Release Notes¶
Version 12.0.0¶
(Nov 2024)
Version 12.0.0 marks the stable release for TYPO3 12 LTS support with full PHP 8.2 compatibility. Building upon the beta version, we’ve refined the codebase and added several new features to enhance the Higher Education Package.
The navigation system has been completely revamped, introducing a new mega menu variant alongside the split navigation concept. Content presentation is enhanced with a new video content element supporting YouTube, Vimeo, and local videos, plus improved lazy loading for images.
All major third-party extensions are now TYPO3 12 LTS compatible, including news 12.0 eventnews 7.0, ig_ldap_sso_auth 4.0, solr 12.0.5, ke_search 6.1, providing full functionality of the Higher Education Package.
For more information please take a look at the changelog.
Version 12.0.0-beta-1¶
(Aug 2023)
Version 12.0.0-beta-1 is another compatibility release by extending the support for TYPO3 12LTS. Furthermore there is now full PHP 8.2 support. As in the last pre-release, more obsolete code has been removed and new features have been added.
It is now possible to display selected content elements as an accordion in the frontend and the video element has also received a major overhaul.
Since more 3rd party extensions are now also TYPO3 12LTS ready only the Ig_ldap_sso is currently missing to use the full scope of the Higher Education Package.
For more information please take a look at the changelog.
Version 12.0.0-alpha-1¶
(May 2023)
Version 12.0.0-alpha-1 is a compatibility pre-release, it can now be installed together with the new LTS version 12.4 of TYPO3. The main work of this version went into the compatibility with version 12, adopting new core features and removing obsolete code. It also introduces bugfixes regarding the error page handling and improvements towards frontend accessibility.
Also an alternative main menu variant was introduced. The higher education package now offers a mega menu besides the already present split menu.
The current version 11.0 of the extension “news” is now supported.
Due to incompatibilities with the 3rd party extensions ke_search, solr, eventnews, om_cookie_manager and ig_ldap_sso_auth those functionalities could not be tested with the TYPO3 12 compatible release of the higher education package and have been removed from the distribution composer.json temporarily.
Some released functions still have to be tested into further detail, thus the release has alpha status.
For more information please take a look at the changelog.
Version 11.1.4¶
(October 2023)
Version 11.1.4 is a bugfix release that removes the template and typoscript configuration of the old felogin plugin (fe_login_pi1). Some frontend performance optimisations are also included in this release (responsive images, font-display).
For more information please take a look at the changelog.
Version 11.1.3¶
(September 2023)
Version 11.1.3 is a bugfix release. Also the new icon API is used to register the icons.
For more information please take a look at the changelog.
Version 11.1.2¶
(May 2023)
Version 11.1.2 is a bugfix release that fixes a bug regarding the error page handling and also improves frontend accessibility.
Version 11.1.1¶
(December 2022)
Version 11.1.1 is a bugfix release that improves the php 8.1 compatibility.
Version 11.1.0¶
(October 2022)
Version 11.1.0 is a bugfix / feature and compatibility release that extends functionality in regards of Solr search functionality. Also a new content element “stage” has been added. The TYPO3 Higher Education Package is now supporting v10 of the news extension - with this upgrade the news administration module in the backend was removed by the extension author. There have been bugfixes regarding the persons detail and list view as well as an translation issue with the icon container content element. Documentation and accessibility in the frontend has also been improved.
Version 11.0.2¶
(July 2022)
Version 11.0.2 is a compatibility and bugfix release. Also some commands and tasks were marked as deprecated for future versions of the Higher Education Package. The release features full support of PHP 8.1 and compatibility with the most current versions of EXT:eventnews (v5.0.1) and EXT:solr (v11.5.x-dev) which were not compatible with TYPO3 11 and PHP 8 before. A new page type “educational offer” was introduced in preparation of upcoming features. The keyboard accessibility for the main nav has been improved.
Furthermore the person importer was marked as deprecated and will be rewritten in one of the next versions. Also the video plugin was marked as deprecated as well. This will be replaced by a content element.
To improve the development processes we introduced php rector.
For detailed information please take a look at the changelog.
