TYPO3 CMS 8 LTS now available

TYPO3 CMS version 8 LTS is now available. The release features major speed improvements and easier workflows for everyday tasks. The TYPO3 CMS core team will support this Long-Term Support version for three years. Built on PHP version 7, the CMS version delivers a great increase in speed compared to previous versions. PHP 7 is on average twice as fast as PHP 5.6.

Form builder

TYPO3 now includes a mature and flexible form builder, enabling editors to create complex forms. The user friendly interface makes it possible to create multi-column field groups and multi-page forms.The form builder provides full control over where form data is stored and sent. The builder must be configured only once per installation, using the popular YAML markup language.

Image processing for responsive images

Modern websites must be optimized for mobile devices, such as mobile phones and tablets. An important requirement is the possibility to present different image versions depending on the screen size (i.e. responsive images). In the new TYPO3 8 LTS, editors can interactively select and configure responsive image versions. Each image version can be individually cropped. Editors can even define focus areas, specifying what part of the image is most important.

Flexible options for multiple languages

One of TYPO3’s greatest strengths is the flexible support for multilingual web applications, including content inheritance between languages. TYPO3 8 LTS extends the multi-language features further: Editors are now able to define which content element fields will be inherited or overwritten when translating. While this could previously only be configured once, for the entire installation, it can now be defined for individual elements. The decision is up to the editor creating the content.

New rich text editor for text input

The rich text editor, the component that allows the editor to enter and format text, is one of the most important parts of a content management system. In the TYPO3 8 LTS release the legacy editor technology has been replaced with the state-of-the-art CKEditor. The effort involved in configuring the editor has been greatly reduced.

More features for editors

Other features improving the editors’ workflow include search engine and user-friendly links in the core. Page titles, files, and extension records are now displayed instead of cryptic numbers.

Supporting more database engines and cloud solutions

Most content management systems use a database to store their data. In many parts of the PHP world, the database abstraction layer “Doctrine” is used to connect with databases of almost any type. Both easy to learn and popular, Doctrine is a framework known to most PHP developers. With Doctrine, TYPO3 CMS now supports a long list of database engines, such as MySQL as well as software popular with enterprise solutions, such as PostgreSQL (aka. Postgres) and Microsoft SQL.

The number of cloud-hosted websites has increased rapidly over the last few years. TYPO3 8 LTS is cloud-ready and can be installed on a variety of cloud solutions, such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

New features for integrators and developers

Many features have been implemented in the TYPO3 core over the last 18 months. In order to further improve the experience for developers, popular PHP standards and technologies, such as PSR-1 to PSR-7, Guzzle and Symfony, are being used.

Thanks to a modernized core, developers and integrators can now make the user interface even easier for editors. It is possible to add information about how to use a field on the current web site or generate a live preview based on the data entered.

When debugging complex HTML templates, integrators now have one-click access to the template files used when rendering individual areas of the web page. This simplifies and speeds up troubleshooting and template enhancements.

Long-term upgrades and support

TYPO3 CMS 8 LTS is a Long-Term Support release, and will be supported with maintenance and troubleshooting until April 2022 and regular security and important bug fix releases until April 2020. Existing installations can be upgraded directly from TYPO3 7 LTS. Any installation running a previous version must first be upgraded to this version.

Screenshots

More information about TYPO3 CMS is available at https://typo3.org/news/article/miles-ahead-typo3-v8-lts-is-here/.