Contao

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Contao (formerly TYPOlight)

logo
Screenshot
browser-based content management system
Basic data

Maintainer Leo Feyer
Publishing year 2006
Current  version 4.10.0
(August 18, 2020)
operating system platform independent
programming language PHP
category Web content management system
License LGPL ( Free Software )
German speaking Yes
contao.org

Contao (formerly TYPOlight ) is a free content management system (CMS) for small to large websites . It is an open source project, first appeared in 2006 and relies on accessibility and current web standards (the code generated passes every W3C validation). MySQL is used as the database . The system can be expanded in its functionality from a pool of over 1900 extensions .

At the Packt Publishing Award 2007 TYPOlight was nominated in the category of the “most promising content management systems” and awarded second place.

With the release of the preliminary version 2.9. RC1 on June 6, 2010, TYPOlight was renamed Contao . The developer Leo Feyer justified this step with the fact that TYPOlight sounded like a stripped-down TYPO3 (CMS) and that the addition "light" was misunderstood to mean that the CMS was only suitable for small projects.

Range of functions

Contao offers the user the following functions:

  • Accessible output ( HTML5 )
  • Generation of search engine friendly URLs, dynamic page titles and complete META information
  • cross-browser CSS framework
  • Support of pages for mobile devices
  • Use of Ajax and Web 2.0 technology
  • integrated file manager, search engine and form generator
  • multilingual, user-friendly backend (approx. 16 languages) based on templates and multilingual documentation
  • Frontend output 100% based on templates
  • Version management, revisions and function to undo changes
  • Newsletter management
  • Multi- language support using UTF-8 encoding
  • The optional, chargeable live update function allows upgrades and downgrades with a click (10 euros / year).

Extensions

There are now over 1800 extensions in many languages in the Contao Extension Repository , which can be listed, installed and updated in the administration area of ​​Contao. The extensions range from simple functions to extensive online shops or ticket systems.

With Composer , a new package management system is available for Contao, which can better manage the dependencies of different modules and versions and should replace the extension repository in the medium term . It is based on the Composer package manager of the same name .

Design options

Modules
Provision and configuration of existing front-end modules or extensions from third-party providers . Front-end modules are, for example, guest books, login pages, menu items, messages, search fields, etc.
Style sheets
Individual design of page content through the use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
Page layouts
Definitions of the content distribution of websites (number and position of the used content elements such as text columns, header, footer; number and position of the modules used in the page, etc.)
Page structure
Extension / change of the page structure of the website and the properties of individual pages (such as language, visibility, etc.)
Templates
Pre-configured HTML page templates , which can contain so-called area templates (for example ), which are then filled with front-end modules in the page layouts.$this->header
Insert tags
Insert tags are placeholders (e.g. {{date}}for the current date) that are replaced by certain values ​​when a page is output. They can be used in templates or in modules.
PHP
With the help of the PHP scripting language, Contao can be expanded with additional front-end or back-end modules or its functionality can be adapted. Since September 2008 there is an official "Contao Extension Repository" in which all available extensions are centrally summarized.
Hooks
Hooks are interfaces to all important Contao basic functions, which developers can use to make their own adjustments and extensions to the system without having to make changes to the Contao kernel.

Search engine friendliness

If you want to create websites that are particularly suitable for the crawling technology of today's modern search engines, Contao offers the necessary setting options:

Metadata
Keywords and description tags can be specified separately for each page. The integration of your own metadata is possible.
Page title
These can be defined for each side. The title of the project and the page are available as separate variables.
Robot tags
Pages can be explicitly excluded from indexing. The index word, follow-tag can be integrated by a PHP condition.
Urls
Contao offers the rewriting of the URLs generated by the system in a search engine friendly format. Alternatively, this can also be done via mod_rewrite. URLs with more than one logical directory depth such as contact / ansprechpartner.html are also possible.
code
The system delivers barrier-free and standards-compliant code. A table-less design is implemented.
Sitemap
A sitemap can be generated automatically , which can be evaluated by search engines, for example.
analysis
Templates for Google Analytics or Matomo can be integrated in the backend , which insert the required code for this tool in the right place in the source text of the page.

