TYPO3 offers a simple way of customizing the layout and the design of your website.
Instead of creating the style and the framework from scratch, you can use the TYPO3 templates, make the changes as you prefer and build the content upon it.
The structure might change later, or might even use another template and the content will be integrated to the new design.
Many programmers have sketched and developed TYPO3 templates and made them available to other developers, for free or with a minimal price.
However, keep in mind that not always the price indicates the quality.
You can find awesome templates for free, lots of them stylish and useful. In this case, you should not make the choice of the TYPO3 template you will use by its price.
Much more important are the template components will be similar to the design and the elements of your website.
It is important that the design and the layout of the TYPO3 template will fit both with your vision and with the functionality of your web project.
If a template contains only few elements that you will integrate in your website, the rest of them you should design from scratch or you should reconsider the fact it is worth in money and time to put them on your website.
We suggest you consider the following extensions and features before downloading a TYPO3 template:
Responsive web design is a must in 2019
It is important that you choose a TYPO3 template which is responsive, and build the content from the start upon the responsive design.
With such flexible template, the content will fit automatically to every display size.
You don’t need to create a mobile version and a desktop version of you website.
The responsive template will save you lot of time and money.
Compatibility with TYPO3 version
Not every TYPO3 template will be compatible with the TYPO3 version you have installed. Usually, every template has a documentation that lists the TYPO3 versions who it is compatible with.
Make sure to check the TYPO3 version is listed in the template documentation, if you don’t want to risk the TYPO3 template won’t work. It becomes more important if you are going to pay for the template.
Also, notice if you are going to update your website to newer version, the template should be keep you up to date with the latest versions of the TYPO3.
Licensing
Consider the fact that TYPO3 templates come with different licenses.
You should check it before downloading the template, in both cases when it is a free license or a commercial one. In some cases you are not allowed to make changes or use it for commercial purposes.
In many other cases, you should include a link in you website that references the developer or the provider of the template.
Reliability
In the actual online world, while downloading TYPO3 template, you could meet a wrong provider, that along with the TYPO3 template, you will download automatically Adware or Malware.
These providers are not easily recognized, and you should be careful and watch the signs of an established and honest provider. One good approach is the comments and the feedback of the other users that have downloaded similar templates from the same provider.
Also, the demo versions and the screenshots of the details of the template are a clear sign of a reliable provider.
TemplaVoilà : an alternative template engine
TemplaVoilà! is a TYPO3 extension which offers a new way of creating and editing the components of the website, which means another interface of the back-end of the TYPO3 system.
We suggest TemplaVoilà! as a technique of creating flexible page structures, which in TYPO3 system are known as columns.
TemplaVoilà! maintains few traditional template design on content elements, but in a more user-friendly interface, where just a click is needed to improve the style.
TemplaVoilà! lead to improvements of the TYPO3 Core, by adding the concept and the implementation of the FlexForms.
It allows the TYPO3 system back-end to store the content in XML files and data-structures.
Some information related to this extension, you can find in this link :
Sliding-Header: a professional element
Nowadays, a very common element of the design of a website is a sliding header, with a main image in header, and a slider as an extended version of that.
- In the slider there are multiple photos related to the image header.
- You website will have a professional look with such TYPO3 content element.
- Sliders contains not only images, they can contain any multimedia element, such as videos or CTA buttons.
- Sliders are used to highlight these elements, and to reduce the space used for these elements.
- It impresses the visitors, which find the slider simple, stylish, easy to read and good designed.
RealURL
Normally, we remember easily a web page by its URL. But, TYPO3 works by page-ID.
This technique sets to each page a unique number, and the URL of the page is something like “…index.php?id=123&type=0”.
There is a useful extension, named realURL which provides a translation from page ID to URLs, so we can remember the page by its name and URL.
Of course there are other alternate TYPO3 Extensions in the Repository, that make this conversion, but realURL is the most known one. With this tool, you can handle also redirects to the page.
We suggest to download a TYPO3 template that includes the realURL extension, so this functionality will be just one button click in the design of your website.
More details related to realURL, you can find in the link:
NEWS-System
If you want to integrate the news module in your website, you should check first if the TYPO3 template will include this functionality. The news module contains different parts.
News system is represented as articles, and is stored in a folder. One of couple of pages in the website will contain the extension that reads all the articles in the news folder.
These pages should never be altered; it might cause an issue of the news feeds.
For more details, follow this link: https://docs.typo3.org/typo3cms/extensions/news/
SEO Extension
Nowadays, Search Engine Optimization is a key factor toward an attractive and recommended website. Visitors and web search engines should find your website easily, among many other related websites. But how we can improve the way our website will be reached?
Companies like Google, Bing or Yahoo, offers search engines which help us to find the information we are searching for. The can move on web and download websites. Later they index the websites, and rank them, based on keywords of their contents and location. When a user is searching for a specific keyword, in a specific location, the search engine will list the related pages, based on this index.
You could understand that any last minute modification most probably is not indexed yet. It takes up to three months to the search engine to find and index the latest version of your website.
Adding SEO_dynamic_tag to your website, will improve the way that search engines see and rank your website. This TYPO3 extension generated the title tag, the canonical tag and the meta tag author, keywords and description. It can concatenate up to three fields of the database,
For more information related to this TYPO3 extension, you can find in :
https://docs.typo3.org/typo3cms/extensions/seo_dynamic_tag/stable/Introduction
Contact form: an easy way the visitors can contact you
We recommend the website contain a Contact Form element, as many users want to write or contact to you, asking any question regarding the service you offer.
You should check if the TYPO3 template you are using will offer any contact form element.
Contact forms are a bit more complicated than other elements of a website. They are seen as a collection of input elements, such as topic, email, which requires validation rules, and an input text area for the message. Don’t forget the submit button that sends the email to the admin of the webpage.
We suggest you the ContactForm elements, and the documentation link:
https://docs.typo3.org/typo3cms/EditorsTutorial/ContentElements/ContactForm/Index.html
Multilanguage Extension: for an international website
TYPO3 system builds the languages in layers.
All languages are on the same page. The TYPO3 website is created in the default language, and multiple pages can be translated in other languages.
There needs to be a connection between the default language and their translation.
This means all the translation needs to have a kind of pointer to their original default element.
static_info_tables : Basic information
The TYPO3 Extension named static_info_tables is a set of database tables which stores data related on locations, countries, languages, states, provinces and currencies.
Such data are stored as static variables, which means the system cannot change their values, but only use them as reference. Data are stored in the TYPO3 backend, in the root level of the page tree.
The static_info_tables includes:
- the tables’ definitions and non-localized contents;
- an extensible Extbase domain model;
- the generic repository access methods;
- an API for traditional pre-Extbase plugins and modules;
- an Extbase backend module for creating language packs;
- Modules which provide localization of the tables contents.
More details related to the static_info_tables Extension, you can find in the following link: https://docs.typo3.org/typo3cms/extensions/static_info_tables/
As conclusion, we highlight the use of TYPO3 templates that include all the functionalities that you design in your website, by adding a professional look and useful features to the users.