Typo3 extensions are available from typo3.org/extensions/ (Typo3 Extension Repository or TER)
Have a look through the available extensions - there are a wide variety available, you can write your own or commission someone to write an extension.
The extensions used in this tutorial are all part of our standard deployment, either they provide functionality that really should be part of Typo3-out-of-the-box, they fix functionality available out-of-the-box, or they meet our basic needs.
Note: Your mileage will vary. Have a look at the tools that are available at TER.
Extension Selection
The Extension Manager (Ext Manager) includes functionality to connect to TER and download a complete list - this has been badly broken since Typo3 v4.
As a work-around browse TER, find the extensions you want and download the compressed .t3x file. Then upload the file using the Extension Manager.
Extension Quality
While Typo3 generally has excellent code quality the same cannot be assured for an Extension. There are enough controls on TER to be comfortable that absolute junk will not be there. One simple measure is to use the market - TER lists total downloads and downloads of this version. If thousnads of your peers are downloading the Extension, well they can't all have the same unique configuration that allows the Extension to work
Extention Installation
We tried TemplaVoila, but quickly became disenchanted. It quickly grabbed some of what we wanted, but seemed unable to address the extra dynamic elements we wanted.
Given we were going to be editing in TypoScript anyway, it made sense to use the the auto-parser and integrate the static HTML templates and CSS we wanted.
A feature so basic it should be part of the Typo3 core.
RealUrl creates human-understandable URLs based upon your page names. Changing the URL from http://www.hornfordassociates.com/index.php?id=55 to www.hornfordassociates.com/strategy/
Dramatically simplifies getting RealURL to work, and improves the look of the page.
The default script changes www.hornfordassociates.com/strategy to www.hornfordassociates.com/strategy.html - a small point, and something done with a few minutes of configuration, but we'd rather not spend the few minutes configuring to a standard default when it can be done automatically.
A basic practice from the old Apple Interface Guidelines - never ask a person to do what the computer already knows how to do (which Apple forgot with the iPod registration - the system knows the iPod's serial number, why do you ask a person to read 2 pt type and key in a 13 character string. Dumb, dumb, dumb)
Provides a nice easy to access view into your sites speaking urls.
The ability to add additional speaking urls and redirects is very nice (although we have not used the feature)
One too many bugs with the default Rich Text Editor (rtehtmlarea) and FireFox got us looking for a replacement. With tinyRTE we also got a spell checker, which was very important to our content providers.
The downside is a slight decline in stability, after switching we have had more odd occurrences with the back-end editing - however at time of writing with the current version of FireFox (Windows & Macintosh) the option is a bit of eccentricity or a line that tells us the editor is loading. Given the choice we went with eccentricity.
Installation & Configuration
tinyRTE installs automatically. No configuration is required. There may be an option so that the spell-checker defaults to English, it was not obvious and we have not looked.
Another feature that should be part of basic Typo3. One of the goals is to drive traffic, one of the methods is SEO and Google has laid out their right path.
Not entirely sure this extension adds enough value. The configuration has a number of steps that seem to replicate what we would do with a static robots.txt file.
Intriguing enough that it is part of our current build.
Experimenting with this extension. Normally we use Webalizer for basic web-traffic management, but having access to basic traffic information in the back-end appears handy.
The Typo3 Extension Repository (TER) is at typo3.org/extensions/
There are a number of functions we use in Typo3 that maintained our interest in Typo3 despite the interface, limited introductory material, a large number of over-all annoyances and a vertical learning curve.
Without a template your Typo3 site will be very ugly. This section will cover creation of a template from a HTML master page.
Extensions are used in this template.