your feedback is more than welcome and highly appreciated. If you’d like to join in our conversation, come along to our #t3g-ext-blog channel on Slack and get in touch with us there.

Grab the latest versions of the TYPO3 Blog Extension by downloading it from the TYPO3 Extension Repository (TER) or by updating your composer package.