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Shortcuts to pages, folders, conent elements and more.

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Shortcuts to what you are working on

Typo3 provides a way to create shortcuts to what you are currently working on.  You can do this with pages, content elements, folders of files, the editor of a particular file that you can edit (note: you cannot edit most files online so this won't apply to most of you.  For more see this important note).

How useful this is to you will have to be your decision.  Of all the aids that Typo3 offers this seems to have gotten the least attention.  It functions correctly but it lacks some features.

Pros/Cons

Pros 

  • If you have an area that you often go to to edit, and your site is rather large, you can create a shortcut to the root page of that area.  Then if you are in the list module, you will see all the subpages.
  • If you have a folder you often add new images/documents to, you can create a shortcut to it
  • If you often change your user settings, you can create a shortcut to that as well.

Cons

  • You have to delete each item in the list one at a time, there is no way to "delete all" to clear the list.
  • If you create a shortcut to a content element, it names it "Shortcut", so you would want to rename it immediately before adding a shortcut to another content element as it too would be named "Shortcut".
  • You cannot edit or change the groups.
  • Their naming is not well thought out.  You cannot shortcut to a individual file, but you can to a folder, but the group is named "Files".  When creating a shortcut, everything is called a "page".

So you will have to decide how much value it is for you to use.

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Where is it located?

Both the "Create shortcut to this page" and the "Shortcuts" menu are located in the top right of the work area.

To see the list of shortcuts click once on the "Shortcuts" icon.  This will expand the menu.  It will stay expanded until you click it again.

If you have no shortcuts in your shortcut menu you will get a message telling you how to add them. 

 

 

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Adding a shortcut

Simply click the small curved arrow icon in the gray area of the workspace.

You will get a confirmation request.  NOTE no matter what you are adding a shortcut to, whether page, folder or tool, the icon will be labeled "Create shortcut to this page?" and the confirmation will say:

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Renaming and organizing Shortcuts

As mentioned above it's a good idea to do this.  Especially with content elements as they are all labeled "Shortcut".  

When you mouse over the list, you will see a pencil and a garbage can appear next to the item that you are currently over.

  1. Edit
  2. Delete

Click the edit icon (pencil)

  1. Rename the shortcut
  2. Group - No Group, Pages, Records, Files, Tools, Miscellaneous
  3. Delete - delete this shortcut
  4. Save (ok) or cancel

Renaming a shortcut can save you trouble later.  Especially with content elements as they all are labeled "Shortcut".  For some reason, only known to the developers of Typo3, shortcuts to folders include the folder name with "Shortcut" before it.  

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Shortcuts to content elements

When you add a shortcut to a content element it's best you immediately rename it something meaningful.  Typo3 will label ALL shortcuts to content elements "Shortcut".  Not much help.  

When you have created your shortcut to a content element, go to the shortcut menu.  You will see the label "Shortcut" with a content element icon next to it (see image above).  Edit this shortcut so you can rename it.

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Grouping shortcuts

You can group your shortcuts according to what type of item the shortcut is to.  I'm hoping that in a next version they will let you create your own groups as this might be far more valuable.  The groups are suggestions of how to organize your shortcuts.  You can if you want put a shortcut to a physical file under the "Tools" group or a page under "Records".  The decision is yours.  My explanation below the image is just my suggestion.

The groups are:

  • No Group
  • Pages - the pages of your site
  • Records - possibly content elements
  • Files - physical files
  • Tools - really there is only one that most of our users can shortcut, that is "User settings".  Administrators do have more tools though and many can have shortcuts to them.
  • Miscellaneous - what ever you want

Once you have added your shortcuts to a group they will display accordingly in the shortcut menu.

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