TWiki Reference Manual (Tue, 04 Jul 2006 build 10807)
This page contains all documentation topics as one long, complete reference sheet.
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Related Topics: TWikiSite,
TWikiHistory,
TWikiPlannedFeatures,
TWikiEnhancementRequests,
UserDocumentationCategory,
AdminDocumentationCategory
TWiki System Requirements
Server and client requirements
Low client and server base requirements are core features that keep TWiki widely deployable, particularly across a range of browser platforms and versions. Many
Plugins and
contrib modules exist which enhance and expand TWiki's capabilities; they may have additional requirements.
Server Requirements
TWiki is written in Perl 5, uses a number of shell commands, and requires
RCS (Revision Control System), a GNU Free Software package. TWiki is developed in a basic Linux/Apache environment. It also works with Microsoft Windows, and should have no problem on any other platform that meets the requirements.
Resource | Required Server Environment * |
Perl | 5.005_03 or higher (5.8.4 or higher is recommended) |
RCS | 5.7 or higher (including GNU diff ) Optional, TWiki includes a pure perl implementation of RCS that can be used instead (although it's slower) |
GNU diff | GNU diff 2.7 or higher is required when not using the all-Perl RcsLite. Install on PATH if not included with RCS (check version with diff -v ) Must be the version used by RCS, to avoid problems with binary attachments - RCS may have hard-coded path to diff |
GNU patch | For upgrades only: GNU patch is required when using the TWiki:Codev.UpgradeTWiki script |
Other external programs | fgrep, egrep |
Cron/scheduler | • Unix: cron • Windows: cron equivalents |
Web server | Apache is well supported; see TWiki:TWiki.InstallingTWiki#OtherWebServers for other servers |
Required CPAN Modules
The following Perl modules are used by TWiki:
Module | Preferred version |
Algorithm::Diff (included) | |
CGI::Carp | >=1.26 |
Config | >=0 |
Cwd | >=3.05 |
Data::Dumper | >=2.121 |
Error (included) | |
File::Copy | >=2.06 |
File::Find | >=1.05 |
File::Spec | >=3.05 |
File::Temp | (included with perl 5.6 and later) |
FileHandle | >=2.01 |
IO::File | >=1.10 |
Text::Diff (included) | |
Time::Local | >=1.11 |
Optional CPAN Modules
The following Perl modules may be used by TWiki:
Module | Preferred version | Description |
CGI::Cookie | >=1.24 | Used for session support |
CGI::Session | >=3.95 | Used for session support |
Digest::base | | |
Digest::SHA1 | | |
Jcode | | Used for I18N support with perl 5.6 |
Locale::Maketext::Lexicon | >=0 | Used for I18N support |
Net::SMTP | >=2.29 | Used for sending mail |
Unicode::Map | | Used for I18N support with perl 5.6 |
Unicode::Map8 | | Used for I18N support with perl 5.6 |
Unicode::MapUTF8 | | Used for I18N support with perl 5.6 |
Unicode::String | | Used for I18N support with perl 5.6 |
URI | | Used for configure |
Most of them will probably already be available in your installation. You can check version numbers with the
configure
script, or if you're still trying to get to that point, check from the command line like this:
perl -e 'use FileHandle; print $FileHandle::VERSION."\n"'
Client Requirements
The TWiki
standard installation has relatively low browser requirements:
- HTML 3.2 compliant
- Cookies, if persistent sessions are required
CSS and Javascript are used in most skins, although there is a low-fat skin (Classic skin) available that minimises these requirements. Some skins will require more recent releases of browsers. The default skin (Pattern) is tested on IE 6, Safari, and Mozilla 5.0 based browsers (such as Firefox).
You can easily select a balance of browser capability versus look and feel. Try the installed skins at
TWikiSkinBrowser and more at
TWiki:Plugins.SkinPackage.
Important note about TWiki Plugins
- Plugins can require just about anything - browser-specific functions, stylesheets (CSS), Java applets, cookies, specific Perl modules,... - check the individual Plugin specs.
- Note: Plugins included in the TWiki distribution do not add requirements, except for the CommentPlugin which requires Perl 5.6.1.
Related Topics: AdminDocumentationCategory
TWiki Installation Guide
Installation instructions for the TWiki 4.0 production release.
If you are upgrading from a previous version of TWiki, you probably want to read
TWikiUpgradeGuide instead.
TWiki should be fine with any web server and OS that meet the
system requirements. The following installation instructions are written for experienced system administrators; please review the
AdminSkillsAssumptions before you install TWiki. If you need help, ask a question in the
TWiki:Support web or on
TWiki:Codev.TWikiIRC (irc.freenode.net, channel #twiki)
Hint: TWiki:TWiki.InstallingTWiki on TWiki.org has supplemental documentation that help you install TWiki on different platforms, environments and web hosting sites.
Basic Installation
- Download the TWiki distribution from http://TWiki.org/download.html.
- Make a directory for the installation and unpack the distribution in it.
- Make sure the user that runs CGI scripts on your system can read and write all files in the distribution.
Detailed instructions on file permissions are beyond the scope of this guide, but in general:
- During installation and configuration, the CGI user needs to be able to read and write everything in the distribution,
- Once installation and configuration is complete, the CGI user needs write access to everything under the
data
and pub
directories and to lib/LocalSite.cfg
. Everything else should be read-only.
- Everybody else should be denied access to everything, always.
- Make sure Perl 5 and the Perl CGI library are installed on your system.
The default location of Perl is /usr/bin/perl
. If it's somewhere else, change the path to Perl in the first line of each script in the twiki/bin
directory.
Some systems require a special extension on perl scripts (e.g. .cgi
or .pl
). If necessary, rename all files in twiki/bin
(i.e. rename view
to view.pl
etc). If you do this, make sure you set the ScriptSuffix
option in configure
(Step 6).
- Create the file
/twiki/bin/LocalLib.cfg
.
There is a template for this file in /twiki/bin/LocalLib.cfg.txt
.
The file must contain a setting for $twikiLibPath
, which must point to the absolute file path of your twiki/lib
e.g. /home/httpd/twiki/lib
.
If you need to install additional CPAN modules, but can't update the main Perl installation files on the server, you can set $CPANBASE
to point to your personal CPAN install. Don't forget that the webserver user has to be able to read those files as well.
- Configure the webserver so you can execute the
bin/configure
script from your browser.
- Explicit instructions for doing this are beyond the scope of this document, though there is a lot of advice on TWiki.org covering different configurations of webserver. To help you out, there's an example Apache
httpd.conf
file in twiki_httpd_conf.txt
at the root of the package. This file also contains advice on securing your installation. There's also a script called tools/rewriteshebang.pl
to help you in fixing up the shebang lines in your CGI scripts.
- Run the
configure
script from your browser, and resolve any errors or warnings it tells you about.
You now have a basic, unauthenticated installation running. At this point you can just point your Web browser at
http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/view
and start TWiki-ing away!
Next Steps
Once you have your TWiki running, you can move on to customise it for your users.
Troubleshooting
- The first step is to re-run the
configure
script and make sure you have resolved all errors, and are happy that you understand any warnings.
- TWiki:TWiki.InstallingTWiki on TWiki.org has supplemental documentation that help you install TWiki on different platforms, environments and web hosting sites.
- If you need help, ask a question in the TWiki:Support web or on TWiki:Codev.TWikiIRC (irc.freenode.net, channel #twiki)
TWiki Upgrade Guide
Upgrade from the previous TWiki 01-Sep-2004 Prodcution Release to TWiki-4.0.0
Overview
TWiki-4.0.0 is a major new release. You can chose between an automated upgrade using a script or a manual update.
Upgrade Requirements
- Please review the AdminSkillsAssumptions before you upgrade TWiki
- Review TWiki:TWiki.TWikiUpgradeTo04x00x00 for latest information and experience notes.
- To upgrade from a release prior to TWiki Release 01-Sep-2004, start with TWiki:TWiki.UpgradingTWiki on TWiki.org
- To upgrade from a standard TWiki Release 01-Sep-2004 to the latest TWiki-4.0.0 Production Release, follow the instructions below
- Once the upgrade has been applied, an existing earlier installation will still be able to read all the topics, but should not be used to write. Make sure you take a backup!
- Not all Plugins written for TWiki Release 01-Sep-2004 are fully supported with Dakar. Make sure the Plugins you use can be upgraded as well!
Major Changes Compared to TWiki Release 01-Sep-2004
See
TWikiReleaseNotes04x00.
Automated Upgrade Procedure
If you would prefer to do things manually,
or if you made custom modifications to distributed files (except topics), then skip to the
manual upgrade procedure below.
The upgrade script is called
"UpgradeTwiki"
, and is found in the root of the distribution. It can be run by any user, though you will need to make sure you correct the permissions so that the webserver user can write all files in the new installation when you have finished. The upgrade script does
not write to your existing installation.
The upgrade script will upgrade the
TWiki core only. Plugins will need to be upgraded separately.
Note: To upgrade from a Beta,
do not use UpgradeTWiki. Instead follow the steps outlined in
Upgrading a Beta, below.
It will:
- Create a new TWiki installation, placing the files from the distribution there as appropriate
- Where possible, merge the changes you've made in your existing topics and attachments into the new twiki
- Where not possible, it will tell you, and you can inspect those differences manually
- Create new configuration files for the new TWiki based on your existing configuation information
- Set the permissions in the new TWiki so that it should work straight away
- Attempt to setup authentication for your new TWiki, if you are using .htaccess in the old one
- Tell you what else you need to do
To perform the upgrade, you need to:
- Check first if there is a newer
UpgradeTwiki
script available, see TWiki:Codev.UpgradeTWiki
- Create a new directory for your new installation: Let's call this
distro/
- Put the distribution zip file in
distro/
- Unzip it
- Choose a directory for the new installation. I will call this
new_twiki
. This directory must not already exist.
- Change directory to
distro/
and run:
./UpgradeTwiki <full path to existing_twiki's setlib.cfg> <full path to new_twiki>
- confirm your system settings by pointing your browser to the
configure
script
Assuming all goes well,
UpgradeTwiki
will give you the final instructions.
Visit
TWiki:Codev.KnownIssuesOfTWiki04x00x00 and fix known issues that apply to you.
There are a few points worth noting:
-
UpgradeTwiki
may not be able to merge all the changes you made in your existing TWiki into the new installation, but it will tell you which ones it couldn't deal with
-
UpgradeTwiki
creates the new installation in a new directory tree. It makes a complete copy of all your existing data, so:
- Clearly you need to point it to a location where there is enough space
- If you have symlinks under your
data/
directory in your existing installation, these are reproduced as actual directories in the new structure. It is up to you to pull these sub-directories out again and re-symlink as needed
-
UpgradeTwiki
doesn't deal with custom templates or Plugins, you will have to reinstall these in the new installation.
- If you are using the Htpasswd login manager, then note that email addresses for users have moved out of user topics and into the password database. There is a script that performs this extra upgrade step for you - see
tools/upgrade_emails.pl
.
Manual Upgrade Procedure
The following steps are a rough guide to upgrading only. It is impossible to give detailed instructions, as what you have to do may depend on whether you can configure the webserver or not, and how much you have changed distributed files in your current TWiki release.
- Follow the installation instructions, and install the new release in a new directory.
- Copy your local webs over to the data and pub directories of the new install
- You could also use softlinks to link the web directories in data and pub to the old installation area
- Unlock the rcs files in data and pub directories from the old installation using the following shell commands:
-
find data -name '*,v' -exec rcs -r -u -M '{}' \;
-
find pub -name '*,v' -exec rcs -r -u -M '{}' \;
- Examine your old TWiki.cfg, and for each local setting, set the corresponding value in the
configure
interface for the new install.
- If you can't use
configure
, then copy the new TWiki.cfg
to LocalSite.cfg
, and edit LocalSite.cfg
. Remove all the settings that you didn't change in your previous install, and change the remaining settings to the values from your old TWiki.cfg.
- Transfer any customized and local settings from TWiki.TWikiPreferences to the topic pointed at by {LocalSitePreferences} (Main.TWikiPreferences). This avoids having to write over files in the distribution.
- If you changed any of the topics in the original TWiki distribution, you will have to transfer your changes to the new install manually. There is no simple way to do this, though the following procedure may help:
- Install a copy of the original TWiki release you were using in a temporary directory
- Use 'diff' to find changed files, and transfer the changes into the new Dakar install.
- Install updated plugins into your new area.
- Point your webserver at the new install.
- Visit TWiki:Codev.KnownIssuesOfTWiki04x00x00 and fix known issues that apply to you.
- If you are using the Htpasswd login manager, then note that email addresses for users have moved out of user topics and into the password database. There is a script that performs this extra upgrade step for you - see
tools/upgrade_emails.pl
.
You are
highly recommended
not to change any distributed files if you can avoid it, to simplify future upgrades!
Upgrading a Beta
If you followed the recommendations and avoided modifying any distributed files, then this is quite straightforward:
- Follow the installation instructions, and install the new release in a new directory.
- Copy your local webs over to the data and pub directories of the new install
- Be careful to copy over the user topics and TWikiUsers?.txt in the Main web
- Copy over your
bin/LocalLib.cfg
and lib/LocalSite.cfg
files
- Copy over any local files you created (such as .htpasswd and .htaccess files)
- Point your webserver at the new install.
If you changed any of the distributed files, you will have to continue from Step 5 above.
Upgrading from Cairo to TWiki4 (additional advice)
Favicon
TWiki4's
PatternSkin introduces the use of the favicon feature which most browsers use to show a small icon in front of the URL and for bookmarks.
In TWiki4 it is assumed that each web has a favicon.ico file attached to the WebPreferences topic. When you upgrade from Cairo to TWiki4 you do not have this file and you will get flooded with errors the error log of your web server. There are two solutions to this.
- Attach a favicon.ico file to WebPreferences in each web.
- Change the setting of the location of favicon.ico in TWikiPreferences so all webs use the favicon.ico from the TWiki web. This is the fastest and easiest solution.
To change the location of favicon.ico in TWikiPreferences to the TWiki web add this line to
TWikiPreferences
* Set FAVICON = %PUBURLPATH%/%TWIKIWEB%/%WEBPREFSTOPIC%/favicon.ico
TWiki User Authentication
TWiki site access control and user activity tracking options
Overview
Authentication, or "login", is the process by which a user lets TWiki know who they are.
Authentication isn't just to do with access control. TWiki uses authentication to identify users, so it can keep track of who made changes, and manage a wide range of personal settings. With authentication enabled, users can personalise TWiki and contribute as recognised individuals, instead of shadows.
TWiki authentication is very flexible, and can either stand alone or integrate with existing authentication schemes. You can set up TWiki to require authentication for every access, or only for changes. Authentication is also essential for access control.
Quick Authentication Test - Use the %WIKIUSERNAME% variable to return your current identity:
TWiki user authentication is split into three sections; password management, user registration, and login management. Password management deals with how users are recognised (authenticated). Registration deals with how new users are added to the wiki. Login management deals with how users log in.
Once a user is logged on, they are remembered using a "session id" stored in a cookie in the browser (or by other less elegant means if the user has disabled cookies). This avoids them having to log on again and again.
Please note
FileAttachments are not protected by TWiki User Authentication.
Tip: TWiki:TWiki.TWikiUserAuthenticationSupplement on TWiki.org has supplemental documentation on user authentication.
Password Management
As shipped, TWiki supports the Apache 'htpasswd' password manager. This manager supports the use of
.htpasswd
files on the server. These files can be unique to TWiki, or can be shared with other applications (such as an Apache webserver). A variety of password encodings are supported for flexibility when re-using existing files. See the descriptive comments in the Security Settings section of the
configure
interface for more details.
New User Registration
New user registration uses the password manager to set and change passwords. It is also responsible for the new user verification process. the registration process supports
single user registration via the
TWikiRegistration page, and
bulk user registration via the
BulkRegistration page (for admins only).
The registration process is responsible for creating user topics.
Login Management
Login management controls the way users have to log in. There are three basic options; no login, login via a TWiki login page, and login using the webserver authentication support.
You can select your chosen login through the Security Settings pane in the
configure
interface.
No Login (select none
in configure)
Does exactly what it says on the tin. Forget about authentication to make your site completely public - anyone can browse and edit freely, in classic Wiki style. All visitors are given the
TWikiGuest default identity, so you can't track individual user activity.
Note: This setup is not recommended on public websites for security reasons; anyone would be able to change system settings and perform tasks usually restricted to the
TWikiAdminGroup.
Template Login (select TWiki::Client::TemplateLogin
in configure)
Template Login asks for a username and password in a web page, and processes them using whatever Password Manager you choose. Users can log in and log out.
Enabling Template Login
- Use the
configure
interface to
- select the
TWiki::Client::TemplateLogin
login manager (on the Security Settings pane).
- select the appropriate password manager for your system, or provide your own.
- Register yourself in the TWikiRegistration topic.
Check that the password manager recognises the new user. If you are using .htpasswd
files, check that a new line with the username and encrypted password is added to the .htpasswd
file. If not, you probably got a path wrong, or the permissions may not allow the webserver user to write to that file.
- Create a new topic to check if authentication works.
- Edit the TWikiAdminGroup topic in the Main web to include users with system administrator status.
This is a very important step, as users in this group can access all topics, independent of TWiki access controls.
TWikiAccessControl has more information on setting up access controls.
At this time
TWikiAccessControls cannot control access to files in the
pub
area, unless they are only accessed through the
viewfile
script. If your
pub
directory is set up in the webserver to allow open access you may want to add
.htaccess
files in there to restrict access.