Version 11.0.1¶
(May 2022)
Version 11.0.1 is a compatibility and bugfix release, it can now be installed together with the new LTS version 11.5 of TYPO3 and with PHP 8.0. The main work of this version went into the compatibility with PHP version 8.0 solving bugs (mainly undefined array keys).
For more information please take a look at the changelog.
Version 11.0.0¶
(November 2021)
Version 11.0.0 is a compatibility release, it can now be installed together with the new LTS version 11.5 of TYPO3. The main work of this version went into the compatibility with version 11, adopting new core features and removing obsolete code.
The current version 9.0 of the extension “news” is now supported.
The current version 4.1 of the extension “ke_search” is now supported.
Due to incompatibilities with the 3rd party extensions solr, eventnews and ig_ldap_sso_auth those functionalities could not be tested with the TYPO3 11 compatible release of the higher education package and have been removed from the distribution composer.json temporarily.
For more information please take a look at the changelog.
Version 10.0.5¶
(October 2022)
Version 10.0.5 is a bugfix / feature release that adds compatibility to the 3rd party om_cookie_manager to the Higher Education Package. Also a bug regarding person detail pages has been fixed.
Version 10.0.4¶
(September 2022)
Version 10.0.4 is a bugfix release.
For more information please take a look at the changelog.
Version 10.0.3¶
(May 2022)
Version 10.0.3 is a bugfix release.
For more information please take a look at the changelog.
Version 10.0.2¶
(November 2021)
Version 10.0.2 is a bugfix release.
For more information please take a look at the changelog.
Version 10.0.1¶
(April 2021)
Version 10.0.1 is a bugfix release.
For more information please take a look at the changelog.
Version 10.0.0¶
(Dezember 2020)
Version 10.0.0 is a compatibility release, it can now be installed together with the new LTS version 10.4 of TYPO3. The main work of this version went into the compatibility with version 10, adopting new core features and removing obsolete code.
With this version a 403 error handling is introduced, so users that access a restricted page will be redirected to a login page with a return url, so the user can login and afterwards will be redirected to the originally visited page.
The current version 8.5 of the extension “news” is now supported.
The current version 3.3 of the extension “ke_search” is now supported.
For more information please take a look at the changelog.
Version 9.6.0¶
(Dezember 2020)
Version 9.6.0 is a bugfix release.
Due to changes of the facebook API the facebook importer feature was deactivated as the current implementation is not compatible with the new facebook API.
For more information please take a look at the changelog.
Version 9.5.0¶
(April 2020)
Version 9.5.0 is a bugfix release. This version updates the scss parser and removes the dependency to nodejs. For more information please take a look at the changelog.
Version 9.4.3¶
(November 2019)
Version 9.4.3 is a bugfix release. This version fixes a bunch of bugs regarding TCA and feature toggles, furthermore the dependency on news is moved to the suggest constraint. For more information please take a look at the changelog.
Version 9.4.2¶
(October 2019)
Version 9.4.2 is a bugfix release. This version fixes a wrong way of instantiate the ConfigurationManager::class therefor it prevents an exception at the translation process of content elements including images.
Version 9.4.1¶
(August 2019)
Version 9.4.1 is mainly a bugfix release. This version add a news constraint in ext_emconf.php to ensure the right order of extension loading. It also contains a missing information about teasers in the release notes.
Version 9.4.0¶
(June 2019)
The importer for persons data is now able to import categories as well. They will be created as system categories and can be used to create persons listings based on categories.
Persons are now included in the search (if ke_search is used as search engine), they will be displayed including the image and categories in the search result page.
A new content element “Teaser Container” has been introduced. It can contain one or more image teasers. Those teasers can be used to create image links to pages or externel URLs and extend the visual possibilities for the frontend.
The check for alternative texts introduced in 9.2.0 has been extend so that in certain cases the check can be disabled. This is useful eg. for content elements which use background images or have auto-generated alternative texts. By default this feature is activated for menu background images and person images.
The usage of the customizable colors (primary, secondary and spot color) has been optimized in various places in order to eliminate inconsistencies. Sites with customized colors now appear in a more unified look.
The department kickstarter introduced in 9.3.0 has been extended by adding the possibility to select custom colors when creating a new department. The colors will be saved as typoscript constants and can be changed afterwards.