Long-term support version

With version 2.11, the release cycle was adjusted and long-term support versions (LTS) introduced, which are supported by several working groups for 24 months and provided with updates, even if newer Contao versions have already been released in the meantime.

Versions

Legend: Older version; no longer supported Older version; still supported Current version Current preliminary version Future version
software Major releases Minor releases Bug fix releases (publication) General corrections until Security-related corrections up to
TYPOlight 1.x Older version; no longer supported: 1.0 1.0.0 (03/12/2006)
2.x Older version; no longer supported: 2.0 2.0.0 (11/24/2006)
Older version; no longer supported: 2.1 2.1.0 (11/28/2006) to 2.1.22 (01/29/2007)
Older version; no longer supported: 2.2 2.2.0 (02/28/2007) to 02/02/12 (04/10/2007)
Older version; no longer supported: 2.3 2.3.0 (04/25/2007) to 2.3.4 (05/11/2007)
Older version; no longer supported: 2.4 2.4.0 (06/07/2007) to 2.4.7 (10/11/2007)
Older version; no longer supported: 2.5 2.5.0 (12/12/2007) to 2.5.9 (06/06/2008)
Older version; no longer supported: 2.6 2.6.0 (08/12/2008) to 2.6.8 (05/01/2010)
Older version; no longer supported: 2.7 2.7.0 (05/01/2009) to 2.7.7 (05/01/2010)
Older version; no longer supported: 2.8 2.8.0 (02/16/2010) to 2.8.4 (06/30/2010)
Contao Older version; no longer supported: 2.9 2.9.0 (07/02/2010) to 2.9.5 (05/18/2011)
Older version; no longer supported: 2.10 2.10.0 (11.08.2011) to 2.10.4 (30.12.2011)
Older version; no longer supported: 2.11 (LTS) 2.11.0 (02.15.2012) to 2.11.17 (04.07.2014)
3.x Older version; no longer supported: 3.0 3.0.0 (10/30/2012) to 3.0.6 (03/21/2013)
Older version; no longer supported: 3.1 3.1.0 (May 21, 2013) to 3.1.5 (November 8, 2013)
Older version; no longer supported: 3.2 (LTS) 3.2.0 (11/21/2013) to 3.2.21 (06/05/2015)
Older version; no longer supported: 3.3 3.3.0 (May 26, 2014) to 3.3.7 (November 24, 2014)
Older version; no longer supported: 3.4 3.4.0 (25.11.2014) to 3.4.5 (27.03.2015)
Older version; no longer supported: 3.5 (LTS) 3.5.0 (05.06.2015) to 3.5.40 (11.04.2019) June 2018 May 2019
4.x Older version; no longer supported: 4.0 4.0.0 (06/09/2015) to 4.0.4 (10/16/2015) December 2015
Older version; no longer supported: 4.1 4.1.0 (11/26/2015) to 4.1.3 (04/22/2016) June 2016
Older version; no longer supported: 4.2 4.2.0 (06/18/2016) to 4.2.5 (10/27/2016) December 2016
Older version; no longer supported: 4.3 4.3.0 (25.11.2016) to 4.3.11 (02.06.2017) June 2017
Older version; still supported: 4.4 (LTS) 4.4.0 (15.06.2017) to 4.4.51 (10.08.2020) December 2020 December 2021
Older version; no longer supported: 4.5 4.5.0 (12/28/2017) to 4/5/14 (08/28/2018) August 2018
Older version; no longer supported: 4.6 4.6.0 (23.08.2018) to 4.6.14 (24.01.2019) February 2019
Older version; no longer supported: 4.7 4.7.0 (February 15, 2019) to 4.7.7 (July 16, 2019) August 2019
Older version; no longer supported: 4.8 4.8.0 (08/15/2019) to 4.8.8 (02/17/2020) February 2020
Older version; still supported: 4.9 (LTS) 4.9.0 (02/18/2020) to 4.9.5 (08/10/2020) February 2023 February 2024
Current version: 4.10 4.10.0 (08/18/2020) February 2021
Future version: 4.11 August 2021
Future version: 4.12 February 2022
Future version: 4.13 (LTS) February 2025 February 2026

Contao Association

On May 16, 2012, the “Contao Association Switzerland” was renamed the “Contao Association” by a membership decision and appears as the official Contao association to promote the Contao Open Source CMS. The association is still based in Switzerland, but now with a focus on Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The goals of the association are to finance the further development of Contao, the new and further development of extensions, internal and external communication as well as public relations and the organization of events.