You can create a custom version of the
TWikiRegistration form by deleting or adding input tags. The
name=""
parameter of the input tags must start with:
"Twk0..."
(if this is an optional entry), or
"Twk1..."
(if this is a required entry). This ensures that the fields are carried over into the user home page correctly.
You can customize the default user home page in
NewUserTemplate. The same variables get expanded as in the
template topics
Apache Login (select TWiki::Client::ApacheLogin
in configure)
Using this method TWiki does not authenticate users internally. Instead it depends on the
REMOTE_USER
environment variable, which is set when you enable authentication in the webserver.
The advantage of this scheme is that if you have an existing website authentication scheme using Apache modules such as
mod_auth_ldap
or
mod_auth_mysql
you can just plug in directly to them.
The disadvantage is that because the user identity is cached in the browser, you can log in, but you can't log out again unless you restart the browser.
TWiki maps the
REMOTE_USER
that was used to log in to the webserver to a
WikiName using the table in
TWikiUsers. This table is updated whenever a user registers, so users can choose not to register (in which case their webserver login name is used for their signature) or register (in which case that login name is mapped to their
WikiName).
The same private
.htpasswd
file used in TWiki Template Login can be used to authenticate Apache users, using the Apache Basic Authentication support. This allows the TWiki registration support to maintain usernames and passwords.
Warning: Do
not use the Apache
htpasswd
program with
.htpasswd
files generated by TWiki!
htpasswd
wipes out email addresses that TWiki plants in the info fields of this file.
Enabling Apache Login using mod_auth
You can use any other Apache authentication module that sets REMOTE_USER.
- Use configure to select the
TWiki::Client::ApacheLogin
login manager.
- Use configure to set up TWiki to create the right kind of
.htpasswd
entries.
- Create a
.htaccess
file in the twiki/bin
directory.
There is an template for this file in twiki/bin/.htaccess.txt
that you can copy and change. The comments in the file explain what need to be done.
If you got it right, the browser should now ask for login name and password when you click on the Edit. If .htaccess
does not have the desired effect, you may need to "AllowOverride All" for the directory in httpd.conf
(if you have root access; otherwise, e-mail web server support)
At this time TWikiAccessControls do not control access to files in the pub
area, unless they are only accessed through the viewfile
script. If your pub
directory is set up to allow open access you may want to add .htaccess
files in there as well to restrict access
- You can create a custom version of TWikiRegistration by deleting or adding input tags. The
name=""
parameter of the input tags must start with: "Twk0..."
(if this is an optional entry), or "Twk1..."
(if this is a required entry). This ensures that the fields are carried over into the user home page correctly.
You can customize the default user home page in NewUserTemplate. The same variables get expanded as in the template topics
- Register yourself in the TWikiRegistration topic.
Check that a new line with the username and encrypted password is added to the .htpasswd
file. If not, you may have got a path wrong, or the permissions may not allow the webserver user to write to that file.
- Create a new topic to check if authentication works.
- Edit the TWikiAdminGroup topic in the Main web to include users with system administrator status.
This is a very important step, as users in this group can access all topics, independent of TWiki access controls.
TWikiAccessControl has more information on setting up access controls.
Logons via bin/logon
Any time a user enters a page that needs authentication, they will be forced to log on. It may be convenient to have a "logon" as well, to give the system a chance to identify the user and retrieve their personal settings. It may be convenient to force them to log on.
The
bin/logon
script accomplishes this. The
bin/logon
script must be setup in the
bin/.htaccess
file to be a script which requires a
valid user
. However, once authenticated, it will simply redirect the user to the view URL for the page from which the
logon
script was linked.
Sessions
TWiki uses the
CPAN:CGI::Session and
CPAN:CGI::Cookie modules to track sessions using cookies. These modules are de facto standards for session management among Perl programmers. If you can't use Cookies for any reason,
CPAN:CGI::Session also supports session tracking using the client IP address. See
How to choose an authentication method for a discussion of the pros and cons of the various authentication methods.
There are a number of
TWikiVariables available that you can use to interrogate your current session. You can even add your own session variables to the TWiki cookie. Session variables are referred to as "sticky" variables.
Getting, Setting, and Clearing Session Variables
You can get, set, and clear session variables from within TWiki web pages or by using script parameters. This allows you to use the session as a personal "persistent memory space" that is not lost until the web browser is closed. Also note that if a session variable has the same name as a TWiki preference, the session variables value takes precedence over the TWiki preference.
This allows for per-session preferences.
To make use of these features, use the tags:
%SESSION_VARIABLE{ "varName" }%
%SESSION_VARIABLE{ "varName" set="varValue" }%
%SESSION_VARIABLE{ "varName" clear="" }%
Note that you
cannot override access controls preferences this way.
Cookies and Transparent Session IDs
TWiki normally uses cookies to store session information on a client computer. Cookies are a common way to pass session information from client to server. TWiki cookies simply hold a unique session identifier that is used to look up a database of session information on the TWiki server.
For a number of reasons, it may not be possible to use cookies. In this case, TWiki has a fallback mechanism; it will automatically rewrite every internal URL it sees on pages being generated to one that also passes session information.
TWiki Username vs. Login Username
This section applies only if you are using authentication with existing login names (i.e. mapping from login names to
WikiNames).
TWiki internally manages two usernames: Login Username and TWiki Username.
- Login Username: When you login to the intranet, you use your existing login username, ex:
pthoeny
. This name is normally passed to TWiki by the REMOTE_USER
environment variable, and used internally. Login Usernames are maintained by your system administrator.
- TWiki Username: Your name in WikiNotation, ex:
PeterThoeny
, is recorded when you register using TWikiRegistration; doing so also generates a personal home page in the Main web.
TWiki can automatically map an Intranet (Login) Username to a TWiki Username if the {AllowLoginName} is enabled in
configure
. The default is to use your
WikiName as a login name.
NOTE: To correctly enter a WikiName - your own or someone else's - be sure to include the Main web name in front of the Wiki username, followed by a period, and no spaces, for example Main.WikiUsername
or %MAINWEB%.WikiUsername
.
This points WikiUsername
to the Main web, where user home pages are located, no matter which web it's entered in. Without the web prefix, the name appears as a NewTopic? everywhere but in the Main web.
Changing Passwords
If your {PasswordManager} supports password changing, you can change and reset passwords using forms on regular pages.
Changing E-mail Addresses
If the active {PasswordManager} supports storage and retrieval of user e-mail addresses, you can change your e-mail using a regular page. As shipped, this is true only for the Apache 'htpasswd' password manager.
Controlling access to individual scripts
You may want to add or remove scripts from the list of scripts that require authentication. The method for doing this is different for each of Template Login and Apache Login.
- For Template Login, update the {AuthScripts} list using
configure
- For Apache Login, add/remove the script from
.htaccess
How to choose an authentication method
One of the key features of TWiki is that it is possible to add HTML to topics. No authentication method is 100% secure on a website where end users can add HTML, as there is always a risk that a malicious user can add code to a topic that gathers user information, such as session IDs. The TWiki developers have been forced to make certain tradeoffs, in the pursuit of efficiency, that may be exploited by a hacker.
This section discusses some of the known risks. You can be sure that any potential hackers have read this section as well!
Firstly, the
most secure method is without doubt to use the webserver authentication support, with Sessions turned
off.
The
second most secure method is to use TWiki's internal authentication with Sessions turned
off. This method is less secure than using the webserver because passwords are sent in
plain text and can therefore be intercepted in transit.
As soon as you allow the server to maintain information about a logged-in user, you open a door to potential attacks. There are a variety of ways a malicious user can pervert TWiki to obtain another users session ID, the most common of which is known as a
cross-site scripting attack. Once a hacker has an SID they can pretend to be that user.
To help prevent these sorts of attacks, TWiki supports
IP matching, which ensures that the IP address of the user requesting a specific session is the same as the IP address of the user who created the session. This works well as long as IP addresses are unique to each client, and as long as the IP address of the client can't be faked.
The
third most secure method is to use sessions with IP matching ({UseIPMatching} switched on). Shorter session expiry times are more secure ({Sessions}{ExpireAfter}). The default session lifetime is 6 hours, which is quite a long lifetime for a session.
Session IDs are usually stored by TWiki in cookies, which are stored in the client browser. Cookies work well, but not all environments or users permit cookies to be stored in browsers. So TWiki also supports two other methods of determining the session ID. The first method uses the client IP address to determine the session ID. The second uses a rewriting method that rewrites local URLs in TWiki pages to include the session ID in the URL.
The first method works well as long as IP addresses are
unique to each individual client, and client IP addresses can't be faked by a hacker. If IP addresses are unique and can't be faked, it is almost as secure as cookies + IP matching, so it ranks as the
fourth most secure method.
If you have to turn IP matching off, and cookies can't be relied on, then you may have to rely on the second method, URL rewriting. This method exposes the session IDs very publicly, so should be regarded as the
least secure method.
See
TWiki:TWiki.SecuringTWikiSite for more information.
TWiki Access Control
Restricting read and write access to topics and webs, by Users and groups
TWiki Access Control allows you restrict access to single topics and entire webs, by individual user and by user Groups. Access control, combined with
TWikiUserAuthentication, lets you easily create and manage an extremely flexible, fine-grained privilege system.
Tip: TWiki:TWiki.TWikiAccessControlSupplement on TWiki.org has additional documentation on access control.
An Important Control Consideration
Open, freeform editing is the essence of
WikiCulture - what makes TWiki different and often more effective than other collaboration tools. For that reason, it is strongly recommended that decisions to restrict read or write access to a web or a topic are made with great care - the more restrictions, the less Wiki in the mix. Experience shows that
unrestricted write access works very well because:
- Peer influence is enough to ensure that only relevant content is posted.
- Peer editing - the ability for anyone to rearrange all content on a page - keeps topics focused.
- In TWiki, content is transparently preserved under revision control:
- Edits can be undone by the TWikiAdminGroup (the default administrators group; see #ManagingGroups).
- Users are encouraged to edit and refactor (condense a long topic), since there's a safety net.
As a
collaboration guideline:
- Create broad-based Groups (for more and varied input), and...
- Avoid creating view-only Users (if you can read it, you should be able to contribute to it).
Permissions settings of the webs on this TWiki site
See
TWikiAccessControl for details
Please Note:
- A blank in the the above table may mean either the corresponding control is absent or commented out or that it has been set to a null value. The two conditions have dramatically different and possibly opposed semantics.
- TWikiGuest is the guest account - used by unauthenticated users.
- The TWiki web must not deny view to TWikiGuest; otherwise, people will not be able to register.
Note: Above table comes from
SitePermissions
Authentication vs. Access Control
Authentication: Identifies who a user is based on a login procedure. See
TWikiUserAuthentication.
Access control: Restrict access to content based on users and groups once a user is identified.
Users and Groups
Access control is based on the familiar concept of Users and Groups. Users are defined by their
WikiNames. They can then be organized in unlimited combinations by inclusion in one or more user Groups. For convenience, Groups can also be included in other Groups.
Managing Users
A user can create an account in
TWikiRegistration. The following actions are performed:
- WikiName and encrypted password are recorded using the password manager if authentication is enabled.
- A confirmation e-mail is sent to the user.
- A user home page with the WikiName of the user is created in the Main web.
- The user is added to the TWikiUsers topic.
The default visitor name is
TWikiGuest. This is the non-authenticated user.
Managing Groups
Groups are defined by group topics located in the
Main
web, such as the
TWikiAdminGroup. To create a new group, visit
TWikiGroups and enter the name of the new group ending in
Group
into the "new group" form field. This will create a new group topic with two important settings:
-
Set GROUP = < list of Users and/or Groups >
-
Set ALLOWTOPICCHANGE = < list of Users and/or Groups >
The GROUP setting is a comma-separated list of users and/or other groups. Example:
-
Set GROUP = Main.SomeUser, Main.OtherUser, Main.SomeGroup
The ALLOWTOPICCHANGE setting defines who is allowed to change the group topic; it is a comma delimited list of users and groups. You typically want to restrict that to the members of the group itself, so it should contain the name of the topic. This prevents users not in the group from editing the topic to give themselves or others access. For example, for the TWikiAdminGroup topic write:
-
Set ALLOWTOPICCHANGE = Main.TWikiAdminGroup
Note: TWiki has strict formatting rules. Make sure you have three spaces, an asterisk, and an extra space in front of any access control rule.
The Super Admin Group
By mistyping a user or group name in the settings, it's possible to lock a topic so that no-one can edit it from a browser. To avoid this, add the
WikiNames of registered administrators to the super admin group topic called
TWikiAdminGroup
. The name of this topic is defined by the {SuperAdminGroup} configure setting. Example group setting:
-
Set GROUP= Main.ElizabethWindsor, Main.TonyBlair
Restricting Access
You can define who is allowed to read or write to a web or a topic. Note that some plugins may not respect access permissions.
- Restricting VIEW blocks viewing and searching of content.
- Restricting CHANGE blocks creating new topics, changing topics or attaching files.
- Restricting RENAME controls who is allowed to rename, move or delete a topic.
- To rename, move or delete a topic, the user also also needs VIEW and CHANGE permission. They also need CHANGE access to change references in any referring topics (though the rename can proceed without this access), and CHANGE access to the target topic.
- Restricting MANAGE controls access to certain management functions, such as 'create web'. It must be set in the TWiki web.
Controlling access to a Web
You can define restrictions of who is allowed to view a TWiki web. You can restrict access to certain webs to selected Users and Groups, by:
- authenticating all webs and restricting selected webs: Topic access in all webs is authenticated, and selected webs have restricted access.
- authenticating and restricting selected webs only: Provide unrestricted viewing access to open webs, with authentication and restriction only on selected webs.
- You can define these settings in the WebPreferences topic, preferable towards the end of the topic:
-
Set DENYWEBVIEW = < comma-delimited list of Users and Groups >
-
Set ALLOWWEBVIEW = < comma-delimited list of Users and Groups >
-
Set DENYWEBCHANGE = < comma-delimited list of Users and Groups >
-
Set ALLOWWEBCHANGE = < comma-delimited list of Users and Groups >
-
Set DENYWEBRENAME = < comma-delimited list of Users and Groups >
-
Set ALLOWWEBRENAME = < comma-delimited list of Users and Groups >
Be careful with empty values for any of these. In older versions of TWiki,
meant the same as not setting it at all. However since TWiki Dakar release, it means
allow noone access i.e. prevent anyone from viewing the web. Similarly
now means
do not deny anyone the right to view this web. See "How TWiki evaluates ALLOW/DENY settings" below for more on this.
Controlling access to a Topic
- You can define these settings in the WebPreferences topic, preferable towards the end of the topic:
-
Set DENYTOPICVIEW = < comma-delimited list of Users and Groups >
-
Set ALLOWTOPICVIEW = < comma-delimited list of Users and Groups >
-
Set DENYTOPICCHANGE = < comma-delimited list of Users and Groups >
-
Set ALLOWTOPICCHANGE = < comma-delimited list of Users and Groups >
-
Set DENYTOPICRENAME = < comma-delimited list of Users and Groups >
-
Set ALLOWTOPICRENAME = < comma-delimited list of Users and Groups >
Remember when opening up access to specific topics within a restricted web that other topics in the web - for example, the
WebLeftBar - may also be accessed when viewing the topics. The message you get when you are denied access should tell you what topic you were not permitted to access.
Be careful with empty values for any of these. In older versions of TWiki,
meant the same as not setting it at all. However since TWiki Dakar release, it means
allow no-one access i.e. prevent anyone from viewing the topic. Similarly
now means
do not deny anyone the right to view this topic. See "How TWiki evaluates ALLOW/DENY settings" below for more on this.
Controlling access to Attachments
Attachments are referred to directly, and are not normally indirected via TWiki scripts. This means that the above instructions for access control will
not apply to attachments. It is possible that someone may inadvertently publicise a URL that they expected to be access-controlled.
The easiest way to apply the same access control rules for attachments as apply to topics is to use the Apache
mod_rewrite
module, and configure your webserver to redirect accesses to attachments to the TWiki
viewfile
script. For example,
ScriptAlias /twiki/bin/ /filesystem/path/to/twiki/bin/
Alias /twiki/pub/ /filesystem/path/to/twiki/pub/
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/twiki/pub/TWiki/(.*)$ /twiki/pub/TWiki/$1 [L,PT]
RewriteRule ^/twiki/pub/([^\/]+)/([^\/]+)/([^\/]+)$ /twiki/bin/viewfile/$1/$2?filename=$3 [L,PT]
That way all the controls that apply to the topic also apply to attachments to the topic. Other types of webserver have similar support.
Note: Images embedded in topics will load much slower since each image will be delivered by the
viewfile
script.
How TWiki evaluates ALLOW/DENY settings
When deciding whether to grant access, TWiki evaluates the following rules in order (read from the top of the list; if the logic arrives at
PERMITTED or
DENIED that applies immediately and no more rules are applied). You need to read the rules bearing in mind that VIEW, CHANGE and RENAME access may be granted/denied separately.
- If the user is a super-user
- If DENYTOPIC is set to a list of wikinames
- people in the list will be DENIED.