A new feature toggl has been created: The Youtube and Vimeo content element can now be enabled or disabled with just a click.
A bug has been fixed in the subnavigaton where a javascript errors has been thrown on pages without subnavigation.
Version 9.3.0¶
(June 2019)
A new backend module “Kickstarter” allows to easily create sub-sites for departments like faculties or institutions. Any page tree can be marked as a “department template” and by using the kickstarter module, this page tree will be copied and the URL paths will be automatically adjusted. This makes it easy for administrators and editors to create new department sites. This feature is also available as a new context menu option in the page tree. On the roadmap for the next releases, it is planned to further extend the kickstarter module and make it possible to select individual colours, add an individual logo, create a backend group etc.
A new page template with an integrated menu for subpages has been added. This allows website visitors to navigate to pages further down in the site hierarchy (theoretically unlimited levels) by providing a menu of subpages. Together with the already implemented main menu it’s now possible to access all levels of pages of the website.
The person database has improved in various places. It now respects the “privacy by default” principle by deleting import files as a default setting, and gives a more helpful response message after importing persons from an XML file. Speaking URLs with adjustable slugs have been integrated for the persons single view. Some bugs have been addressed: the width of contact boxes in large columns is now limited to a sensible size, a javascript error in the search function has been fixed and on deleting person records the references to images and categories are now deleted, too.
Some maintanance has been done in the area of third-party extension support: The compatibility with news extension 7.2.0 has been checked and the edu package now integrates a new news feature which shows the current news title in the breadcrumb navigation. The compatibility with the LDAP login extension ig_ldap_sso_auth 3.4.0 has been checked.
The following bugs have been fixed: spaces were removed betweend formatted words in the RTE, variables were not correctly replaced in the map content element and persons images were missing.
Version 9.2.0¶
(April 2019)
An event database allows to manage events with date, location and organizer and show them in a list and detail view. This feature is based on the extensions news and eventnews. The news templates have been adopted to show additional information.
Alternative texts can now be marked as “required” by activating a feature toggl in order to make sure that every image has an alternative text. When this feature is activated, no images without an alternative text can be used in content elements or news. It is not possible to ensure that every image has an alternative text at the time the editor uploads the image because images can be uploaded by just dragging them into the filelist module. Therefore the check will be done while the editor tries to use the image as a content element using a backend hook.
Backend login and frontend login is possible with a LDAP account. For this feature the extension ig_ldap_sso_auth can be included. The extension has been tested and works properly with the Higher Education Package. The frontend login template of “felogin” has been adopted to match the Higher Education Package.
The person database has been extended with an import feature. It’s now possible to import, update and delete person data by providing an XML file. This feature is available as a scheduler task and as a command line command.
The primary, secondary and spot colors can now be changed by setting constants. That makes it a lot easier for sub organizations to use their own colors since no developer is needed to change SCSS files.
The page template has been extended with a language selector which automatically shows all available languages of that page. Multiple languages can now be used out-of-the-box.
Last but not least two new content elements have been included:
The “Icon Container” element allows to add icons to the page content and link them. This can be used for social media links or links to third-party applications like a campus management.
The “Map” content element allows the editor to include a dynamic map from OpenStreetMaps or Google Maps. In order to respect the visitors privacy no external code will be loaded until the visitor clicks on the map (“two-click-solution”).
Version 9.1.0¶
(February 2019)
This is a maintenance release which includes also some new features.
The package now comes with a facebook importer which allows universities and educational institutes to import posts of their associated facebook channels and aggregate them in their websites. The table content element is now included and the package ships all the templates and styles to make it fit into the frontend. A breadcrumb navigation provides a better orientation in the information hierarchy, especially in large websites.
Under the hood there have been made some improvements. Some dependencies to packages not necessary for the main features have been removed (kss-php, sphinx and restdoc). The documentation is now rendered using the official TYPO3 documentation styles and is available at https://edu-package.typo3.com/documentation/higher_education_package/. Some adaptions to the TYPO3 core and extensions have been made: the condition used for feature toggls does not throw deprecations anymore and the images in search result lists have been fixed, so that the package is compatible with the latest version of ke_search (3.0.3).
