3 More How-to's on Using TYPO3's tt_news

By: Michael Cannon

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About a month ago, I presented 10 different ways of using tt_news for various clients. That was then followed up by couple of posts covering the how-to of the first 5 and 2 more different ways of tt_news usage.

Cephalon.com news product and Archive Menu

Cephalon.com is one of the world’s top ten biopharmaceutical companies with over 30 products worldwide for innovative treatments of central nervous system disorders, pain and cancer. Instead of trying to create a specific page for the top products, they let the product's menu listing be auto-generated. On a similar note, the annual archive is auto-generated as well. 

How-to for news product and Archive Menu

This implementation of tt_news categories or archives into the navigation structure by customedialabs is really one of the neatest combination of TypoScript and news content elements that I've ever come across.

In essence, the menu is created via multiple HMENU and TMENU objects as normal. However, the news year and category aspects are incorporated into the menu via RECORDS objects surrounded by TEXT objects to properly open and close the ordered tags.

By creating each part of the menu as an independent object and then joining it together in a COA object, maintenance is made simple. The TypoScript follows.

#Remove Anchor Tags
tt_content.stdWrap.dataWrap >

lib.first_sub_nav = HMENU 
lib.first_sub_nav.special = list
lib.first_sub_nav.special.value = 13
lib.first_sub_nav {
	1 = TMENU
	1 {
		noBlur = 1
		expAll=0
		wrap =  | 
		NO.allWrap = <li>|</li>
		NO.stdWrap.field = title
		NO.doNotLinkIt = 1
		NO.stdWrap.htmlSpecialChars = 1
		ACT < .NO 
		ACT = 1
		ACT.allWrap = <li class="section">|</li>

		IFSUB < .NO
		IFSUB = 1
		IFSUB.allWrap = <li class="section">|</li>

		ACTIFSUB < .NO
		ACTIFSUB = 1
		ACTIFSUB.allWrap = <li class="section">|</li>

		CURIFSUB < .IFSUB
		CURIFSUB = 1
		CURIFSUB.allWrap = <li class="section">|</li>
	} 
}

lib.second_sub_nav1 = HMENU 
lib.second_sub_nav1.special = list
lib.second_sub_nav1.special.value = 81
lib.second_sub_nav1.entryLevel = 1
lib.second_sub_nav1{
	1 = TMENU
	1 {
		noBlur = 1
		expAll=0
		wrap =  | 
		NO.allWrap = <li>|
		NO.stdWrap.field = title
		NO.stdWrap.htmlSpecialChars = 1

		ACT < .NO 
		ACT = 1
		ACT.allWrap = <li class="open">|
	} 
	2 = 
}

lib.second_sub_nav2 = HMENU 
lib.second_sub_nav2.special = list
lib.second_sub_nav2.special.value = 267
lib.second_sub_nav2.entryLevel = 1
lib.second_sub_nav2{
	1 = TMENU
	1 {
		noBlur = 1
		expAll=0
		wrap =  | 
		NO.allWrap = <ul><li class="close">|</li>
		NO.stdWrap.field = title
		NO.stdWrap.htmlSpecialChars = 1

		ACT < .NO 
		ACT = 1
		ACT.allWrap = <li class="open">|
	} 
}

lib.second_sub_nav3 = HMENU 
lib.second_sub_nav3.special = list
lib.second_sub_nav3.special.value = 269
lib.second_sub_nav3.entryLevel = 1
lib.second_sub_nav3{
	1 = TMENU
	1 {
		noBlur = 1
		expAll=0
		wrap =  | 
		NO.allWrap = <li>|
		NO.stdWrap.field = title
		NO.stdWrap.htmlSpecialChars = 1

		ACT < .NO 
		ACT = 1
		ACT.allWrap = <li class="open">|
	} 
}

lib.second_sub_nav4 = RECORDS
lib.second_sub_nav4.dontCheckPid = 1
lib.second_sub_nav4.tables = tt_content
lib.second_sub_nav4.source = 481

lib.second_sub_nav5 = TEXT
lib.second_sub_nav5.value = </ul></li>

lib.second_sub_nav6 = HMENU 
lib.second_sub_nav6.special = list
lib.second_sub_nav6.special.value = 80,103,79
lib.second_sub_nav6.entryLevel = 1
lib.second_sub_nav6{
	1 = TMENU
	1 {
		noBlur = 1
		expAll=0
		wrap =  | </ul>
		NO.allWrap = <li>|</li>
		NO.stdWrap.field = title
		NO.stdWrap.htmlSpecialChars = 1