- If DENYTOPIC is set to empty ( i.e. Set DENYTOPIC = )
- access is PERMITTED i.e no-one is denied access to this topic
- If ALLOWTOPIC is set
- people in the list are PERMITTED
- everyone else is DENIED
- Note that this means that setting ALLOWTOPIC to empty denies access to everyone except admins (unless DENYTOPIC is also set to empty, as described above)
- If DENYWEB is set to a list of wikiname
- people in the list are DENIED access
- If ALLOWWEB is set to a list of wikinames
- people in the list will be PERMITTED
- everyone else will be DENIED
- Note that setting ALLOWWEB to empty denies access to everyone except admins
- If you got this far, access is PERMITTED
Access Control quick recipes
Obfuscating Webs
Another way of hiding webs is to keep them hidden by not publishing the URL and by preventing the
all webs
search option from accessing obfuscated webs. Do so by enabling the
NOSEARCHALL
variable in
WebPreferences:
This setup can be useful to hide a new web until content its ready for deployment, or to hide view access restricted webs.
Note: Obfuscating a web without view access control is
very insecure, as anyone who knows the URL can access the web.
Authenticate all Webs and Restrict Selected Webs
Use the following setup to authenticate users for topic viewing in all webs and to restrict access to selected webs. Requires
TWikiUserAuthentication to be enabled.
- Restrict view access to selected Users and Groups. Set one or both of these variables in its WebPreferences topic:
-
Set DENYWEBVIEW = < list of Users and Groups >
-
Set ALLOWWEBVIEW = < list of Users and Groups >
- Note:
DENYWEBVIEW
is evaluated before ALLOWWEBVIEW
. Access is denied if the authenticated person is in the DENYWEBVIEW
list, or not in the ALLOWWEBVIEW
list. Access is granted in case DENYWEBVIEW
and ALLOWWEBVIEW
is not defined.
Authenticate and Restrict Selected Webs Only
Use the following setup to provide unrestricted viewing access to open webs, with authentication only on selected webs. Requires
TWikiUserAuthentication to be enabled.
- Restrict view access to selected Users and Groups. Set one or both of these variables in its WebPreferences topic:
-
Set DENYWEBVIEW = < list of Users and Groups >
-
Set ALLOWWEBVIEW = < list of Users and Groups >
- Note:
DENYWEBVIEW
is evaluated before ALLOWWEBVIEW
. Access is denied if the authenticated person is in the DENYWEBVIEW
list, or not in the ALLOWWEBVIEW
list. Access is granted in case DENYWEBVIEW
and ALLOWWEBVIEW
is not defined.
Hide Control Settings
Tip: To hide access control settings from normal browser viewing, place them in HTML comment markers.
<!--
* Set DENYTOPICCHANGE = Main.SomeGroup
-->
TWiki Text Formatting
Working in TWiki is as easy as typing in text. You don't need to know HTML, though you can use it if you prefer. Links to topics are created automatically when you enter
WikiWords. And TWiki shorthand gives you all the power of HTML with a simple coding system that takes no time to learn. It's all laid out below.
TWiki Editing Shorthand
Formatting Command:
|
You write:
|
You get:
|
Paragraphs:
Blank lines will create new paragraphs.
|
1st paragraph
2nd paragraph
|
1st paragraph
2nd paragraph
|
Headings:
Three or more dashes at the beginning of a line, followed by plus signs and the heading text. One plus creates a top level heading, two pluses a second level heading, etc. The maximum heading depth is 6.
You can create a table of contents with the %TOC% variable. If you want to exclude a heading from the TOC, put !! after the ---+ .
Empty headings are allowed, but won't appear in the table of contents.
|
---++ Sushi
---+++ Maguro
---+++!! Not in TOC
|
Sushi
Maguro
Not in TOC
|
Bold Text:
Words get shown in bold by enclosing them in * asterisks.
|
*Bold*
|
Bold
|
Italic Text:
Words get shown in italic by enclosing them in _ underscores.
|
_Italic_
|
Italic
|
Bold Italic:
Words get shown in bold italic by enclosing them in __ double-underscores.
|
__Bold italic__
|
Bold italic
|
Fixed Font:
Words get shown in fixed font by enclosing them in = equal signs.
|
=Fixed font=
|
Fixed font
|
Bold Fixed Font:
Words get shown in bold fixed font by enclosing them in double equal signs.
|
==Bold fixed==
|
Bold fixed
|
You can follow the closing bold, italic, or other (* _ __ = == ) indicator
with normal punctuation, such as commas and full stops.
Make sure there is no space between the text and the indicators.
|
_This works_,
_this does not _
|
This works,
_this does not _
|
Verbatim (Literal) Text:
Surround code excerpts and other formatted text with <verbatim> and </verbatim> tags.
verbatim tags disable HTML code. Use <pre> and </pre> tags instead if you want the HTML code within the tags to be interpreted.
NOTE: Preferences variables (* Set NAME = value) are set within verbatim tags.
|
<verbatim>
class CatAnimal {
void purr() {
<code here>
}
}
</verbatim>
|
class CatAnimal {
void purr() {
<code here>
}
}
|
Separator (Horizontal Rule):
Three or more three dashes at the beginning of a line..
|
-------
|
|
Bulleted List:
Multiple of three spaces, an asterisk, and another space.
For all the list types, you can break a list item over several lines by indenting lines after the first one by at least 3 spaces.
|
* level 1
* level 2
* back on 1
* A bullet
broken over
three lines
* last bullet
|
- level 1
- back on 1
- A bullet broken over three lines
- last bullet
|
Numbered List:
Multiple of three spaces, a type character, a dot, and another space. Several types are available besides a number:
Type | Generated Style | Sample Sequence |
1. | Arabic numerals | 1, 2, 3, 4... |
A. | Uppercase letters | A, B, C, D... |
a. | Lowercase letters | a, b, c, d... |
I. | Uppercase Roman Numerals | I, II, III, IV... |
i. | Lowercase Roman Numerals | i, ii, iii, iv... |
|
1. Sushi
1. Dim Sum
1. Fondue
A. Sushi
A. Dim Sum
A. Fondue
i. Sushi
i. Dim Sum
i. Fondue
|
- Sushi
- Dim Sum
- Fondue
- Sushi
- Dim Sum
- Fondue
- Sushi
- Dim Sum
- Fondue
|
Definition List:
Three spaces, a dollar sign, the term, a colon, a space, followed by the definition.
|
$ Sushi: Japan
$ Dim Sum: S.F.
|
- Sushi
- Japan
- Dim Sum
- S.F.
|
Table:
Each row of the table is a line containing of one or more cells. Each cell starts and ends with a vertical bar '|'. Any spaces at the beginning of a line are ignored.
-
| *bold* | header cell with text in asterisks
-
| center-aligned | cell with at least two, and equal number of spaces on either side
-
| right-aligned | cell with more spaces on the left
-
| 2 colspan || and multi-span columns with multiple |'s right next to each other
-
|^| cell with caret indicating follow-up row of multi-span rows
- You can split rows over multiple lines by putting a backslash
'\' at the end of each line
- Contents of table cells wrap automatically as determined by the browser
The TablePlugin provides the |^| multiple-span row functionality and additional rendering features
|
| *L* | *C* | *R* |
| A2 | B2 | C2 |
| A3 | B3 | C3 |
| multi span |||
| A5-7 | 5 | 5 |
|^| six | six |
|^| seven | seven |
| split\
| over\
| 3 lines |
| A9 | B9 | C9 |
|
L | C | R |
A2 | B2 | C2 |
A3 | B3 | C3 |
multi span |
A5-7 | 5 | 5 |
six | six |
seven | seven |
split | over | 3 lines |
A9 | B9 | C9 |
|
WikiWord Links:
CapitalizedWordsStuckTogether (or WikiWords) will produce a link automatically if preceded by whitespace or parenthesis.
If you want to link to a topic in a different web write Otherweb.TopicName .
The link label excludes the name of the web, e.g. only the topic name is shown. As an exception, the name of the web is shown for the WebHome topic.
It's generally a good idea to use the TWikiVariables %TWIKIWEB% and %MAINWEB% instead of TWiki and Main.
|
WebStatistics
Sandbox.WebNotify
Sandbox.WebHome
|
WebStatistics
WebNotify
Sandbox
|
Anchors:
You can define a reference inside a TWiki topic (called an anchor name) and link to that. To define an anchor write #AnchorName at the beginning of a line. The anchor name must be a WikiWord. To link to an anchor name use the [[MyTopic#MyAnchor]] syntax. You can omit the topic name if you want to link within the same topic.
|
[[WikiWord#NotThere]]
[[#MyAnchor][Jump]]
#MyAnchor To here
|
WikiWord#NotThere
Jump
To here
|
Forced Links:
You can create a forced internal link by enclosing words in double square brackets.
Text within the brackets may contain optional spaces; the topic name is formed by capitalizing the initial letter and by removing the spaces; for example, [[text formatting FAQ]] links to topic TextFormattingFAQ. You can also refer to a different web and use anchors.
To "escape" double square brackets that would otherwise make a link, prefix the leading left square bracket with an exclamation point.
|
[[wiki syntax]]
[[Main.TWiki users]]
escaped:
![[wiki syntax]]
|
wiki syntax
Main.TWiki users
escaped:
[[wiki syntax]]
|
Specific Links:
You can create a link where you specify the link text and the URL separately using nested square brackets [[reference][text]] . Internal link references (e.g. WikiSyntax) and URLs (e.g. http://TWiki.org/) are both supported.
The rules described under Forced Links apply for internal link references.
Anchor names can be added as well, to create a link to a specific place in a topic.
|
[[WikiSyntax][wiki syntax]]
[[http://gnu.org][GNU]]
|
wiki syntax
GNU
|
Prevent a Link:
Prevent a WikiWord from being linked by prepending it with an exclamation point.
|
!SunOS
|
SunOS
|
Disable Links:
You can disable automatic linking of WikiWords by surrounding text with <noautolink> and </noautolink> tags.
It is possible to turn off all auto-linking with a NOAUTOLINK preferences setting.
|
<noautolink>
RedHat &
SuSE
</noautolink>
|
RedHat &
SuSE
|
Mailto Links:
E-mail addresses are linked automatically. To create e-mail links that have more descriptive link text, specify subject lines or message bodies, or omit the e-mail address, you can write [[mailto:user@domain][descriptive text]] .
|
a@b.com
[[mailto:a@b.com]\
[Mail]]
[[mailto:?subject=\
Hi][Hi]]
|
a@b.com
Mail
Hi
|
Using HTML
You can use just about any HTML tag without a problem. You can add HTML if there is no TWiki equivalent, for example, write
<strike>deleted text</strike>
to get
deleted text.
There are a few usability and technical considerations to keep in mind:
- On collaboration pages, it's better not to use HTML, but to use TWiki shorthand instead - this keeps the text uncluttered and easy to edit.
- If you use HTML use XHTML 1.0 Transitional syntax.
- Script tags may be filtered out, at the discretion of your TWiki administrator.
Recommendations when pasting HTML from other sources:
- Copy only text between
<body>
and </body>
tags.
- Remove all empty lines. TWiki inserts
<p />
paragraph tags on empty lines, which causes problems if done between HTML tags that do not allow paragraph tags, like for example between table tags.
- Remove leading spaces. TWiki might interpret some text as lists.
- Do not span a tag over more than one line. TWiki requires that the opening and closing angle brackets -
<...>
- of an HTML tag are on the same line, or the tag will be broken.
- In your HTML editing program, save without hard line breaks on text wrap.
TWiki converts shorthand notation to HTML for display. To copy a fully marked-up page, simply view the source in your browser and save the contents. If you need to save HTML frequently, you may want to check out
TWiki:Plugins/PublishAddOn.
Script tags
You can use HTML
<script>
tags for your TWiki applications. However note that your TWiki administrator can disable
<script>
in topics, and may have chosen to do so for security considerations. TWiki markup and
TWikiVariables are
not expanded inside script tags.
Hyperlinks
Being able to create links without any special formatting is a core TWiki feature, made possible with
WikiWords and inline URLs.
Internal Links
- GoodStyle is a WikiWord that links to the GoodStyle topic located in the current web.
- NotExistingYet? is a topic waiting to be written. Create the topic by clicking on the ?. (Try clicking, but then, Cancel - creating the topic would wreck this example!)
External Links
-
http://...
, https://...
, ftp://...
, gopher://...
, news://...
, file://...
, telnet://...
and mailto:...@...
are linked automatically.
- E-mail addresses like
name@domain.com
are linked automatically.
-
[[Square bracket rules]]
let you easily create non-WikiWord links.
- You can also write
[[http://yahoo.com Yahoo home page]]
as an easier way of doing external links with descriptive text for the link, such as Yahoo home page.
TWiki Variables
TWiki Variables are names that are enclosed in percent signs
%
that are expanded on the fly. Some variables take arguments, such as
%INCLUDE%
. For those variables, the arguments are included in curly braces ({ and }).
Variable | In brief | Full documentation |
%TOC% | Automatically generates a table of contents based on headings in a topic - see the top of this page for an example. | VarTOC |
%WEB% | The current web, is TWiki. | VarWEB |
%TOPIC% | The current topic name, is TWikiDocumentation. | VarTOPIC |
%ATTACHURL% | The attachment URL of the current topic. Example usage: If you attach a file to a topic you can refer to it as %ATTACHURL%/image.gif to show the URL of the file or the image in your text. | VarATTACHURL |
%INCLUDE{"SomeTopic"}% | Server side include, includes another topic. The current web is the default web. Example: %INCLUDE{"TWiki.SiteMap"}% | VarINCLUDE |
%SEARCH{"sushi"}% | Inline search showing the search result embedded in a topic. FormattedSearch gives you control over formatting, useful for creating web-based applications. | VarSEARCH |
TWikiPreferences defines some site-wide variables. Among them are:
- Line break: Write
%BR%
to start a new line.
- Colored text: Write:
%RED% Red %ENDCOLOR% and %BLUE% blue %ENDCOLOR% colors
to get: Red and blue colors.
There are many more variables. To see them all, go to
TWikiVariables.
Documentation Graphics: There are many graphics available to use in your topics. Use
%ICON{"help"}%
,
%ICON{"tip"|%
, and
%icon{"warning"}%
to get:
,
, and
. To see all of the graphics available, see
TWikiDocGraphics.
To "escape" a variable, prefix it with an exclamation mark. Write:
!%SOMEVARIABLE%
to get: %SOMEVARIABLE%.
TWikiPlugin Formatting Extensions
Plugins can extend the functionality of TWiki into many other areas. There are a huge number of TWiki plugins available from the
Plugins web on TWiki.org.
Currently enabled plugins on this TWiki installation, as listed by
%PLUGINDESCRIPTIONS%
:
- SpreadSheetPlugin (any TWiki, 10197): Add spreadsheet calculation like
"$SUM( $ABOVE() )"
to tables located in TWiki topics. - CommentPlugin (Dakar, 8164): Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
- EditTablePlugin (Dakar, 8154): Edit TWiki tables using edit fields, date pickers and drop down boxes
- InterwikiPlugin (Dakar, $Rev: 8329$): Link
ExternalSite:Page
text to external sites based on aliases defined in a rules topic - PreferencesPlugin (Dakar, 9839): Allows editing of preferences using fields predefined in a form
- SlideShowPlugin (Dakar, $Rev: 8154$): Create web based presentations based on topics with headings.
- SmiliesPlugin (Dakar, 8154): Render smilies as icons, like
:-)
for or :cool:
for :cool: - TablePlugin (Dakar, 8154): Control attributes of tables and sorting of table columns
- WysiwygPlugin (Dakar, 9565): Translator framework and WYSIWYG editor for TWiki topics
Check on current Plugin status and settings for this site in
TWikiPreferences.
Common Editing Errors
TWiki formatting rules are fairly simple to use and quick to type. However, there are some things to watch out for, taken from the
TextFormattingFAQ:
- Q: Text enclosed in angle brackets like
<filename>
is not displayed. How can I show it as it is?
- A: The
'<'
and '>'
characters have a special meaning in HTML, they define HTML tags. You need to escape them, so write '<'
instead of '<'
, and '>'
instead of '>'
.
Example: Type 'prog <filename>'
to get 'prog <filename>'
.
- Q: Why is the
'&'
character sometimes not displayed?
- A: The
'&'
character has a special meaning in HTML, it starts a so called character entity, i.e. '©'
is the ©
copyright character. You need to escape '&'
to see it as it is, so write '&'
instead of '&'
.
Example: Type 'This & that'
to get 'This & that'
.
TWiki Variables
Special text strings expand on the fly to display user data or system info
TWikiVariables are text strings -
%VARIABLE%
or
%VARIABLE{ parameter="value" }%
- that expand into content whenever a topic is rendered for viewing. There are two types of variables:
- Preferences variables: Can be defined and changed by the user
- Predefined variables: Defined by the TWiki system or by Plugins (for example, the SpreadSheetPlugin introduces a
%CALC{}%
variable)
Using Variables
To use a variable type its name. For example,
- type
%T%
to get (a preferences variable)
- type
%TOPIC%
to get TWikiVariables
(a predefined variable)
- type
%CALC{ "$UPPER(Text)" }%
to get TEXT
(a variable defined by Plugin)
Note:
- To leave a variable unexpanded, precede it with an exclamation point, e.g. type
!%TOPIC%
to get %TOPIC%
- Variables are expanded relative to the topic they are used in, not the topic they are defined in
- Type
%ALLVARIABLES%
to get a full listing of all variables defined for a particular topic
Variable Names
Variable names must start with a letter. The following characters can be letters, numbers and the underscore '_'. You can use both upper-case and lower-case letters and you can mix the characteres. E.g.
%MYVAR%
,
%MyVar%
,
%My2ndVar%
, and
%My_Var%
are all valid variable names. Variables are case sensitive.
%MyVAR%
and
%MYVAR%
are not the same variable.
By convention all settings, predefined variables and variables used by plugins are always UPPER-CASE.
