FAL and Extbase - the easy part

By: Anja Leichsenring

You want to use FAL in your extension? Here is how to display images and link files in Fluid view.

Since FAL became part of the TYPO3 core in version 6.0, extension authors want to use the new API in their extension. With Extbase version 6.1 the FileReference Model was introduced, providing this API to deal with files in views nearly transparent the old way and the FAL way.

This article tackles the question how to prepare a model to use FAL images in an objectStorage and display them via Fluid.

After the buzz environment does not deal very well with source code, the snippets are collected in a gist document. 

First thing to do is to declare a field in your table sql and its TCA as a FAL images field. 

Second is to provide a property in the model. Don't forget to init the objectStorage.

Last, but not least: pass the object holding the property to your view and let it render the images in a for-loop using the ImageViewHelper.

In this way you can easily deal with all kind of files and fileReferences in Extbase context. For the scope of this little tutorial, you have to fill the data using the TYPO3 backend. Writing FAL access will be the topic of another article. Stay tuned and let us know about your experience in the comments.