Typo3: Simplest way to add a custom field to all tt_content in 6.2

Question

I am using Typo3 6.2, which has Extension Builder installed in the back-end. I have never built an extension before and am not sure if I need to, but it could be necessary to do what I want.

I have a variety of content types on each page, nested inside of gridelements columns. I want to add a "Background colour" drop-down for all content elements that I can check for in typoscript and assign a class accordingly:

Goal HTML, where "green" and "dark" are the classes I want to add:

 <div class="row"> <-- gridelements
    <div class="column size2"> <-- gridelements

        <div class="module green"> <-- content element with green bg
            Some content: could be text, image, news content, etc.
        </div>

        <div class="module dark"> <-- content element with dark bg
            Some content: could be text, image, news content, etc.
        </div>

        <div class="module"> <-- content element with no bg selected
            Some content: could be text, image, news content, etc.
        </div>

    </div>
</div>

Here's approximately how I expect to be looking for the "Background colour" field in the typoscript:

if{
    value = 1 <--- equal to the value of the drop-down
    equals.field = background_colour <--- the name of my custom field
}
//Then add the class to the mark-up

I've found a handful of tutorials, none of which really tell me how to do this. This one tells me how to create a whole new content element type, and also uses Kickstarter rather than Extension Builder: http://castironcoding.com/resources/our-blog/sp/view/show/post/reason-6-for-choosing-typo3-custom-content-elements-and-extbase-again-part-23.html?tx_cicblog_list%5Bcontroller%5D=Posts&cHash=13d15edce9ae768be7dd36a140811b82

This one tells me how to extend only News items: http://docs.typo3.org/typo3cms/extensions/news/latest/Main/Tutorial/ExtendingNews/

Does anyone know of a tutorial in English, or can explain a bit, how it would work to simply add an additional selectable field to all content elements?

Answer 1

You can use TypoScript to do something like this. Add this to your page.ts config, then you can select it via "appearance/layout"

TCEFORM.tt_content.section_frame {
    removeItems = 1,5,6,10,11,12,20,21,66
    addItems {
        100 = Module Green
        110 = Module Dark
    }
}

in the your main TypoScript setup, you have to add:

tt_content.stdWrap.innerWrap.cObject {
    100 =< tt_content.stdWrap.innerWrap.cObject.default
    100.20.10.value = module green

    100 =< tt_content.stdWrap.innerWrap.cObject.default
    100.20.10.value = module dark
}

the second one should give you the class names u need for your HTML.

Answer 2

If you really cannot reuse an existing field, try the extension kickstarter instead. You can find a 6.2 compatible version at: https://github.com/mneuhaus/TYPO3-Kickstarter