Preferences Variables
Unlike predefined variables, preferences variables can be defined by the user in various places.
Setting Preferences Variables
You can set variables in all the following places:
- local site level in TWikiPreferences
- user level in individual user topics in Main web
- web level in WebPreferences of each web
- topic level in topics in webs
- plugin topics (see TWikiPlugins)
- session variables (if sessions are enabled)
Settings at higher-numbered levels override settings of the same variable at lower numbered levels, unless the variable was included in the setting of FINALPREFERENCES at a lower-numbered level, in which case it is locked at the value it has at that level.
The syntax for setting Variables is the same anywhere in TWiki (on its own TWiki bullet line, including nested bullets):
[multiple of 3 spaces] * [space] Set [space] VARIABLENAME [space] = [space] value
Examples:
Spaces between the = sign and the value will be ignored. You can split a value over several lines by indenting following lines with spaces - as long as you don't try to use * as the first character on the following line.
Example:
* Set VARIABLENAME = value starts here
and continues here
Whatever you include in your Variable will be expanded on display, exactly as if it had been entered directly.
Example: Create a custom logo variable
- To place a logo anywhere in a web by typing
%MYLOGO%
, define the Variable on the web's WebPreferences topic, and upload a logo file, ex: mylogo.gif
. You can upload by attaching the file to WebPreferences, or, to avoid clutter, to any other topic in the same web, e.g. LogoTopic
. Sample variable setting in WebPreferences:
-
Set MYLOGO = %PUBURL%/%WEB%/LogoTopic/mylogo.gif
You can also set preferences variables on a topic by clicking the link
Edit topic preference settings
under
More topic actions
. Preferences set in this manner are not visible in the topic text, but take effect nevertheless.
Access Control Variables
These are special types of preferences variables to control access to content.
TWikiAccessControl explains these security settings in detail.
Local values for variables
Certain topics (a users home topic, web site and default preferences topics) have a problem; variables defined in those topics can have two meanings. For example, consider a user topic. A user may want to use a double-height edit box when they are editing their home topic - but
only when editing their home topic. The rest of the time, they want to have a normal edit box. This separation is achieved using
Local
in place of
Set
in the variable definition. For example, if the user sets the following in their home topic:
* Set EDITBOXHEIGHT = 10
* Local EDITBOXHEIGHT = 20
Then when they are editing any other topic, they will get a 10 high edit box. However when they are editing their home topic, they will get a 20 high edit box.
Local
can be used wherever a preference needs to take a different value depending on where the current operation is being performed.
Use this powerful feature with great care!
%ALLVARIABLES%
can be used to get a listing of the values of all variables in their evaluation order, so you can see variable scope if you get confused.
Frequently Used Preferences Variables
The following preferences variables are frequently used. They are defined in
TWikiPreferences#Miscellaneous_Settings:
-
%BR%
- line break
-
%BULLET%
- bullet sign
-
%BB%
- line break and bullet combined
-
%BB2%
- indented line break and bullet
-
%RED% text %ENDCOLOR%
- colored text (also %YELLOW%
, %ORANGE%
, %PINK%
, %PURPLE%
, %TEAL%
, %NAVY%
, %BLUE%
, %AQUA%
, %LIME%
, %GREEN%
, %OLIVE%
, %MAROON%
, %BROWN%
, %BLACK%
, %GRAY%
, %SILVER%
, %WHITE%
)
-
%H%
- Help icon
-
%I%
- Idea icon
-
%M%
- Moved to icon
-
%N%
- New icon
-
%P%
- Refactor icon
-
%Q%
- Question icon
-
%S%
- Pick icon
-
%T%
- Tip icon
-
%U%
- Updated icon
-
%X%
- Alert icon
-
%Y%
- Done icon
There are additional useful preferences variables defined in
TWikiPreferences, in
Main.TWikiPreferences, and in
WebPreferences of every web.
Predefined Variables
Most predefined variables return values that were either set in the configuration when TWiki was installed, or taken from server info (such as current username, or date and time). Some, like
%SEARCH%
, are powerful and general tools.
- Predefined variables can be overridden by preferences variables
- Plugins may extend the set of predefined variables (see individual Plugins topics for details)
- Take the time to thoroughly read through ALL preference variables. If you actively configure your site, review variables periodically. They cover a wide range of functions, and it can be easy to miss the one perfect variable for something you have in mind. For example, see
%INCLUDINGTOPIC%
, %INCLUDE%
, and the mighty %SEARCH%
.
This version of TWiki - Tue, 04 Jul 2006 build 10807 - predefines the following variables:
ACTIVATEDPLUGINS -- list of currently activated plugins
- Syntax:
%ACTIVATEDPLUGINS%
- Expands to: SpreadSheetPlugin, CommentPlugin, EditTablePlugin, InterwikiPlugin, PreferencesPlugin, SlideShowPlugin, SmiliesPlugin, TablePlugin, WysiwygPlugin
- Related: PLUGINDESCRIPTIONS, FAILEDPLUGINS, PLUGINVERSION
ALLVARIABLES -- list of currently defined TWikiVariables
- Syntax:
%ALLVARIABLES%
- Expands to: a table showing all defined TWikiVariables in the current context
ATTACHURL -- full URL for attachments in the current topic
ATTACHURLPATH -- path of the attachment URL of the current topic
AUTHREALM -- authentication realm
- String defined as {AuthRealm} in
configure
. This is used in certain password encodings, and in login templates as part of the login prompt.
- Syntax:
%AUTHREALM%
- Expands to: Enter your LoginName. (Typically First name and last name, no space, no dots, capitalized, e.g. JohnSmith, unless you chose otherwise). Visit TWikiRegistration if you do not have one.
- Related: TWikiUserAuthentication, SESSIONID, SESSIONVAR, LOGIN, LOGOUT, SESSION_VARIABLE
BASETOPIC -- base topic where an INCLUDE started
- The name of the topic where a single or nested INCLUDE started - same as
%TOPIC%
if there is no INCLUDE
- Syntax:
%BASETOPIC%
- Related: BASEWEB, INCLUDINGTOPIC, INCLUDE, TOPIC
BASEWEB -- base web where an INCLUDE started
- The web name where the includes started, e.g. the web of the first topic of nested includes. Same as
%WEB%
in case there is no include.
- Syntax:
%BASEWEB%
- Related: BASETOPIC, INCLUDINGWEB, INCLUDE, WEB
DATE -- signature format date
DISPLAYTIME -- display time
DISPLAYTIME{"format"} -- formatted display time
- Formatted time - either GMT or Local server time, depending on setting in configure. Same format qualifiers as
%GMTIME%
- Syntax:
%DISPLAYTIME{"format"}%
- Example:
%DISPLAYTIME{"$hou:$min"}%
expands to 22:45
- Related: DISPLAYTIME, GMTIME, SERVERTIME
ENCODE{"string"} -- encodes a string to HTML entities
- Encode "special" characters to HTML numeric entities. Encoded characters are:
- all non-printable ASCII characters below space, except newline (
"\n"
) and linefeed ("\r"
)
- HTML special characters
"<"
, ">"
, "&"
, single quote ('
) and double quote ("
)
- TWiki special characters
"%"
, "["
, "]"
, "@"
, "_"
, "*"
, "="
and "|"
- Syntax:
%ENCODE{"string"}%
- Supported parameters:
Parameter: | Description: | Default: |
"string" | String to encode | required (can be empty) |
type="entity" | Encode special characters into HTML entities, like a double quote into " | URL encoding |
type="url" | Encode special characters for URL parameter use, like a double quote into %22 | (this is the default) |
- Example:
%ENCODE{"spaced name"}%
expands to spaced%20name
- Note: Values of HTML input fields must be entity encoded, for example:
<input type="text" name="address" value="%ENCODE{ "any text" type="entity" }%" />
- Related: URLPARAM
ENDSECTION{"name"} -- marks the end of a named section within a topic
- Syntax:
%ENDSECTION{"name"}%
- Syntax:
%ENDSECTION{type="include"}%
- Supported parameter:
Parameter: | Description: |
"name" | Name of the section. |
type="..." | Type of the section being terminated; supported types "section" , "include" , "templateonly" . |
- If the
STARTSECTION
is named, the corresponding ENDSECTION
must also be named with the same name. If the STARTSECTION
specifies a type, then the corresponding ENDSECTION
must also specify the same type. If the section is unnamed, ENDSECTION
will match with the nearest unnamed %STARTSECTION%
of the same type above it.
- Related: STARTSECTION
FAILEDPLUGINS -- debugging for plugins that failed to load, and handler list
FORMFIELD{"fieldname"} -- renders a field in the form attached to some topic
- Syntax:
%FORMFIELD{"fieldname"}%
- Supported parameters:
Parameter: | Description: | Default: |
"fieldname" | The name of a TWiki form field | required |
topic="..." | Topic where form data is located. May be of the form Web.TopicName | Current topic |
format="..." | Format string. $value expands to the field value, and $title expands to the field title | "$value" |
default="..." | Text shown when no value is defined for the field | "" |
alttext="..." | Text shown when field is not found in the form | "" |
- Example:
%FORMFIELD{"ProjectName" topic="Projects.SushiProject" default="(not set)" alttext="ProjectName field found"}%
- Related: SEARCH
GMTIME -- GM time
GMTIME{"format"} -- formatted GM time
- Syntax:
%GMTIME{"format"}%
- Supported variables:
Variable: | Unit: | Example |
$seconds | seconds | 59 |
$minutes | minutes | 59 |
$hours | hours | 23 |
$day | day of month | 31 |
$wday | day of the Week (Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat) | Thu |
$dow | day of the week (Sun = 0) | 2 |
$week | number of week in year (ISO 8601) | 34 |
$month | month in ISO format | Dec |
$mo | 2 digit month | 12 |
$year | 4 digit year | 1999 |
$ye | 2 digit year | 99 |
$tz | either "GMT" (if set to gmtime), or "Local" (if set to servertime) | GMT |
$iso | ISO format timestamp | 2024-10-31T22:45:56Z |
$rcs | RCS format timestamp | 2024/10/31 22:45:56 |
$http | E-mail & http format timestamp | Thu, 31 Oct 2024 22:45:56 GMT |
$epoch | Number of seconds since 00:00 on 1st January, 1970 | 1730414756 |
- Variables can be shortened to 3 characters
- Example:
%GMTIME{"$day $month, $year - $hour:$min:$sec"}%
expands to 31 Oct, 2024 - 22:45:56
- Note: When used in a template topic, this variable will be expanded when the template is used to create a new topic. See TWikiTemplates#TemplateTopicsVars for details.
- Related: DISPLAYTIME, GMTIME, SERVERTIME
GROUPS -- a formatted list of groups
HOMETOPIC -- home topic in each web
HTTP -- get HTTP headers
HTTP_HOST -- environment variable
HTTPS -- get HTTPS headers
- The same as
%HTTP%
but operates on the HTTPS environment variables present when the SSL protocol is in effect. Can be used to determine whether SSL is turned on.
- Syntax:
%HTTPS%
- Syntax:
%HTTPS{"Header-name"}%
- Related: HTTP, REMOTE_ADDR, REMOTE_PORT, REMOTE_USER
ICON{"name"} -- small documentation graphic or icon of common attachment types
- Generates the HTML img tag of a small graphic image attached to TWikiDocGraphics. Images typically have a 16x16 pixel size. You can select a specific image by name, or you can give a full filename, in which case the type of the file will be used to select one of a collection of common file type icons.
- Syntax:
%ICON{"name"}%
- Examples:
-
%ICON{"flag-gray"}%
returns
-
%ICON{"pdf"}%
returns
-
%ICON{"smile.pdf"}%
returns
-
%ICON{"/dont/you/dare/smile.pdf"}%
returns
-
%ICON{"http://twiki.org/doc/xhtml.xsl"}%
returns
- Graphic samples:
arrowbright
, bubble
, choice-yes
, hand
- File type samples:
bmp
, doc
, gif
, hlp
, html
, mp3
, pdf
, ppt
, txt
, xls
, xml
, zip
- Related: ICONURL, ICONURLPATH, TWikiPreferences, FileAttachments, TWikiDocGraphics
ICONURL{"name"} -- URL of small documentation graphic or icon
- Generates the full URL of a TWikiDocGraphics image, which TWiki renders as an image. The related
%ICON{"name"}%
generates the full HTML img tag. Specify image name or full filename (see ICON for details on filenames.)
- Syntax:
%ICONURL{"name"}%
- Examples:
-
%ICONURL{"arrowbright"}%
returns http://menet.mdw.ac.at/pub/TWiki/TWikiDocGraphics/arrowbright.gif
-
%ICONURL{"novel.pdf"}%
returns http://menet.mdw.ac.at/pub/TWiki/TWikiDocGraphics/pdf.gif
-
%ICONURL{"/queen/boheme.mp3"}%
returns http://menet.mdw.ac.at/pub/TWiki/TWikiDocGraphics/mp3.gif
- Related: ICONURLPATH, ICON, TWikiPreferences, FileAttachments, TWikiDocGraphics
ICONURLPATH{"name"} -- URL path of small documentation graphic or icon
- Generates the URL path of a TWikiDocGraphics image, typically used in an HTML img tag. Specify image name or full filename (see ICON for details on filenames.)
- Syntax:
%ICONURLPATH{"name"}%
- Examples:
-
%ICONURLPATH{"locktopic"}%
returns /pub/TWiki/TWikiDocGraphics/locktopic.gif
-
%ICONURLPATH{"eggysmell.xml"}%
returns /pub/TWiki/TWikiDocGraphics/xml.gif
-
%ICONURLPATH{"/doc/xhtml.xsl"}%
returns /pub/TWiki/TWikiDocGraphics/xsl.gif
- Related: ICONURL, ICON, TWikiPreferences, FileAttachments, TWikiDocGraphics
IF{"condition" ...} -- simple conditionals
- Evaluate a condition and show one text or another based on the result. See details in IfStatements
- Syntax:
%IF{"CONDITION" then="THEN" else="ELSE"}%
shows "THEN"
if "CONDITION"
evaluates to TRUE
, otherwise "ELSE"
will be shown
- Example:
%IF{"defined FUNFACTOR" then="FUNFACTOR is defined" else=" is not defined"}%
renders as ==
- Related: $IF() of SpreadSheetPlugin
INCLUDE{"page"} -- include other topic or web page
- Syntax:
%INCLUDE{"page" ...}%
- Supported parameters:
Parameter: | Description: | Default: |
"SomeTopic" | The name of a topic located in the current web, i.e. %INCLUDE{"WebNotify"}% | |
"Web.Topic" | A topic in another web, i.e. %INCLUDE{"TWiki.SiteMap"}% | |
"http://..." | A full qualified URL, i.e. %INCLUDE{"http://twiki.org:80/index.html"}% . Supported content types are text/html and text/plain . if the URL resolves to an attachment file on the server this will automatically translate to a server-side include. | |
pattern="..." | A RegularExpression pattern to include a subset of a topic or page | none |
rev="2" | Include a previous topic revision; N/A for URLs | top revision |
raw="on" | When a page is included, normally TWiki will process it, doing the following: 1) Alter relative links to point back to originating host, 2) Remove some basic HTML tags (html, head, body, script) and finally 3) Remove newlines from tags spanning multiple lines. If you prefer to include exactly what is in the source of the originating page set this to on . | disabled |
warn="off" | Warn if topic include fails: Fail silently (if off ); output default warning (if set to on ); else, output specific text (use $topic for topic name) | %INCLUDEWARNING% preferences setting |
section="name" | Includes only the specified named section, as defined in the included topic by the STARTSECTION and ENDSECTION variables | |
PARONE="val 1" PARTWO="val 2" | Any other parameter will be defined as a variable within the scope of the included topic. The example parameters on the left will result in %PARONE% and %PARTWO% being defined within the included topic. | |
- Note: JavaScript in included webpages is filtered out as a security precaution per default (disable filter with
raw
parameter)
- Examples: See IncludeTopicsAndWebPages
- Related: BASETOPIC, BASEWEB, INCLUDINGTOPIC, INCLUDINGWEB, STARTINCLUDE, STOPINCLUDE, STARTSECTION, ENDSECTION
INCLUDINGTOPIC -- name of topic that includes current topic
- The name of the topic that includes the current topic - same as
%TOPIC%
in case there is no include
- Syntax:
%INCLUDINGTOPIC%
- Related: BASETOPIC, INCLUDINGWEB, INCLUDE, TOPIC
INCLUDINGWEB -- web that includes current topic
- The web name of the topic that includes the current topic - same as
%WEB%
if there is no INCLUDE.
- Syntax:
%INCLUDINGWEB%
- Related: BASEWEB, INCLUDINGTOPIC, INCLUDE, WEB
LANGUAGE -- current user's language
- Returns the language code for the language used as the current user. This is the language actually used by TWiki Internationalization (e.g. in user interface).
- The language is detected from the user's browser, unless some site/web/user/session-defined setting overrides it:
- If the
LANGUAGE
preference is set, it's used as user's language instead of any language detected from the browser.
- Avoid defining
LANGUAGE
at a non per-user way, so each user can choose his/her preferred language.
- Related: LANGUAGES
LANGUAGES -- list available TWiki languages
- List the languages available (as
PO
files) to TWiki. Those are the languages in which TWiki's user interface is available.