		ACT < .NO 
		ACT = 1
		ACT.allWrap = <li class="selected">|</li>

		IFSUB < .NO
		IFSUB = 1
		IFSUB.allWrap = <li class="close">|</li>

		ACTIFSUB < .NO
		ACTIFSUB = 1
		ACTIFSUB.allWrap = <li class="open">| 

		CURIFSUB < .IFSUB
		CURIFSUB = 1
		CURIFSUB.allWrap = <li class="open">|  
	}
}

lib.sub_nav = COBJ_ARRAY
lib.sub_nav {
    30 < lib.first_sub_nav
    40 < lib.second_sub_nav1
    50 < lib.second_sub_nav2
    60 < lib.second_sub_nav3
    70 < lib.second_sub_nav4
    80 < lib.second_sub_nav5
    90 < lib.second_sub_nav6
}

plugin.tt_news {
    displayCatMenu {
       catmenu_stdWrap.wrap = <ul>|</ul>
       catmenuHeader_stdWrap.wrap = 
       catmenuItem_ACT_stdWrap.wrap = <li class="selected">|</li>
    }
    displayFirstCategory = 1
}

In above, lib.second_sub_nav4 is where the News Releases Products Menu content element is included into the menu structure as the category menu. As you can see below, it's a very simple news content element of the CATMENU view.

Topconpositioning.com products are news too

Topcon Positioning Systems provides the innovative positioning technology principally for the construction industries. When a year-old, high-end, high-cost proprietary product and content management system failed to do as promised for Topcon Positioning Systems TPS, they turned to TYPO3. Now TPS is managing and presenting latest news, press releases and even products with auto-generating menus and easy to navigate pages.

How-to on products are news too

While I'd like to say that this news as products customization is a major deal, the reality is that it's not.

Adding new fields to tt_news records is as easy as using the TYPO3 Extension Manager and Kickstarter to create the needed fields. Afterwards, you can modify the resulting ext_tables.php file to group new fields into tabs.

By grouping the new fields into tabs, you can better control the layout of the tt_news record and prevent over whelming editors. The following code comes from ext_tables.php to demonstrate grouping added tt_news fields into tabs. Take a look at the following screenshots to see them in action.

t3lib_div::loadTCA("tt_news");
t3lib_extMgm::addTCAcolumns("tt_news",$tempColumns,1);

t3lib_extMgm::addToAllTCAtypes("tt_news","--div--;Product
info,tx_tttopconproducts_product_image,tx_tttopconproducts_product_image_alt;;;;1-1-1,tx_tttopconproducts_product_fullimage,tx_tttopconproducts_product_fullimage_alt,tx_tttopconproducts_related_file,tx_tttopconproducts_filedescriptions,tx_tttopconproducts_manual_file,tx_tttopconproducts_manualdescriptions,tx_tttopconproducts_marketing_file,tx_tttopconproducts_marketingdescriptions,tx_tttopconproducts_specifications,tx_tttopconproducts_news_order,tx_tttopconproducts_ordervideo_link");
t3lib_extMgm::addToAllTCAtypes("tt_news","--div--;Descriptions,tx_tttopconproducts_shortdescription,tx_tttopconproducts_fulldescription;;;richtext[paste|bold|italic|underline|formatblock|class|left|center|right|orderedlist|unorderedlist|outdent|indent|link|image]:rte_transform[mode=ts];1-1-1;");
t3lib_extMgm::addToAllTCAtypes("tt_news","--div--;Techs,tx_tttopconproducts_technologies_box;;;richtext[paste|bold|italic|underline|formatblock|class|left|center|right|orderedlist|unorderedlist|outdent|indent|link|image]:rte_transform[mode=ts];1-1-1");
t3lib_extMgm::addToAllTCAtypes("tt_news","--div--;Product kits,tx_tttopconproducts_productkits_box;;;richtext[paste|bold|italic|underline|formatblock|class|left|center|right|orderedlist|unorderedlist|outdent|indent|link|image]:rte_transform[mode=ts];1-1-1");
t3lib_extMgm::addToAllTCAtypes("tt_news","--div--;News system,tx_tttopconproducts_news_url,tx_tttopconproducts_related_fielarchive_item;;;;1-1-1");
t3lib_extMgm::addToAllTCAtypes("tt_news","--div--;Right Urls Area,right_part_news,right_part_categories,right_part_pages;;;;1-1-1")

In case you're wondering, $tempColumns, is configuration array of the new tt_news fields.

Acqal.com Most Popular Blog Posts

Minor bout of self-promotion.

Acqal.com is an official TYPO3 agency in the United States. To let our blog readers know what other have found most interesting, we offer a popular blog posts listing.

How-to for Most Popular Blog Posts

This tt_news view is majorly handled by the TYPO3 extension newsreadedcount. As a bonus, you can check in the tt_news records themselves for the single-view read counts if you don't show the counts in the popular post entry.

Got More Examples or Have Questions?

Please share them by commenting on this blog post.