When you create a new content element by using the record wizard, you'll get a tab-based list of possible content elements to choose from. In the old days, those were PHP classes known as "wizicons" and automatically created by the kickstarter extension. You may guessed it already, it's about $GLOBALS['TBE_MODULES_EXT']['xMOD_db_new_content_el']['addElClasses'].

This approach is not deprecated yet, but discouraged within the TYPO3 Core, as non of the shipped extensions use this mechanism.

In this article we're going to migrate the PHP-based classes to plain TypoScript. As example extension we use tt_news 7.6.3.

In its ext_tables.php you may find the following code:

$TBE_MODULES_EXT['xMOD_db_new_content_el']['addElClasses']['tx_ttnews_wizicon'] = TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\ExtensionManagementUtility::extPath($_EXTKEY).'pi/class.tx_ttnews_wizicon.php';

The registered class itself has a method called proc() that basically modifies an array only:

function proc($wizardItems) {
    // ...

    $wizardItems['plugins_tx_ttnews_pi'] = array(
        'icon'=>TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\ExtensionManagementUtility::extRelPath('tt_news').'pi/ce_wiz.gif',
        'title'=>$LANG->getLLL('pi_title',$LL),
        'description'=>$LANG->getLLL('pi_plus_wiz_description',$LL),
        'params'=>'&defVals[tt_content][CType]=list&defVals[tt_content][list_type]=9'
    );

    return $wizardItems;
}

Migrate to TypoScript

Migrating this to TypoScript is a rather easy task. For beginning, a new file called Configuration/PageTS/NewContentElementWizard.ts is created within the extension directory:

mod.wizards {
    newContentElement.wizardItems {
        plugins {
            elements {
                plugins_tx_ttnews_pi {
                    icon = EXT:tt_news/pi/ce_wiz.gif
                    title = LLL:EXT:tt_news/Resources/Private/Language/locallang.xml:tt_news_title
                    description = LLL:EXT:tt_news/Resources/Private/Language/locallang.xml:tt_news_description
                    tt_content_defValues {
                        CType = list
                        list_type = 9
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

You probably noticed that the structure of the TypoScript is nearly the same as the PHP-based array, but there are a few minor differences:

• The extension name is prepended by EXT:, TYPO3 resolves this automatically
• The params key is replaced by tt_content_defValues
• The parameters are now a key/value array, not a concatenated parameter list for an URL

Very important is that the configuration is wrapped within this scaffold, otherwise the TS won't work:

mod.wizards {
    newContentElement.wizardItems {
        plugins {
            elements {
                // YOUR CODE
            }
        }
    }
}

Registration

Now, the TypoScript file must be registered. This is done within ext_localconf.php, NOT ext_tables.php (everytime you do this a unicorn dies, now do the math 😉):

\TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\ExtensionManagementUtility::addPageTSConfig(
    '<INCLUDE_TYPOSCRIPT: source="FILE:EXT:tt_news/Configuration/PageTS/NewContentElementWizard.ts">'
);

Aftermath

We're nearly done. The last thing we have to do is removing any evidence of the old PHP-based approach. Means, you should remove the registration based on $GLOBALS['TBE_MODULES_EXT']['xMOD_db_new_content_el']['addElClasses'] and clear the TYPO3 caches afterwards. If everything still works fine, it's sav to remove the wizicon PHP class.