"Core Development" working group

In the past, Contao has been criticized for the fact that the Contao core system is only created by one developer, which can be critical for sustainable further development. This point of criticism is no longer valid, as there has been an official “core development” working group since summer 2011 and another core developer since summer 2012. The further development of Contao is now on a broader basis.

The process of developing the core system has now been opened to the effect that a public project archive ( repository ) has been set up. Dedicated developers from the community can track and check changes to the core system in the intermediate steps promptly and leave notes / suggestions in the ticket system.

Several developers are available for the development of unofficial extensions.

literature

Books

  • Leo Feyer: The official Contao manual. The guide for users, administrators and development . Addison-Wesley, Munich a. a. 2010, ISBN 978-3-8273-3014-7 .
  • Thomas Weitzel: Designing websites successfully with Contao: conception, implementation, sample projects . Addison-Wesley, Munich a. a. 2010, ISBN 978-3-8273-2892-2 .
  • Thomas Weitzel: Contao for web designers. With a responsive example website, tutorials, checklists . Hanser Verlag, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-446-43781-4 .
  • Nina Gerling: Contao for editors. Edit and manage content with the open source CMS . Addison-Wesley, Munich a. a. 2010, ISBN 978-3-8273-2893-9 .
  • Anne-Kathrin Merz: Contao - The comprehensive practice book . mitp, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8266-5532-6 .
  • Peter Müller: Creating websites with Contao 3 . Galileo Computing, 2012, ISBN 978-3-8362-2010-1 .
  • Thomas Reindlmeier: Contao - design websites cleverly - for Contao 2.11 and Contao 3.0 . Completely revised new edition. KnowWare, Osnabrück 2013, ISBN 978-3-943252-07-1 .
  • Peter Müller: Contao - The comprehensive manual . Galileo Press, Bonn 2014, ISBN 978-3-8362-3016-2 .

Video training

  • Michael Herzog: Create websites with TYPOlight. Also up to date on Contao (DVD-ROM). Galileo Press, Bonn May 2010, ISBN 978-3-8362-1636-4 .
  • Harry Boldt: Contao 3 - The great training (online training). Video2Brain, Graz 2013
  • Contao Academy: "Online courses with regular new videos on Contao", 2016

Web links

Commons : Contao  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Announcement of the first public release
  2. ↑ Open Source CMS Award Previous Winners ( Memento of the original from July 7, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on packtpub.com @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.packtpub.com
  3. ↑ TYPOlight becomes Contao ( Memento from September 2, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ The new package manager for Contao on cca.org, accessed on February 17, 2014
  5. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Release Plan
  6. ↑ Extension of the LTS period
  7. ↑ Adaptation of the Contao release cycle
  8. ↑ TYPOlight Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 2.6
  9. ↑ TYPOlight Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 2.7
  10. ↑ TYPOlight Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 2.8
  11. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 2.9
  12. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 2.10
  13. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 2.11
  14. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 3.0
  15. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 3.1
  16. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 3.2
  17. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 3.3
  18. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 3.4
  19. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for version 3.5
  20. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 4.0
  21. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 4.1
  22. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 4.2
  23. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 4.3
  24. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 4.4
  25. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 4.5
  26. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 4.6
  27. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 4.7
  28. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS changelog for version 4.8
  29. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for Version 4.9
  30. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Changelog for version 4.10
  31. ^ Contao Association
  32. ↑ Contao Open Source CMS Team
  33. ↑ Expansion of the Contao team
  34. ↑ contao / contao. Contao, January 21, 2020, accessed January 30, 2020 .
  35. ↑ github.com