Version 9.0.0¶
(October 2019)
Version 9.0.0 is a compatibility release, it can now be installed together with the new LTS version 9.5 of TYPO3. While the main work of this version went into the compatibility with version 9, adopting new core features and removing obsolete code, some new features have also been introduced.
The version naming concept has changed with this version in order to clearly reflect which version of the higher education package fits which TYPO3 version. Each major release of the higher education package will now carry the first number of the TYPO3 LTS version it belongs to. The second and the third digit will reflect minor releases and patch releases.
The current version 7.0.6 of the extension “news” is now supported. The new single view has a new detail view template which fits better into the design of the default template.
A footer has been added to the default page template which can be edited by backend users. For this feature a new backend layout has been introduced.
Version 1.3.1 and 1.3.2¶
(October 2018)
Version 1.3.1 is mainly a bugfix release, it also contains a handy little feature in the persons list plugin and accessibility improvements.
The version fixes the bugs that search forms didn’t have a label, url in css files were not rendered correctly, certain youtube videos did not work and the menu image did not show up on subpages.
It also improves the accessibility by introducing landmarks.
The persons listing plugin can now be used without having a searchbox. That’s useful if you want to simply list all persons of certain category (eg. a faculty, central facility or some other kind of department) without providing a search box which would interrupt the content flow of a page.
Version 1.3.2 fixes an issue with version constraints.
Version 1.3.0¶
(July 2018)
Version 1.3.0 brings new features as well as some improvements in the package structure and development process. Some of those improvements are based on the first user feedback we got from real projects.
Let’s talk about the features first:
There are new “feature toggls” which allow to completely disable some features, currently persons, news, ke_search and solr. If you do not need a feature or if you want to customize the third-party extensions yourself, you won’t see anything related to it in the frontend or backend. That way of enabling or disabling features will also be used for features coming in the future.
Persons can now have a dedicated single view in which more information is shown than in the contact boxes and list view.
We now support the widely known news extension with templates tailored for the higher education package, so you can use the news extension out of the box.
Some more content elements have been added, including the menu elements, the HTML element and the generic element used for extensions shipping their own rendering definition like forms, gridelements and felogin.
Some improvements have been made to put the package on a more solid base:
The typoscript structure has been standardized. That includes some breaking changes which are well documented in the changelog.
We also improved the way the SCSS parser works which makes it easier for integrators to set their own SCSS variables. It is now possible to include a SCSS file which will be loaded at an early stage so that you can overwrite SCSS variables easily.
Each feature including frontend output will now be covered by behat tests running against a dedicated test website, so that new features or upates won’t break existing ones.
Version 1.2.0¶
(July 2018)
In Version 1.2 we renamed the package from “university_package” to “higher_education_package”. That name reflects the broad area of applications within the package better. The renaming was applied to the repository, classes, constants, comments and documentation up to the domain name of the demo site (now “edu-package.typo3.com”).
Version 1.1.0¶
(May 2018)
In the first version after the “minimum viable product” we added two more features which we will think will be useful for higher educational institutes.
First there is a search function. Here we offer two technical approaches: A search function based on a SOLR which is very powerful but needs an additional SOLR server. The second solution is based on ke_search which already has been used for implementing the filterable courses overview and does not require any additional server software (except if you want to use file indexing).
Secondly new video content element allows to display youtube and vimeo videos with respect to privacy concerns. No data will be sent to those external providers until the user clicks the video. Additionally a note is placed below the video which points out the fact that viewing the video will send data to those third party services. Although the TYPO3 core itself has implemented a feature which will only use the youtube-nocookie.com domain for including videos we think not sending any data at all if the user does not allow it will give an extra level of privacy.
Version 1.0.0¶
(May 2018)
The version 1 is the “minimum viable product” of the higher education package. It allows to set up a fully functional educational website with basic features.
It sets the folder and file structure, comes with a fully responsive page template and provides text and image content elements.
A main navigation allows to navigate through the pages up to two levels deep.
The documentation explains how to customize the site. A living styleguide gives overview over the used styles.
A filterable courses list enables the visitor to find his or her favourite courses. That list is based on the ke_search extension.
A person database allows to show filtered and searchable person lists and contact boxes of individual contact persons on specific pages.
The package comes with default styles which can be customized.