- Syntax:
%LANGUAGES{...}%
- Supported parameters:
Parameter: | Description: | Default: |
format | format for each item. See below for variables available in the format string. | " * $langname" |
separator | separator between items. | "\n" (newline) |
marker="selected" | Text for $marker if the item matches selection | "selected" |
selection="%LANGUAGE%" | Current language to be selected in list | (none) |
-
format
variables: Variable | Meaning |
$langname | language's name, as informed by the translators |
$langtag | language's tag. Ex: en , pt-br , etc. |
- Example:
<select>%LANGUAGES{format="<option $marker value='$langtag'>$langname</option>" selection="%LANGUAGE%"}%</select>
creates an option list of the available languages with the current language selected
LOCALSITEPREFS -- web.topicname of site preferences topic
- The full name of the local site preferences topic. This topic is read for preferences before TWiki.%TWIKIPREFSTOPIC% is read.
- Syntax:
%LOCALSITEPREFS%
- Expands to:
Main.TWikiPreferences
, renders as TWikiPreferences
LOGIN -- present a full login link
LOGOUT -- present a full logout link
MAINWEB -- name of Main web
MAKETEXT -- creates text using TWiki's I18N infrastructure
- Syntax:
%MAKETEXT{"string" args="..."}
- Supported parameters:
Parameter | Description | Default |
"text" or string="text" | The text to be displayed. | none |
args="param1, param2" | a comma-separated list of arguments to be interpolated in the string, replacing the [_N] placeholders in it. | none |
- Examples:
-
%MAKETEXT{string="Notes:"}%
expands to
Notes:
-
%MAKETEXT{"If you have any questions, please contact [_1]." args="%WIKIWEBMASTER%"}%
expands to
If you have any questions, please contact pt@mit.at.
-
%MAKETEXT{"Did you want to [[[_1]][reset [_2]'s password]]?" args="%TWIKIWEB%.ResetPassword,%WIKIUSERNAME%"}%
expands to
Did you want to reset Main.TWikiGuest's password?
- Notes:
- TWiki will translate the
string
to the current user's language only if it has such string in its translation table for that language.
- Amperstands (
&
) followed by one letter (one of a...z, A...Z) (say, X
) in the translatable string will be translated to <span class='twikiAccessKey'>X</span>
. This is used to implement access keys. If you want to write an actual amperstand that stays just before a letter, write two consecutive amperstands (&&
): they will be transformed in just one.
- translatable string starting with underscores (
_
) are reserved. You cannot use translatable phrases starting with an underscore.
- Make sure that the translatable string is constant. Specially, do not include
%VARIABLES%
inside the translatable strings (since they will get expanded before the %MAKETEXT{...}%
itself is handled).
META -- displays meta-data
- Provided mainly for use in templates, this variable generates the parts of the topic view that relate to meta-data (attachments, forms etc.) The
formfield
item is the most likely to be useful to casual users.
- Syntax:
%META{ "item" ...}%
- Parameters:
Item | Options | Description |
"formfield" | name="..." - name of the field. The field value can be shortened as described in FormattedSearch for $formfield | Show a single form field |
"form" | none | Generates the table showing the form fields. See Form Templates |
"attachments" | all="on" to show hidden attachments | Generates the table showing the attachments |
"moved" | none | Details of any topic moves |
"parent" | dontrecurse="on" : By default recurses up tree, this has some cost. nowebhome="on" : Suppress WebHome. prefix="..." : Prefix that goes before parents, but only if there are parents, default "" . format="..." : format string used to display each partent topic, default "[[$web.$topic][$topic]]" suffix="..." : Suffix, only appears if there are parents, default "" . separator="..." : Separator between parents, default " > " . | Generates the parent link |
- Related: METASEARCH
METASEARCH -- special search of meta data
- Syntax:
%METASEARCH{...}%
- Supported parameters:
Parameter: | Description: | Default: |
type="topicmoved" | What sort of search is required? "topicmoved" if search for a topic that may have been moved "parent" if searching for topics that have a specific parent i.e. its children "field" if searching for topics that have a particular form field value (use the name and value parameters to specify which field to search) | required |
web="%WEB%" | Wiki web to search: A web, a list of webs separated by whitespace, or all webs. | current web |
topic="%TOPIC%" | The topic the search relates to, for topicmoved and parent searches | current topic |
name | form field to search, for field type searches. May be a regular expression (see SEARCH). | |
value | form field value, for field type searches. May be a regular expression (see SEARCH). | |
title="Title" | Text that is prefixed to any search results | empty |
default="none" | Default text shown if no search hit | empty |
- Example:
%METASEARCH{type="topicmoved" web="%WEB%" topic="%TOPIC%" title="This topic used to exist and was moved to: "}%
- Example: You may want to use this in WebTopicViewTemplate and WebTopicNonWikiTemplate:
%METASEARCH{type="parent" web="%WEB%" topic="%TOPIC%" title="Children: "}%
- Example:
%METASEARCH{type="field" name="Country" value="China"}%
- Related: SEARCH, META
NOP -- template text not to be expanded in instantiated topics
- Syntax:
%NOP%
- In normal topic text, expands to <nop>, which prevents expansion of adjacent variables and wikiwords
- When the topic containing this is used as a template for another topic, it is removed.
- Syntax:
%NOP{...}%
deprecated
- In normal topic text, expands to whatever is in the curly braces (if anything).
- Note: This is deprecated. Do not use it. Use
%STARTSECTION{type="templateonly"}%
.. %ENDSECTION{type="templateonly"}%
instead (see TWikiTemplates for more details).
- Related: STARTSECTION, TWikiTemplates
NOTIFYTOPIC -- name of the notify topic
PLUGINDESCRIPTIONS -- list of plugin descriptions
- Syntax:
%PLUGINDESCRIPTIONS%
- Expands to:
- SpreadSheetPlugin (any TWiki, 10197): Add spreadsheet calculation like
"$SUM( $ABOVE() )"
to tables located in TWiki topics. - CommentPlugin (Dakar, 8164): Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
- EditTablePlugin (Dakar, 8154): Edit TWiki tables using edit fields, date pickers and drop down boxes
- InterwikiPlugin (Dakar, $Rev: 8329$): Link
ExternalSite:Page
text to external sites based on aliases defined in a rules topic - PreferencesPlugin (Dakar, 9839): Allows editing of preferences using fields predefined in a form
- SlideShowPlugin (Dakar, $Rev: 8154$): Create web based presentations based on topics with headings.
- SmiliesPlugin (Dakar, 8154): Render smilies as icons, like
:-)
for or :cool:
for :cool: - TablePlugin (Dakar, 8154): Control attributes of tables and sorting of table columns
- WysiwygPlugin (Dakar, 9565): Translator framework and WYSIWYG editor for TWiki topics
- Related: ACTIVATEDPLUGINS, FAILEDPLUGINS, PLUGINVERSION
PLUGINVERSION -- the version of a TWiki Plugin, or the TWiki Plugins API
PUBURL -- the base URL of attachments
PUBURLPATH -- the base URL path of attachments
QUERYSTRING -- full, unprocessed string of parameters to this URL
- String of all the URL parameters that were on the URL used to get to the current page. For example, if you add ?name=Samantha;age=24;eyes=blue to this URL you can see this in action. This string can be appended to a URL to pass parameter values on to another page.
- Note: URLs built this way are typically restricted in length, typically to 2048 characters. If you need more space than this, you will need to use an HTML form and
%URLPARAM{}%
.
- Syntax:
%QUERYSTRING%
- Expands to:
sortcol=2;table=78;template=viewprint;up=1
- Related: URLPARAM
REMOTE_ADDR -- environment variable
REMOTE_PORT -- environment variable
REMOTE_USER -- environment variable
REVINFO -- revision information of current topic
REVINFO{"format"} -- formatted revision information of topic
- Syntax:
%REVINFO{"format"}%
- Supported parameters:
Parameter: | Description: | Default: |
"format" | Format of revision information, see supported variables below | "r1.$rev - $date - $wikiusername" |
web="..." | Name of web | Current web |
topic="..." | Topic name | Current topic |
rev="1.5" | Specific revison number | Latest revision |
- Supported variables in format:
Variable: | Unit: | Example |
$web | Name of web | Current web |
$topic | Topic name | Current topic |
$rev | Revison number. Prefix r1. to get the usual r1.5 format | 5 |
$date | Revision date | 11 Jul 2004 |
$time | Revision time | 23:24:25 |
$username | Login username of revision | jsmith |
$wikiname | WikiName of revision | JohnSmith |
$wikiusername | WikiName with Main web prefix | Main.JohnSmith |
- Example:
%REVINFO{"$date - $wikiusername" rev="1.1"}%
returns revision info of first revision
- Related: REVINFO
SCRIPTNAME -- name of current script
- The name of the current script is shown, including script suffix, if any (for example
viewauth.cgi
)
- Syntax:
%SCRIPTNAME%
- Expands to:
view
- Related: SCRIPTSUFFIX, SCRIPTURL, SCRIPTURLPATH
SCRIPTSUFFIX -- script suffix
- Some TWiki installations require a file extension for CGI scripts, such as
.pl
or .cgi
- Syntax:
%SCRIPTSUFFIX%
- Expands to:
- Related: SCRIPTNAME, SCRIPTURL, SCRIPTURLPATH
SCRIPTURL -- base URL of TWiki scripts
SCRIPTURL{"script"} -- URL of TWiki script
- Syntax:
%SCRIPTURL{"script"}%
- Expands to:
http://menet.mdw.ac.at/bin/script
- Example: To get the authenticated version of the current topic you can write
%SCRIPTURL{"viewauth"}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%
which expands to http://menet.mdw.ac.at/bin/viewauth/TWiki/TWikiVariables
- Note: In most cases you should use
%SCRIPTURLPATH{"script"}%
instead, as it works with URL rewriting much better
- Related: PUBURL, SCRIPTNAME, SCRIPTSUFFIX, SCRIPTURL, SCRIPTURLPATH, SCRIPTURLPATH{"script"}
SCRIPTURLPATH -- base URL path of TWiki scripts
SCRIPTURLPATH{"script"} -- URL path of TWiki script
SEARCH{"text"} -- search content
- Inline search, shows a search result embedded in a topic
- Syntax:
%SEARCH{"text" ...}%
- Supported parameters:
Parameter: | Description: | Default: |
"text" | Search term. Is a keyword search, literal search or regular expression search, depending on the type parameter. SearchHelp has more | required |
search="text" | (Alternative to above) | N/A |
web="Name" web="Main, Know" web="all" | Comma-separated list of webs to search. You can specifically exclude webs from an all search using a minus sign - for example, web="all,-Secretweb" . The special word all means all webs that do not have the NOSEARCHALL variable set to on in their WebPreferences. Note that TWikiAccessControls are respected when searching webs; it is much better to use them than NOSEARCHALL . | Current web |
topic="WebPreferences" topic="*Bug" | Limit search to topics: A topic, a topic with asterisk wildcards, or a list of topics separated by comma. Note this is a list of topic names and must not include web names. | All topics in a web |
excludetopic="Web*" excludetopic="WebHome, WebChanges" | Exclude topics from search: A topic, a topic with asterisk wildcards, or a list of topics separated by comma. Note this is a list of topic names and must not include web names. | None |
type="keyword" type="literal" type="regex" | Do a keyword search like soap "web service" -shampoo ; a literal search like web service ; or RegularExpression search like soap;web service;!shampoo | %SEARCHVAR- DEFAULTTYPE% preferences setting (literal) |
scope="topic" scope="text" scope="all" | Search topic name (title); the text (body) of topic; or all (both) | "text" |
order="topic" order="created" order="modified" order="editby" order= "formfield(name)" | Sort the results of search by the topic names, topic creation time, last modified time, last editor, or named field of TWikiForms. The sorting is done web by web; if you want to sort across webs, create a formatted table and sort it with TablePlugin's initsort. Note that dates are sorted most recent date last (i.e at the bottom of the table). | Sort by topic name |
limit="all" limit="16" | Limit the number of results returned. This is done after sorting if order is specified | All results |
date="..." | limits the results to those pages with latest edit time in the given TimeInterval. | All results |
reverse="on" | Reverse the direction of the search | Ascending search |
casesensitive="on" | Case sensitive search | Ignore case |
bookview="on" | BookView search, e.g. show complete topic text | Show topic summary |
nonoise="on" | Shorthand for nosummary="on" nosearch="on" nototal="on" zeroresults="off" noheader="on" noempty="on" | Off |
nosummary="on" | Show topic title only | Show topic summary |
nosearch="on" | Suppress search string | Show search string |
noheader="on" | Suppress search header Topics: Changed: By: | Show search header, unless seach is inline and a format is specified (Cairo compatibility) |
nototal="on" | Do not show number of topics found | Show number |
zeroresults="off" | Suppress all output if there are no hits | zeroresults="on" , displays: "Number of topics: 0" |
noempty="on" | Suppress results for webs that have no hits. | Show webs with no hits |
header="..." format="..." | Custom format results: see FormattedSearch for usage, variables & examples | Results in table |
expandvariables="on" | Expand variables before applying a FormattedSearch on a search hit. Useful to show the expanded text, e.g. to show the result of a SpreadSheetPlugin %CALC{}% instead of the formula | Raw text |
multiple="on" | Multiple hits per topic. Each hit can be formatted. The last token is used in case of a regular expression ";" and search | Only one hit per topic |
nofinalnewline="on" | If on , the search variable does not end in a line by itself. Any text continuing immediately after the search variable on the same line will be rendered as part of the table generated by the search, if appropriate. | off |
recurse="on" | Recurse into subwebs, if subwebs are enabled. | off |
separator=", " | Line separator between hits | Newline "$n" |
- Example:
%SEARCH{"wiki" web="Main" scope="topic"}%
- Example with format:
%SEARCH{"FAQ" scope="topic" nosearch="on" nototal="on" header="| *Topic: * | *Summary: * |" format="| $topic | $summary |"%
(displays results in a table with header - details)
- Hint: If the TWiki:Plugins.TablePlugin is installed, you may set a
%TABLE{}%
variable just before the %SEARCH{}%
to alter the output of a search. Example: %TABLE{ tablewidth="90%" }%
- Related: METASEARCH, TOPICLIST, WEBLIST, FormattedSearch
SERVERTIME -- server time
SERVERTIME{"format"} -- formatted server time
- Same format qualifiers as
%GMTIME%
- Syntax:
%SERVERTIME{"format"}%
- Example:
%SERVERTIME{"$hou:$min"}%
expands to 23:45
- Note: When used in a template topic, this variable will be expanded when the template is used to create a new topic. See TWikiTemplates#TemplateTopicsVars for details.
- Related: DISPLAYTIME, GMTIME, SERVERTIME
SESSIONID -- unique ID for this session
SESSIONVAR -- name of CGI and session variable that stores the session ID
SESSION_VARIABLE -- get, set or clear a session variable
SPACEDTOPIC -- topic name, spaced and URL-encoded deprecated
- The current topic name with added URL-encoded spaces, for use in regular expressions that search for backlinks to the current topic
- Syntax:
%SPACEDTOPIC%
- Expands to:
Var%20*SPACEDTOPIC
- Note: This is a deprecated variable. It can be duplicated with
%ENCODE{%SPACEOUT{"%TOPIC%" separator=" *"}%}%
- Related: SPACEOUT, TOPIC, ENCODE
SPACEOUT{"string"} -- renders string with spaces inserted in sensible places
- Inserts spaces after lower case letters that are followed by a digit or a capital letter, and after digits that are followed by a capital letter.
- Useful for spacing out WikiWords
- Syntax:
%SPACEOUT{ "%TOPIC%" }%
- Expands to:
TWiki Variables
- Supported parameters:
Parameter: | Description: | Default: |
separator | The separator to put between words e.g. %SPACEOUT{"DogsCatsBudgies" separator=", "}% -> Dogs, Cats, Budgies | ' ' |
- Hint: Spaced out WikiWords are not automatically linked. To SPACEOUT a WikiWord but preserve the link use "double bracket" format. For example,
[[WebHome][%SPACEOUT{"WebHome"}%]]
expands to Web Home
- Related: SPACEDTOPIC, $PROPERSPACE() of SpreadSheetPlugin
STARTINCLUDE -- start position of topic text if included
- If present in included topic, start to include text from this location up to the end, or up to the location of the
%STOPINCLUDE%
variable. A normal view of the topic shows everything exept the %STARTINCLUDE%
variable itself.
- Note: If you want more than one part of the topic included, use
%STARTSECTION{type="include"}%
instead
- Syntax:
%STARTINCLUDE%
- Related: INCLUDE, STARTSECTION, STOPINCLUDE
STARTSECTION -- marks the start of a section within a topic
- Section boundaries are defined with
%STARTSECTION{}%
and %ENDSECTION{}%
.
- Sections may be given a name to help identify them, and/or a type, which changes how they are used.
-
type="section"
- the default, used for a generic section, such as a named section used by INCLUDE.
-
type="include"
- like %STARTINCLUDE%
... %STOPINCLUDE%
except that you can have as many include blocks as you want (%STARTINCLUDE%
is restricted to only one).
-
type="templateonly"
- start position of text to be removed when a template topic is used. This is used to embed text that you do not want expanded when a new topic based on the template topic is created. See TWikiTemplates for more information.
- Syntax:
%STARTSECTION{"name"}% ................ %ENDSECTION{"name"}%
- Syntax:
%STARTSECTION{type="include"}% ........ %ENDSECTION{type="include"}%
- Syntax:
%STARTSECTION{type="templateonly"}% ... %ENDSECTION{type="templateonly"}%
- Supported parameters:
Parameter: | Description: | Default |
"name" | Name of the section. Must be unique inside a topic. | Generated name |
type="..." | Type of the section; type "section" , "include" or "templateonly" | "section" |
- Note: If a section is not given a name, it will be assigned one. Unnamed sections are assigned names starting with
_SECTION0
for the first unnamed section in the topic, _SECTION1
for the second, etc..
