Publish and Maintain your TER TYPO3 Extensions with Composer + Git + Packagist

Our App Store is Called TER - and It's Free! ~ TYPO3 GmbH

According to the current trend of product and extension development, the Composer is one of the most popular dependencies techniques in PHP Open Source that will help you to develop, publish and maintain your extension easily.

Advantages like; Release management, Accurate dependencies, Easy installation, and upgradation, etc.,

Nowadays, most of the OpenSource CMS and Frameworks are used as the “ideal model”.

Do you want your TYPO3 extension to be easily installed with magic composer command?

No need to go TER site, download the extension, install from Extension manager, etc., Just write simple command eg.,

composer require nitsan/ns-news-comments

Once you complete your extension with well QA testing and code review. Setup composer.json at the root of your extension.

You must consider the following most important things:

• Name: vendor-name/extension-name
• Type: typo3-cms-extension
• Must requirement: Make sure to define exact dependencies of your extension, for eg., TYPO3 CMS core, Other TER extensions, PHP version dependencies, etc.,
• Autoload: It is highly recommended to set it up because your extension should run without composer mode too. VendorName\\ExtensionsName (you may find exact words from your any controller file from \Controller\ folder.

Sample composer.json of our popular TYPO3 EXT:ns_news_comments. Composer at Step by step guide to TYPO3 Composer and dedicated TYPO3 site.

Connecting code with Git

Now, let’s setup Git repository to your local environment and maintain & upload code only through “Git”.

# Git global configuration

git config --global user.name "YOUR_USERNAME"
git config --global user.email "your_email_address@example.com"

# Clone your repository

 git clone  https://github.com/nitsan-technologies/ns_news_comments/issues

# Checkout, pull and see a status

git checkout master
git pull origin master
git status

# Push your code

Move your extension’s code at git this repository folder.

git diff
git add.
git commit -m "Initial TYPO3 alpha version"
git push origin master/develop

Now you’ll have an up-to-date repository at your local and Github. Now onwards, keep maintaining code and changes between your local Git and Github.

If you are getting some errors, then cross-verify your composer.json at your Git repository.

Step 5: Now you will be redirected to your package landing page eg., https://packagist.org/packages/nitsan/ns-news-comments Here you can see, all the information is grabbing from your Github’s composer.json file.

Hurray!

Your TYPO3 Extension now be easily installed with simple composer command eg.,

composer req nitsan/ns_ext_compatibility

Do you know Semantic Versioning?

Example extension version: 1.1.2.

Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the:

• MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes,
• MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and
• PATCH version when you make backward-compatible bug fixes.

Additional labels for pre-release and to build metadata are available as extensions to the MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH format.

Read more details at https://semver.org/

Dependency Management

One of the important things is, We need to create and well-defined the dependencies at each release of our extension. There could be multiple dependencies like:

1. TYPO3 core version
2. Other TYPO3 extensions
3. PHP version

At ext_emconf.php

Setup proper dependency versions at constraints with defining TYPO3 and other extensions version.

'constraints' => array(
 'depends' => array(
  'typo3' => '6.2.0-9.5.5',
  'news' => '3.0.0-7.1.0',
  ),
  'conflicts' => array(
  ),
  'suggests' => array(
  ),
),

At composer.json

Similar way, you will need to define dependencies at composer.json

"require": {
 "typo3/cms-core": ">=6.2.0 || <=9.5.5",
 "georgringer/news": ">=3.0.0"
},

Read more about dependency version management with composer at https://getcomposer.org/doc/articles/versions.md

Setup Local Environment

To initiate and develop TYPO3 extensions, we would highly recommend using the following tools and techniques;

• Practice with Docker and DDEV
• Install Composer
• Setup Git
• Use PHPStorm IDE

TYPO3 Extension Development

To contribute the best quality of extension to the TYPO3 community, make sure you do your best to develop TYPO3 extension following all the industrial standards like:

• Read and go throughcreating a first extensionfrom TYPO3 docs.
• To start-up your extension quickly, You can use the most popularEXT:extension_builder.
• ReadExtbaseFluid bookfrom TYPO3 docs.
• State-of-the-art work and code review with industrial standards like PHP PSR standards, Unit testing, etc.,

As you know, “TER” is our app-store so, let’s do our best to keep it healthy and give back well to the community - let’s do our best to make well developed, smooth publishing and healthy maintenance our TYPO3 extensions.

Here is the quick sum up:

• Understand the importance as well as the power of the Composer. Keep using it for the community and your private projects.

• Develop and well test your work and code.

• Understand versioning and dependencies.

• Setup composer.json

• Initiate Git and push it to your favorite git tool like Github, Gitlab, BitBucket, etc.,

• Create a connection between Packagist and Git

• Publish extension to TER

• Feel proud for your contribution and take beer to celebrate it :)

Have a Happy Coding and Keep Contributing to the great TYPO3 Community!

Inspiring People To Code!