- Note: You can define nested sections. It is not recommended to overlap sections, although it is valid in TWiki. Use named sections to make sure that the correct START and ENDs are matched. Section markers are not displayed when a topic is viewed.
- Related: ENDSECTION, INCLUDE, NOP, STARTINCLUDE, STOPINCLUDE
STATISTICSTOPIC -- name of statistics topic
STOPINCLUDE -- end position of topic text if included
- If present in included topic, stop to include text at this location and ignore the remaining text. A normal view of the topic shows everyting exept the
%STOPINCLUDE%
variable itself.
- Syntax:
%STOPINCLUDE%
- Related: INCLUDE, STARTINCLUDE
TOC -- table of contents of current topic
TOC{"Topic"} -- table of contents
- Table of Contents. Shows a TOC that is generated automatically based on headings of a topic. Headings in WikiSyntax (
"---++ text"
) and HTML ("<h2>text</h2>"
) are taken into account. Any heading text after "!!"
is excluded from the TOC; for example, write "---+!! text"
if you do not want to list a header in the TOC
- Syntax:
%TOC{"SomeTopic" ...}%
- Supported parameters:
Parameter: | Description: | Default: |
"TopicName" | topic name | Current topic |
web="Name" | Name of web | Current web |
depth="2" | Limit depth of headings shown in TOC | 6 |
title="Some text" | Title to appear at top of TOC | none |
- Example:
%TOC{depth="2"}%
- Example:
%TOC{"TWikiDocumentation" web="TWiki" title="Contents:"}%
- Example: see TWiki:Sandbox.TestTopicInclude
- Hint: TOC will generate links to the headings, so when a reader clicks on a heading it will jump straight where that heading is anchored in the text. If you have two headings with exactly the same text, then their anchors will also be identical and they won't be able to jump to them. To make the anchors unique, you can add an invisible HTML comment to the text of the heading. This will be hidden in normal view, but will force the anchors to be different. For example, ---+ Heading <!--5-->.
- Related: TOC
TOPIC -- name of current topic
TOPICLIST{"format"} -- topic index of a web
- List of all topics in a web. The "format" defines the format of one topic item. It may include variables: The
$name
variable gets expanded to the topic name, $qname
to double quoted name, $marker
to marker
parameter where topic matches selection
, and $web
to the name of the web.
- Syntax:
%TOPICLIST{"format" ...}%
- Supported parameters:
Parameter: | Description: | Default: |
"format" | Format of one line, may include $web (name of web), $name (name of the topic), $qname (name of topic in double quotes), $marker (which expands to marker for the item matching selection only) | "$name" |
format="format" | (Alternative to above) | "$name" |
separator=", " | line separator | "$n" (new line) |
marker="selected" | Text for $marker if the item matches selection | "selected" |
selection="TopicA, TopicB" | Current value to be selected in list | (none) |
web="Name" | Name of web | Current web |
- Example:
%TOPICLIST{" * $web.$name"}%
creates a bullet list of all topics
- Example:
%TOPICLIST{separator=", "}%
creates a comma separated list of all topics
- Example:
%TOPICLIST{" <option>$name</option>"}%
creates an option list (for drop down menus)
- Example:
<select>%TOPICLIST{" <option $marker value='$name'>$name</option>" separator=" " selection="%TOPIC%"}%</select>
creates an option list of web topics with the current topic selected
- Related: SEARCH, WEBLIST
TWIKIWEB -- name of TWiki documentation web
- The web containing all documentation and site-wide preference settings for TWiki
- Syntax:
%TWIKIWEB%
- Expands to:
TWiki
- Related: MAINWEB
URLPARAM{"name"} -- get value of a URL parameter
- Returns the value of a URL parameter.
- Syntax:
%URLPARAM{"name"}%
- Supported parameters:
Parameter: | Description: | Default: |
"name" | The name of a URL parameter | required |
default="..." | Default value in case parameter is empty or missing | empty string |
newline="<br />" | Convert newlines in textarea to other delimiters | no conversion |
encode="entity" | Encode special characters into HTML entities. See ENCODE for more details. | no encoding |
encode="url" | Encode special characters for URL parameter use, like a double quote into %22 | no encoding |
multiple="on" multiple="[[$item]]" | If set, gets all selected elements of a <select multiple="multiple"> tag. A format can be specified, with $item indicating the element, e.g. multiple="Option: $item" | first element |
separator=", " | Separator between multiple selections. Only relevant if multiple is specified | "\n" (new line) |
- Example:
%URLPARAM{"skin"}%
returns print
for a .../view/TWiki/TWikiVariables?skin=print
URL
- Note: URL parameters passed into HTML form fields must be entity ENCODEd
- Note: When used in a template topic, this variable will be expanded when the template is used to create a new topic. See TWikiTemplates#TemplateTopicsVars for details.
- Note: There is a risk that this variable could be misused for cross-site scripting.
- Related: ENCODE, SEARCH, FormattedSearch, QUERYSTRING
USERINFO - retrieve details about a user (by default the logged-in user)
- Syntax:
%USERINFO%
- Expands to: =guest, TWikiGuest, =
To format that information differently:
- Syntax:
%USERINFO{format="$username is really $wikiname"}%
- Expands to:
guest is really TWikiGuest
.
- The tokens
$emails
, $username
, $wikiname
, $wikiusername
, and $groups
are available for use in the format string .By default, the info will be formatted as a comma-separated list of the username, wikiusername, and emails.
To get information about another user:
- Syntax:
%USERINFO{"TWikiGuest" format="$username is really $wikiname"}%
- Expands to:
guest is really TWikiGuest
- The parameter should be the wikiname of a user. You can only get information about another user if the
{AntiSpam}{HideUserDetails}
configuration option is not enabled, or if you are an admin. (User details are hidden in this TWiki)
USERNAME -- your login username
VAR{"NAME" web="Web"} -- get a preference value from another web
- Syntax:
%VAR{"NAME" web="Web"}%
- Example: To get
%WEBBGCOLOR%
of the Main web write %VAR{"WEBBGCOLOR" web="Main"}%
, which expands to #FFB860
- Related: WEBPREFSTOPIC
WEB -- name of current web
WEBLIST{"format"} -- index of all webs
- List of all webs. Obfusticated webs are excluded, e.g. webs with a
NOSEARCHALL = on
preference variable. The "format"
defines the format of one web item. The $name
variable gets expanded to the name of the web, $qname
gets expanded to double quoted name, $marker
to marker
where web matches selection
.
- Syntax:
%WEBLIST{"format" ...}%
- Supported parameters:
Parameter: | Description: | Default: |
"format" | Format of one line, may include $name (the name of the web), $qname (the name of the web in double quotes), $indentedname (the name of the web with parent web names replaced by indents, for use in indented lists), and $marker (which expands to marker for the item matching selection only) | "$name" |
format="format" | (Alternative to above) | "$name" |
separator=", " | line separator | "$n" (new line) |
webs="public" | comma separated list of webs, public expands to all non-hidden | "public" |
marker="selected" | Text for $marker if the item matches selection | "selected" |
selection="%WEB%" | Current value to be selected in list | section="%WEB%" |
- Example:
%WEBLIST{" * [[$name.WebHome]]"}%
creates a bullet list of all webs.
- Example:
%WEBLIST{"<option $marker value=$qname>$name</option>" webs="Trash, public" selection="TWiki" separator=" "}%
creates a dropdown of all public webs + Trash web, with the current web highlighted.
- Related: TOPICLIST, SEARCH
WEBPREFSTOPIC -- name of web preferences topic
WIKIHOMEURL -- site home URL deprecated
WIKINAME -- your Wiki username
WIKIPREFSTOPIC -- name of site-wide preferences topic
WIKITOOLNAME -- name of your TWiki site
WIKIUSERNAME -- your Wiki username with web prefix
WIKIUSERSTOPIC -- name of topic listing all registers users
WIKIVERSION -- the version of the installed TWiki engine
TWiki Formatted Search
Inline search feature allows flexible formatting of search result
The default output format of a
%SEARCH{...}%
is a table consisting of topic names and topic summaries. Use the
format="..."
parameter to customize the search result. The format parameter typically defines a bullet or a table row containing variables, such as
%SEARCH{ "food" format="| $topic | $summary |" }%
. See
%SEARCH{...}%
for other search parameters, such as
separator=""
.
Syntax
Two parameters can be used to specify a customized search result:
1.
header="..."
parameter
Use the header parameter to specify the header of a search result. It should correspond to the format of the format parameter. This parameter is optional.
Example:
header="| *Topic:* | *Summary:* |"
2.
format="..."
parameter
Use the format parameter to specify the format of one search hit.
Example:
format="| $topic | $summary |"
Variables that can be used in the format string:
Name: | Expands To: |
$web | Name of the web |
$topic | Topic name |
$topic(20) | Topic name, "- " hyphenated each 20 characters |
$topic(30, -<br />) | Topic name, hyphenated each 30 characters with separator "-<br />" |
$topic(40, ...) | Topic name, shortended to 40 characters with "..." indication |
$parent | Name of parent topic; empty if not set |
$parent(20) | Name of parent topic, same hyphenation/shortening like $topic() |
$text | Formatted topic text. In case of a multiple="on" search, it is the line found for each search hit. |
$locked | LOCKED flag (if any) |
$date | Time stamp of last topic update, e.g. 31 Oct 2024 - 22:45 |
$isodate | Time stamp of last topic update, e.g. 2024-10-31T22:45Z |
$rev | Number of last topic revision, e.g. 4 |
$username | Login name of last topic update, e.g. jsmith |
$wikiname | Wiki user name of last topic update, e.g. JohnSmith |
$wikiusername | Wiki user name of last topic update, like Main.JohnSmith |
$createdate | Time stamp of topic revision 1 |
$createusername | Login name of topic revision 1, e.g. jsmith |
$createwikiname | Wiki user name of topic revision 1, e.g. JohnSmith |
$createwikiusername | Wiki user name of topic revision 1, e.g. Main.JohnSmith |
$summary | Topic summary, just the plain text, all formatting and line breaks removed; up to 162 characters |
$summary(50) | Topic summary, up to 50 characters shown |
$summary(showvarnames) | Topic summary, with %ALLTWIKI{...}% variables shown as ALLTWIKI{...} |
$summary(noheader) | Topic summary, with leading ---+ headers removed Note: The tokens can be combined, for example $summary(100, showvarnames, noheader) |
$changes | Summary of changes between latest rev and previous rev |
$changes(n) | Summary of changes between latest rev and rev n |
$formname | The name of the form attached to the topic; empty if none |
$formfield(name) | The field value of a form field; for example, $formfield(TopicClassification) would get expanded to PublicFAQ . This applies only to topics that have a TWikiForm |
$formfield(name, 10) | Form field value, "- " hyphenated each 10 characters |
$formfield(name, 20, -<br />) | Form field value, hyphenated each 20 characters with separator "-<br />" |
$formfield(name, 30, ...) | Form field value, shortended to 30 characters with "..." indication |
$pattern(reg-exp) | A regular expression pattern to extract some text from a topic (does not search meta data; use $formfield instead). In case of a multiple="on" search, the pattern is applied to the line found in each search hit. • Specify a RegularExpression that covers the whole text (topic or line), which typically starts with .* , and must end in .* • Put text you want to keep in parenthesis, like $pattern(.*?(from here.*?to here).*) • Example: $pattern(.*?\*.*?Email\:\s*([^\n\r]+).*) extracts the e-mail address from a bullet of format * Email: ... • This example has non-greedy .*? patterns to scan for the first occurance of the Email bullet; use greedy .* patterns to scan for the last occurance • Limitation: Do not use .*) inside the pattern, e.g. $pattern(.*foo(.*)bar.*) does not work, but $pattern(.*foo(.*?)bar.*) does • Note: Make sure that the integrity of a web page is not compromised; for example, if you include an HTML table make sure to include everything including the table end tag |
$count(reg-exp) | Count of number of times a regular expression pattern appears in the text of a topic (does not search meta data). Follows guidelines for use and limitations outlined above under $pattern(reg-exp) . Example: $count(.*?(---[+][+][+][+]) .*) counts the number of <H4> headers in a page. |
$n or $n() | New line. Use $n() if followed by alphanumeric character, e.g. write Foo$n()Bar instead of Foo$nBar |
$nop or $nop() | Is a "no operation". This variable gets removed; useful for nested search |
$quot | Double quote (" ). Alternatively write \" to escape it |
$percnt | Percent sign (% ) |
$dollar | Dollar sign ($ ) |
Examples
Bullet list showing topic name and summary
Write this:
%SEARCH{ "FAQ" scope="topic" nosearch="on" nototal="on" header=" * *Topic: Summary:*" format=" * [[$topic]]: $summary" }%
To get this:
- Topic: Summary:
- TWikiFAQ: Frequently Asked Questions About TWiki This is a real FAQ, and also a demo of an easily implemented knowledge base solution. To see how it's done, view the source ...
- TWikiFaqTemplate: FAQ: Answer: Back to: TWikiFAQ
- TextFormattingFAQ: Text Formatting FAQ The most frequently asked questions about text formatting are answered. Also, TextFormattingRules contains the complete TWiki shorthand system ...
Table showing form field values of topics with a form
In a web where there is a form that contains a
TopicClassification
field, an
OperatingSystem
field and an
OsVersion
field we could write:
| *Topic:* | *OperatingSystem:* | *OsVersion:* |
%SEARCH{ "[T]opicClassification.*?value=\"[P]ublicFAQ\"" scope="text" regex="on" nosearch="on" nototal="on" format="| [[$topic]] | $formfield(OperatingSystem) | $formfield(OsVersion) |" }%
To get this:
Extract some text from a topic using regular expression
Write this:
%SEARCH{ "__Back to\:__ TWikiFAQ" scope="text" regex="on" nosearch="on" nototal="on" header="TWiki FAQs:" format=" * $pattern(.*?FAQ\:[\n\r]*([^\n\r]+).*) [[$topic][Answer...]]" }%
To get this:
TWiki FAQs:
- How can I create a simple TWiki Form based application? Answer...
- How do I delete or rename a topic? Answer...
- How do I delete or rename a file attachment? Answer...
- Why does the topic revision not increase when I edit a topic? Answer...
- TWiki has a GPL (GNU General Public License). What is GPL? Answer...
- I've problems with the WebSearch. There is no Search Result on any inquiry. By clicking the Index topic it's the same problem. Answer...
- What happens if two of us try to edit the same topic simultaneously? Answer...
- I would like to install TWiki on my server. Can I get the source? Answer...
- What does the "T" in TWiki stand for? Answer...
- So what is this WikiWiki thing exactly? Answer...
- Everybody can edit any page, this is scary. Doesn't that lead to chaos? Answer...
Nested Search
Search can be nested. For example, search for some topics, then form a new search for each topic found in the first search. The idea is to build the nested search string using a formatted search in the first search.
Here is an example. Let's search for all topics that contain the word "culture" (first search), and let's find out where each topic found is linked from (second search).
- First search:
-
%SEARCH{ "culture" format=" * $topic is referenced by: (list all references)" nosearch="on" nototal="on" }%
- Second search. For each hit we want this search:
-
%SEARCH{ "(topic found in first search)" format="$topic" nosearch="on" nototal="on" separator=", " }%
- Now let's nest the two. We need to escape the second search, e.g. the first search will build a valid second search string. Note that we escape the second search so that it does not get evaluated prematurely by the first search:
- Use
$percnt
to escape the leading percent of the second search
- Use
\"
to escape the double quotes
- Use
$dollar
to escape the $
of $topic
- Use
$nop
to escape the }%
sequence
Write this:
%SEARCH{ "culture" format=" * $topic is referenced by:$n * $percntSEARCH{ \"$topic\" format=\"$dollartopic\" nosearch=\"on\" nototal=\"on\" separator=\", \" }$nop%" nosearch="on" nototal="on" }%
To get this:
- ATasteOfTWiki is referenced by:
- FormattedSearch is referenced by:
- EditTablePlugin, EmptyPlugin, ManagingWebs, PreferencesPlugin, RenderListPlugin, SearchHelp, SearchPatternCookbook, SlideShowPlugin, SmiliesPlugin, SpreadSheetPlugin, TWikiDocumentation, TWikiForms, TWikiHistory, TWikiReferenceManual, TWikiReleaseNotes04x00, TWikiScripts, TWikiSearchDotPm, TWikiSiteTools, TWikiUISearchDotPm, TWikiVariablesQuickStart, VarMETA, VarSEARCH, VarURLPARAM, WebLeftBar, WebStatistics, WelcomeGuest
- TWikiAccessControl is referenced by:
- EditTablePlugin, FileAttachment, MainFeatures, ManagingTopics, ManagingUsers, SitePermissions, SourceCode, TWikiAccessControl, TWikiDocumentation, TWikiForms, TWikiFuncDotPm, TWikiHistory, TWikiPreferences, TWikiReferenceManual, TWikiScripts, TWikiSiteTools, TWikiTopics, TWikiTutorial, TWikiUserAuthentication, TWikiVariables, VarSEARCH, WebPreferences, WebPreferencesHelp, WikiCulture, WikiWord
- TWikiSite is referenced by:
- AdminToolsCategory, InstantEnhancements, InterwikiPlugin, ManagingWebs, MeNetRegistration, StartingPoints, TWikiDocumentation, TWikiGlossary, TWikiI18NDotPm, TWikiInstallationGuide, TWikiPreferences, TWikiReferenceManual, TWikiSite, TWikiTopics, TWikiTutorial, TWikiUserAuthentication, TWikiUsersGuide, WabiSabi, WebLeftBar, WebSiteTools, WebStatistics, WhatDoesTWikiStandFor, WhatIsWikiWiki, WikiCulture, WikiReferences
- WabiSabi is referenced by:
- WhatIsWikiWiki is referenced by:
- WikiCulture is referenced by:
Note: Nested search can be slow, especially if you nest more then 3 times. Nesting is limited to 16 levels. For each new nesting level you need to "escape the escapes", e.g. write
$dollarpercntSEARCH{
for level three,
$dollardollarpercntSEARCH{
for level four, etc.
Most recently changed pages
Write this:
%SEARCH{ "\.*" scope="topic" regex="on" nosearch="on" nototal="on" order="modified" reverse="on" format="| [[$topic]] | $wikiusername | $date |" limit="7" }%
To get this:
Search with conditional output
A regular expression search is flexible, but there are limitations. For example, you cannot show all topics that are up to exactly one week old, or create a report that shows all records with invalid form fields or fields within a certain range, etc. You need some additional logic to format output based on a condition:
- Specify a search which returns more hits then you need
- For each search hit apply a spreadsheet formula to determine if the hit is needed
- If needed, format and output the result
- Else supress the search hit
This requires the
TWiki:Plugins.SpreadSheetPlugin. The following example shows all topics that are up to exactly one week old.
Write this:
%CALC{$SET(weekold, $TIMEADD($TIME(), -7, day))}%
%SEARCH{ "." scope="topic" regex="on" nosearch="on" nototal="on" order="modified" reverse="on" format="$percntCALC{$IF($TIME($date) < $GET(weekold), <nop>, | [[$topic]] | $wikiusername | $date | $rev |)}$percnt" limit="100" }%
- The first line sets the
weekold
variable to the serialized date of exactly one week ago
- The SEARCH has a deferred CALC. The
$percnt
makes sure that the CALC gets executed once for each search hit
- The CALC compares the date of the topic with the
weekold
date
- If topic is older, a
<nop>
is returned, which gets removed at the end of the TWiki rendering process
- Otherwise, the search hit is formatted and returned
To get this:
Embedding search forms to return a formatted result
Use an HTML form and an embedded formatted search on the same topic. You can link them together with an
%URLPARAM{"..."}%
variable. Example:
Write this:
<form action="%SCRIPTURLPATH{"view"}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
Find Topics:
<input type="text" name="q" size="32" value="%URLPARAM{"q"}%" /> <input type="submit" class="twikiSubmit" value="Search" />
</form>
Result:
%SEARCH{ search="%URLPARAM{"q"}%" format=" * $web.$topic: %BR% $summary" nosearch="on" }%
To get this:
Result:
Number of topics: 0
Related Topics: UserDocumentationCategory
File Attachments
Each topic can have one or more files of any type attached to it by using the Attach screen to upload (or download) files from your local PC. Attachments are stored under revision control: uploads are automatically backed up; all previous versions of a modified file can be retrieved.
What Are Attachments Good For?
File Attachments can be used to archive data, or to create powerful customized groupware solutions, like file sharing and document management systems, and quick Web page authoring.
Document Management System
- You can use Attachments to store and retrieve documents (in any format, with associated graphics, and other media files); attach documents to specific TWiki topics; collaborate on documents with full revision control; distribute documents on a need-to-know basis using web and topic-level access control; create a central reference library that's easy to share with an user group spread around the world.
File Sharing
- For file sharing, FileAttachments on a series of topics can be used to quickly create a well-documented, categorized digital download center for all types of files: documents; graphics and other media; drivers and patches; applications; anything you can safely upload!
Web Authoring
- Through your Web browser, you can easily upload graphics (or sound files, or anything else you want to link to on a page) and place them on a single page, or use them across a web, or site-wide.
- NOTE: You can also add graphics - any files - directly, typically by FTP upload. This requires FTP access, and may be more convenient if you have a large number of files to load. FTP-ed files can't be managed using browser-based Attachment controls. You can use your browser to create TWikiVariables shortcuts, like this %H% = .
Uploading Files
- Click on the
Attach
link at the bottom of the page. The Attach
screen lets you browse for a file, add a comment, and upload it. The uploaded file will show up in the File Attachment table.
- NOTE: The topic must already exist. It is a two step process if you want to attach a file to a non-existing topic; first create the topic, then add the file attachment.
- Any type of file can be uploaded. Some files that might pose a security risk are renamed, ex:
*.php
files are renamed to *.php.txt
so that no one can place code that would be read in a .php file.
- The previous upload path is retained for convenience. In case you make some changes to the local file and want to upload it, again you can copy the previous upload path into the Local file field.
- TWiki can limit the file size. This is defined by the
%ATTACHFILESIZELIMIT%
variable of the TWikiPreferences, currently set at 40000 KB.
- It's not recommended to upload files greater than a few hundred K through a browser. Large files can be extremely slow-loading, and often time out. Use an FTP site for large file uploads.
- Automatic attachments:
- When enabled, all files in a topic's attachment directory are shown as attachments to the topic - even if they were directly copied to the directory and never attached by using an 'Attach' link. This is a convenient way to quickly "attach" files to a topic without uploading them one by one; although at the cost of losing audit trail and version control.
- To enable this feature, set the {AutoAttachPubDir} configuration option.
- NOTE: The automatic attachment feature can only be used by an administrator who has access to the server's file system.
Downloading Files
- NOTE: There is no access control on individual attachments. If you need control over single files, create a separate topic per file and set topic-level access restrictions for each.
Moving Attachment Files
An attachment can be moved between topics.
- Click
Manage
on the Attachment to be moved.
- On the control screen, select the new web and/or topic.
- Click
Move
. The attachment and its version history are moved. The original location is stored as topic Meta Data.
Deleting Attachments
Move unwanted Attachments to web
Trash
, topic
TrashAttachment
.
Linking to Attached Files
- Once a file is attached it can be referenced in the topic. Example:
-
Attach
file: Sample.txt
-
Edit
topic and enter: %ATTACHURL%/Sample.txt
-
Preview
: %ATTACHURL%/Sample.txt
text appears as: /pub/TWiki/FileAttachment/Sample.txt, a link to the text file.
- To reference an attachment located in another topic, enter:
-
%PUBURLPATH%/%WEB%/OtherTopic/Sample.txt
(if it's within the same web)
-
%PUBURLPATH%/Otherweb/OtherTopic/Sample.txt
(if it's in a different web)
- Attached HTML files and text files can be inlined in a topic. Example:
-
Attach
file: Sample.txt
-
Edit
topic and write text: %INCLUDE{"%ATTACHURL%/Sample.txt"}%
- Content of attached file is shown inlined.
- Read more about INCLUDE in TWikiVariables
- GIF, JPG and PNG images can be attached and shown embedded in a topic. Example:
-
Attach
file: Smile.gif
-
Edit
topic and write text: %ATTACHURL%/Smile.gif
-
Preview
: text appears as /pub/TWiki/FileAttachment/Smile.gif, an image.
File Attachment Contents Table
Files attached to a topic are displayed in a directory table, displayed at the bottom of the page, or optionally, hidden and accessed when you click
Attach.
File Attachment Controls
Clicking on a
Manage
link takes you to a new page that looks a bit like this (depending on what
skin is selected):
- The first table is a list of all attachments, including their attributes. An
h
means the attachment is hidden, it isn't listed when viewing a topic.
- The second table is all the versions of the attachment. Click on View to see that version. If it's the most recent version, you'll be taken to an URL that always displays the latest version, which is usually what you want.
- To change the comment on an attachment, enter a new comment and then click Change properties. Note that the comment listed against the specific version will not change, however the comment displayed when viewing the topic does change.
- To hide/unhide an attachment, enable the
Hide file
checkbox, then click Change properties
.
Known Issues
- Unlike topics, attachments are not locked during editing. As a workaround, you can change the comment to indicate an attachment file is being worked on - the comment on the specific version isn't lost, it's there when you list all versions of the attachment.
- Attachments are not secured. Anyone can read them if they know the name of the web, topic and attachment.
TWiki Forms
Add structure to content with forms attached to twiki topics. TWiki forms (with form fields) and formatted search are the base for building database applications.
Overview
By adding form-based input to freeform content, you can structure topics with unlimited, easily searchable categories. A form is enabled for a web and can be added to a topic. The form data is shown in tabular format when the topic is viewed, and can be changed in edit mode using edit fields, radio buttons, check boxes and list boxes. Many different form types can be defined in a web, though a topic can only have only form attached to it at a time.
Typical steps to build an application based on TWiki forms:
- Define a form template
- Enable the form for a web
- Add the form to a template topic
- Build an HTML form to create new topics based on that template topic
- Build a FormattedSearch to list topics that share the same form
Defining a Form Template
A Form Template specifies the fields in a form. A Form Template is simply a page containing a TWiki table, where each row of the table is one form field.
Form Template Elements
- form template - a set of fields defining a form
- A web can use one or more form templates
- form - additional meta data (besides the freeform TEXTAREA) attached to a topic
- Within a form-enabled web, individual topics can have a form or no form
- form field - a named item in a form (also known as a key)
- field type - selects the field type:
Input type | Type field | Size field | Value field |
One or more checkboxes | checkbox | number of items per line | comma list of item labels |
One or more checkboxes, plus Set and Clear buttons | checkbox+buttons | (same) | (same) |
One or more radio buttons (radio buttons are mutually exclusive; only one can be selected) | radio | (same) | (same) |
Read-only label text | label | ignored | text |
Drop-down menu or scrollable box | select | 1 for drop down, 2 and up for scrollable box | comma-separated list of options |
A one-line text field | text | text box width in number of characters | initial text, if a new topic is created with a form template |
A text box | textarea | columns x rows, e.g. 80x6 ; default size is 40x5 | initial text, if a new topic is created with a form template |
- field value - one or more values from a fixed set (select, checkbox, radio type) or free-form (label, text, text area).
Defining a Form
- Create a new topic with your form name:
YourForm
, ExpenseReportForm
, InfoCategoryForm
, RecordReviewForm
, whatever you need.
- Create a TWiki table, with each column head representing one element of an entry field:
Name
, Type
, Size
, Values
, Tooltip message
, and Attributes
(see sample below).
- For each field, fill in a new line; for the type of field, select from the list.
- Save the topic (you can later choose to enable/disable individual forms).
Example: WebForm
| *Name* | *Type* | *Size* | *Values* | *Tooltip message* | *Attributes* |
| TopicClassification | select | 1 | NoDisclosure, PublicSupported, PublicFAQ | blah blah... | |
| OperatingSystem | checkbox | 3 | OsHPUX, OsLinux, OsSolaris, OsWin | blah blah... | |
| OsVersion | text | 16 | | blah blah... | |
You can also retrieve possible values for select, checkbox or radio types from other topics:
Example: WebForm
- In the WebForm topic, define the form:
Leave the Values
field blank.
- Then in the TopicClassification topic, define the possible values:
Name | Type | Tooltip message |
NoDisclosure | option | blah blah... |
Public Supported | option | blah blah... |
Public FAQ | option | blah blah... |
Field values can also be obtained as the result of a
FormattedSearch. For example,
%SEARCH{"Office$" scope="topic" web="%MAINWEB%" nototal="on" nosummary="on" nosearch="on" regex="on" format="$web.$topic" separator=", " }%
when used in the value field of the form definition, will take the set of field values to be all topic names in the Main web which end in "Office".
Notes:
- A very few field names are reserved. If you try to use one of these names, TWiki will automatically append an underscore to the name when the form is used.
- The field value will be used to initialize a field when a form is created, unless specific values are given by the topic template or query parameters. The first item in the list for a select or radio type is the default item. For
label
, text
, and textarea
fields the value may also contain commas. checkbox
fields cannot be initialized through the form template.
- If a
label
field has no name (blank first column in the form definition) it will not be shown when the form is viewed, only when it is edited.
- The topic definition is not read when a topic is viewed.
- Field names can include any text, but you should stick to alphanumeric characters. If you want to use a non-wikiname for a
select
, checkbox
or radio
field, and want to get the values from another topic, you can use [[...]]
links. This notation can also be used when referencing another topic to obtain field values, but a name other than the topic name is required as the name of the field.
- Field names have to be unique. If the same name is necessary (as when the field values for several fields are obtained from the same topic), an alternative name must be assigned using the
[[...]]
notation.
- The topic defining field values can also be generated through a FormattedSearch, which must yield a suitable table as the result.
- Form definition topics can be protected in the usual manner, using TWikiAccessControl, to limit who can change the form template and/or individual value lists. Note that view access is required to be able to edit topics that use the form definition, though view access to the form definition is not required to view a topic where the form has been used.
- The
Tooltip message
column is used as a tooltip for the field name (only if field name is a WikiName) - you only see the tooltip in edit view.
- The
Attributes
column is used to define special behavior for that form field (multiple attributes can be entered, with or without separators):
- An attribute
H
indicates that this field should not be shown in view mode. However, the field is available for editing and storing information.
- An attribute
M
indicates that this field is mandatory. The topic cannot be saved unless a value is provided for this field. If the field is found empty during topic save, an error is raised and the user is redirected to an oops
page. Mandatory fields are indicated by an asterisks next to the field name.
Enabling Forms by Web
Forms have to be enabled for each individual web. The
WEBFORMS
variable in
WebPreferences is optional and defines a list of possible form templates.
Example:
- Set WEBFORMS = BugForm, FeatureForm, Books.BookLoanForm
- With
WEBFORMS
enabled, an extra button is added to the edit view. If the topic doesn't have a Form, an Add Form button appears at the end of the topic. If a Form is present, a Change button appears in the top row of the Form. The buttons open a screen that enables selection of a form specified in WEBFORMS
, or the No form option.
Add a form to a topic
- Edit a topic and follow the "Add form" button to add a Form to the topic. This is typically done to a template topic, either to the
WebTopicEditTemplate
topic in a web, or a new topic that serves as an application specific template topic. Initial Form values can be set there.
- Additionally a new topic can be given a Form using the
formtemplate
parameter in the (edit or save) URL. Initial values can then be provided in the URLs or as form values:
- Tip: For TWiki applications you can automatically generate unique topicnames.
- Note: Initial values will not be submitted to the form of a new topic if you only use the formtemplate parameter.
Build an HTML form to create new Form-based topics
- New topics with a form are created by simple HTML forms asking for a topic name. For example, you can have a
SubmitExpenseReport
topic where you can create new expense reports, a SubmitVacationRequest
topic, and so on. These can specify the required template topic with its associated form. Template topics has more.
Changing a form
- You can change a form definition, and TWiki will try to make sure you don't lose any data from the topics that use that form.
- If you change the form definition, the changes will not take affect in a topic that uses that form until you edit and save it.
- If you add a new field to the form, then it will appear next time you edit a topic that uses the form.
- If you delete a field from the form, or change a field name, then the data will not be visible when you edit the topic (the changed form definition will be used). If you save the topic, the old data will be lost (though thanks to revision control, you can always see it in older versions of the topic)
Searching for Form Data
TWiki Forms accept user-input data, stored as
TWikiMetaData. Meta data also contains program-generated info about changes, attachments, etc. To find, format and display form and other meta data, see
TWikiMetaData,
FORMFIELD
,
SEARCH
and
METASEARCH
variables in
TWikiVariables, and
TWiki Formatted Search.
Example
TWiki users often want to have an overview of topics they contributed to. With the $formfield
parameter it is easy to display the value of a classification field next to the topic link:
| *Topic* | *Classification* |
%SEARCH{"%MAINWEB%.UserName" scope="text" regex="off" nosearch="on" nototal="on" order="modified" reverse="on"
format="|<b>[[$web.$topic][$topic]]</b> |<nop>$formfield(TopicClassification) |" web="Sandbox"}%
Extending the range of form data types
Several Plugins allow you to extend the range of data types accepted by forms. For example, the
TWiki:Plugins.DateFieldPlugin lets you add a 'date' type to the available data types. All data types are single-valued (can only have one value) with the following exceptions:
- any type name starting with
checkbox
- any type name with
+multi
anywhere in the name
Types with names like this can both take multiple values.
Gotcha!
- Some browsers may strip linefeeds from
text
fields when a topic is saved. If you need linefeeds in a field, make sure it is a textarea
.
Importing Category Table Data
Very, very old TWiki releases used a system called the "TWikiCategoryTable". Later releases support automatic import of this data.
On upgrading from the previous TWiki, a Form Template topic has to be built for each web that used a Category Table, recreating the fields and values from the old
twikicatitems.tmpl
. The replacement Form Template must be set as the first item in the
WebPreferences variable
WEBFORMS
. If missing, pages will display, but attempting to edit results in an error message.
The new Form Template system should work with old Category Table data with no special conversion. Data is assigned to Meta variables the first time an imported topic is edited and saved in the new system.
If things aren't working correctly, there may be useful entries in
data/warning.txt
.
TWiki Templates
Definition of the templates used to render all HTML pages displayed in TWiki
Overview
There are three types of template:
- Master Templates: Define blocks of text for use in other templates
- HTML Page Templates: Define the layout of TWiki pages
- Template Topics: Define default text when you create a new topic
All three types of template use the TWiki template system.
The TWiki Template System
Templates are plain text with embedded
template directives that tell TWiki how to compose blocks of text together to create something new.
How Template Directives Work
- Template directives are embedded in templates.
- Directives are of the form
%TMPL:<key>%
and %TMPL:<key>{"attr"}%
.
- Directives:
-
%TMPL:INCLUDE{"file"}%
: Includes a template file. The file is found as described below.
-
%TMPL:DEF{"block"}%
: Define a block. Text between this and the %TMPL:END%
directive is not used in-place, but is saved for later use with %TMPL:P
. Leading and trailing whitespace is ignored.
-
%TMPL:END%
: Ends a block definition.
-
%TMPL:P{"var"}%
: Includes a previously defined block.
-
%{...}%
: is a comment.
- Two-pass processing lets you use a variable before or after declaring it.
- Templates and TWikiSkins work transparently and interchangeably. For example, you can create a skin that overloads only the
twiki.tmpl
master template, like twiki.print.tmpl
, that redefines the header and footer.
- Use of template directives is optional: templates work without them.
- NOTE: Template directives work only for templates: they do not get processed in normal topic text.
TMPL:P also supports simple parameters. For example, given the definition
%TMPL:DEF{"x"}% x%P%z%TMPL:END%
then
%TMPL:P{"x" P="y"}%
will expand to
xyz
.
Note that parameters can simply be ignored; for example=%TMPL:P{"x"}%= will expand to x%P%z.
Any alphanumeric characters can be used in parameter names. You are highly recommended to use parameter names that cannot be confused with
TWikiVariables.
Note that three parameter names,
context
,
then
and
else
are
reserved. They are used to support a limited form of "if" condition that you can use to select which of two templates to use, based on a
context identifier:
%TMPL:DEF{"link_inactive"}%<input type="button" disabled value="Link>%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{"link_active"}%<input type="button" onclick="link()" value="Link" />%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:P{context="inactive" then="inactive_link" else="active_link"}% for %CONTEXT%
When the "inactive" context is set, then this will expand the "link_inactive" template; otherwise it will expand the "link_active" template.
See
IfStatements for details of supported context identifiers.
Finding Templates
Templates are stored either in the
twiki/templates
directory, or can also be read from user topics. As an example,
twiki/templates/view.tmpl
is the default template file for the
twiki/bin/view
script.
Templates that are included using
%TMPL:INCLUDE%
are also found using the same search algorithm, unless you explicitly put
'.tmpl'
at the end of the template name. In this case, the string is assumed to be the full name of a template in the
templates
directory, and the algorithm isn't used.
TWiki uses the following search order to determine which template file or topic to use for a particular script. The
skin path is set as described in
TWikiSkins.
- templates/web/script.skin.tmpl for each skin on the skin path
- this usage is supported for compatibility only and is deprecated. Store web-specific templates in TWiki topics instead.
- templates/script.skin.tmpl for each skin on the skin path
- templates/web/script.tmpl
- this usage is supported for compatibility only and is deprecated. Store web-specific templates in TWiki topics instead.
- templates/script.tmpl
- The TWiki topic web.topic if the template name can be parsed into web.topic
- The TWiki topic web.SkinSkinScriptTemplate for each skin on the skin path
- The TWiki topic web.ScriptTemplate
- The TWiki topic TWiki.SkinSkinScriptTemplate for each skin on the skin path
- The TWiki topic TWiki.ScriptTemplate
Legend:
- script refers to the script name, e.g
view
, edit
- Script refers to the same, but with the first character capitalized, e.g
View
- skin refers to a skin name, e.g
dragon
, pattern
. All skins are checked at each stage, in the order they appear in the skin path.
- Skin refers to the same, but with the first character capitalized, e.g
Dragon
- web refers to the current web
For example, the
example
template file will be searched for in the following places, when the current web is
Thisweb
and the skin path is
print,pattern
:
-
templates/Thisweb/example.print.tmpl
deprecated; don't rely on it
-
templates/Thisweb/example.pattern.tmpl
deprecated; don't rely on it
-
templates/example.print.tmpl
-
templates/example.pattern.tmpl
-
templates/Thisweb/example.tmpl
deprecated; don't rely on it
-
templates/example.tmpl
-
Thisweb.PrintSkinExampleTemplate
-
Thisweb.PatternSkinExampleTemplate
-
Thisweb.ExampleTemplate
-
TWiki.PrintSkinExampleTemplate
-
TWiki.PatternSkinExampleTemplate
-
TWiki.ExampleTemplate
Template names are usually derived from the name of the currently executing script; however it is also possible to override these settings in the
view
and
edit
scripts, for example when a topic-specific template is required. Two preference variables can be user to override the templates used:
-
VIEW_TEMPLATE
sets the template to be used for viewing a topic
-
EDIT_TEMPLATE
sets the template for editing a topic.
If these preferences are set locally (using
Local instead of
Set) for a topic, in
WebPreferences, in
Main.TWikiPreferences, or
TWiki.TWikiPreferences (using
Set), the indicated templates will be chosen for
view
and
edit
respectively. The template search order is as specified above.
Master Templates
Master templates use the block definition directives (
%TMPL:DEF
and
%TMPL:END%
) to define common sections that appear in two or more other templates.
twiki.tmpl
is the default master template.
Template variable: | Defines: |
%TMPL:DEF{"sep"}% | "|" separator |
%TMPL:DEF{"htmldoctype"}% | Start of all HTML pages |
%TMPL:DEF{"standardheader"}% | Standard header (ex: view, index, search) |
%TMPL:DEF{"simpleheader"}% | Simple header with reduced links (ex: edit, attach, oops) |
%TMPL:DEF{"standardfooter"}% | Footer, excluding revision and copyright parts |
%TMPL:DEF{"oops"}% | Skeleton of oops dialog |
HTML Page Templates
HTML page templates are files of HTML mixed with template directives that tell TWiki how to build up an HTML page. As described above, the template system supports the use of 'include' directives that let you re-use the same sections of HTML - such as headers and footers - in several different places.
TWiki uses HTML page templates when composing the output from all actions, like topic view, edit, and preview. This allows you to change the look and feel of all pages by editing just a few template files.
HTML page templates are also used in the definition of
TWikiSkins.
Template Topics
Template topics define the default text for new topics. There are three types of template topic:
When you create a new topic, TWiki locates a topic to use as a content template according to the following search order:
- A topic name specified by the
templatetopic
CGI parameter
- if no web is specified, the current web is searched first and then the TWiki web
- WebTopicEditTemplate in the current web
- WebTopicEditTemplate in the TWiki web
Edit Template Topics and Variable Expansion
The following variables get expanded when a user creates a new topic based on a template topic:
Variable: | Description: |
%DATE% | Signature format date. See VarDATE |
%GMTIME% | Date/time. See VarGMTIME |
%GMTIME{...}% | Formatted date/time. See VarGMTIME2 |
%NOP% | A no-operation variable that gets removed. Useful to prevent a SEARCH from hitting an edit template topic; also useful to escape a variable like %URLPARAM%NOP%{...}% |
%STARTSECTION{type="templateonly"}% ... %ENDSECTION{type="templateonly"}% | Text that gets removed when a new topic based on the template is created. See notes below. |
%SERVERTIME% | Date/time. See VarSERVERTIME |
%SERVERTIME{...}% | Formatted date/time. See VarSERVERTIME2 |
%USERNAME% | Login name of user who is instantiating the new topic, e.g. guest |
%URLPARAM{"name"}% | Value of a named URL parameter |
%WIKINAME% | WikiName of user who is instantiating the new topic, e.g. TWikiGuest |
%WIKIUSERNAME% | User name of user who is instantiating the new tpoic, e.g. Main.TWikiGuest |
%STARTSECTION{type="templateonly"}%
...
%ENDSECTION{type="templateonly"}%
markers are used to embed text that you
do not want expanded when a new topic based on the template topic is created. For example, you might want to write in the template topic:
This template can only be changed by:
* Set ALLOWTOPICCHANGE = %MAINWEB%.TWikiAdminGroup
This will restrict who can edit the template topic, but will get removed when a new topic based on that template topic is created.
%NOP%
can be used to prevent expansion of TWiki variables that would otherwise be expanded during topic creation e.g.i escape
%nop>SERVERTIME%
with
%SER%NOP%VERTIME%
.
All other variables are unchanged, e.g. are carried over "as is" into the new topic.
Template Topics in Action
Here is an example for creating new topics based on a specific template topic:
The above form asks for a topic name. A hidden input tag named
templatetopic
specifies
ExampleTopicTemplate as the template topic to use. Here is the HTML source of the form:
<form name="new" action="%SCRIPTURLPATH{edit}%/%WEB%/">
* New example topic:
<input type="text" name="topic" value="ExampleTopic%SERVERTIME{$yearx$mox$day}%" size="26" />
<input type="hidden" name="templatetopic" value="ExampleTopicTemplate" />
<input type="hidden" name="topicparent" value="%TOPIC%" />
<input type="hidden" name="onlywikiname" value="on" />
<input type="hidden" name="onlynewtopic" value="on" />
<input type="submit" class="twikiSubmit" value="Create" />
(date format is <nop>YYYYxMMxDD)
</form>
See
TWikiScripts for details of the parameters that the
edit
script understands.
TIP: You can use the
%WIKIUSERNAME%
and
%DATE%
variables in your topic templates to include the signature of the person creating a new topic. The variables are expanded into fixed text when a new topic is created. The standard signature is:
-- %WIKIUSERNAME% - %DATE%
Automatically Generated Topicname
If you want to make a TWiki application where you need automatically generated unique topicnames, you can use 10 X's in the edit / save URL, and they will be replaced on topic save with a count value. For example, BugIDXXXXXXXXXX will result in topics named BugID0, BugID1, BugID2 etc.
Example link to create a new topic:
[[%SCRIPTURLPATH{"edit"}%/%WEB%/BugIDXXXXXXXXXX?templatetopic=BugTemplate&topicparent=%TOPIC%&t=%SERVERTIME{"$day$hour$min$sec"}%][Create new item]]=
Master Templates by Example
Attached is an example of an oops based template
oopsbase.tmpl
and an example oops dialog
oopstest.tmpl
based on the base template.
NOTE: This isn't the release version, just a quick, simple demo.
Base template oopsbase.tmpl
The first line declares a delimiter variable called "sep", used to separate multiple link items. The variable can be called anywhere by writing
%TMPL:P{"sep"}%
%TMPL:DEF{"sep"}% | %TMPL:END%
<html>
<head>
<title> %WIKITOOLNAME% . %WEB% . %TOPIC% %.TMPL:P{"titleaction"}%</title>
<base href="%SCRIPTURLPATH{"view"}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td bgcolor="%WEBBGCOLOR%" rowspan="2" valign="top" width="1%">
<a href="%WIKIHOMEURL%">
<img src="%PUBURLPATH%/wikiHome.gif" border="0"></a>
</td>
<td>
<b>%WIKITOOLNAME% . %WEB% . </b><font size="+2">
<B>%TOPIC%</b> %TMPL:P{"titleaction"}%</font>
</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="%WEBBGCOLOR%">
<td colspan="2">
%TMPL:P{"webaction"}%
</td>
</tr>
</table>
--- ++ %TMPL:P{"heading"}%
%TMPL:P{"message"}%
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0">
<tr bgcolor="%WEBBGCOLOR%">
<td valign="top">
Topic <b>%TOPIC%</b> . {
%TMPL:P{"topicaction"}%
}
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
|
Test template oopstest.tmpl
Each oops template basically just defines some variables and includes the base template that does the layout work.
%TMPL:DEF{"titleaction"}% (test =titleaction=) %TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{"webaction"}% test =webaction= %TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{"heading"}%
Test heading %TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{"message"}%
Test =message=. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah...
* Some more blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah...
* Param1: %PARAM1%
* Param2: %PARAM2%
* Param3: %PARAM3%
* Param4: %PARAM4%
%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{"topicaction"}%
Test =topicaction=:
[[%WEB%.%TOPIC%][OK]] %TMPL:P{"sep"}%
[[%TWIKIWEB%.TWikiRegistration][Register]] %TMPL:END%
%TMPL:INCLUDE{"oopsbase"}%
|
Sample screen shot of oopstest.tmpl
With URL:
.../bin/oops/Sandbox/TestTopic2?template=oopstest¶m1=WebHome¶m2=WebNotify
Related Topics: TWikiSkins,
DeveloperDocumentationCategory,
AdminDocumentationCategory
TWiki Skins
Skins overlay regular templates to give different looks and feels to TWiki screens.
Overview
TWiki uses
TWikiTemplates files as the basis of all the screens it uses to interact with users. Each screen has an associated template file that contains the basic layout of the screen. This is then filled in by the code to generate what you see in the browser.
TWiki ships with a default set of template files that give a basic look-and-feel. TWiki also includes support for
skins that can be selected to give different, more sophisticated, look and feels. A default TWiki installation will usually start up with the
PatternSkin already selected. Skins may also be defined by third parties and loaded into a TWiki installation to give more options. To see how TWiki looks when
no skin is selected,
view this topic with a non-existant skin.
Topic text is not affected by the choice of skin, though a skin can be defined to use a CSS (Cascading Style Sheet), which can sometimes give a radically different appearance to the text.
Tip: TWiki:TWiki.TWikiSkinsSupplement on TWiki.org has supplemental documentation on TWiki Skins.
Changing the default TWiki skin
TWiki default ships with the skin
PatternSkin activated. If you want to modify the layout, colors or even the templates to suit your own needs, have a look first at the topics
PatternSkinCustomization and
PatternSkinCssCookbook.
Defining Skins
You may want to define your own skin, for example to comply with corporate web guidelines, or because you have a aesthetic vision that you want to share.
The
TWikiTemplates files used for skins are located in the
twiki/templates
directory and are named according to the skin:
<scriptname>.<skin>.tmpl
. For example, the template used for pages generated by the
view
script with the
print
skin selected is
view.print.tmpl
(this is how the
Printable control is implemented). Skin files may also be defined in TWiki topics - see
TWikiTemplates for details.
To start creating a new skin, copy the default
TWikiTemplates (like
view.tmpl
), or copy an existing skin to use as a base for your own skin. You should only need to copy the files you intend to customise, as TWiki can be configured to fall back to another skin if a template is not defined in your skin. Name the files as described above (for example
view.myskin.tmpl
.
Note: Two skin names have
reserved meanings;
text
skin, and skin names starting with
rss
have
hard-coded meanings.
The following template files are used for TWiki screens, and are referenced in the TWiki core code. If a skin doesn't define its own version of a template file, then TWiki will fall back to the next skin in the skin path, or finally, to the default version of the template file.
(Certain template files are expected to provide certain TMPL:DEFs - these are listed in sub-bullets)
-
addform
- used to select a new form for a topic
-
attachagain
- used when refreshing an existing attachment
-
attachnew
- used when attaching a new file to a topic
-
attachtables
- defines the format of attachments at the bottom of the standard topic view
-
ATTACH:files:footer
, ATTACH:files:header
, ATTACH:files:row
, ATTACH:versions:footer
, ATTACH:versions:header
, ATTACH:versions:row
-
changeform
- used to change the form in a topic
-
changes
- used by the changes
script
-
edit
- used for the edit screen
-
form
-
formtables
- used to defined the format of forms
-
FORM:display:footer
, FORM:display:header
, FORM:display:row
-
login
- used for loggin in when using the TemplateLoginManager
-
LOG_IN
, LOG_IN_BANNER
, LOG_OUT
, LOGGED_IN_BANNER
, NEW_USER_NOTE
, UNRECOGNISED_USER
-
moveattachment
- used when moving an attachment
-
oopsaccessdenied
- used to format Access Denied messages
-
no_such_topic
, no_such_web
, only_group
, topic_access
-
oopsattention
- used to format Attention messages
-
already_exists
, bad_email
, bad_ver_code
, bad_wikiname
, base_web_missing
, confirm
, created_web
, delete_err
, invalid_web_color
, invalid_web_name
, in_a_group
, mandatory_field
, merge_notice
, missing_action
, missing_fields
, move_err
, missing_action
, no_form_def
, no_users_to_reset
, notwikiuser
, oversized_upload
, password_changed
, password_mismatch
, problem_adding
, remove_user_done
, rename_err
, rename_not_wikiword
, rename_topic_exists
, rename_web_err
, rename_web_exists
, rename_web_prerequisites
, reset_bad
, reset_ok
, save_error
, send_mail_error
, thanks
, topic_exists
, unrecognized_action
, upload_name_changed
, web_creation_error
, web_exists
, web_missing
, wrong_password
, zero_size_upload
-
oopschangelanguage
- used to prompt for a new language when internationalisation is enabled
-
oopslanguagechanged
- used to confirm a new language when internationalisation is enabled
-
oopsleaseconflict
- used to format lease Conflict messages
-
preview
- used for previewing edited topics before saving
-
rdiff
- used for viewing topic differences
-
registernotify
- used by the user registration system
-
registernotifyadmin
- used by the user registration system
-
rename
- used when renaming a topic
-
renameconfirm
- used when renaming a topic
-
renamedelete
- used when renaming a topic
-
renameweb
- used when renaming a web
-
renamewebconfirm
- used when renaming a web
-
renamewebdelete
- used when renaming a web
-
searchbookview
- used to format inline search results in book view
-
searchformat
- used to format inline search results
-
search
- used by the search
CGI script
-
settings
-
view
- used by the view
CGI script
twiki.tmpl
is a master template conventionally used by other templates, but not used directly by code.
Note: You are strongly recommended
not to
TMPL:INCLUDE
the default templates, or templates from other skins, when you are defining your own skin. If you do, you run the risk that the included file might change and break your skin.
Variables in Skins
You can use
template variables,
TWikiVariables, and other predefined variables to compose your skins. Some commonly used variables in skins:
Variable: | Expanded to: |
%WEBLOGONAME% | Filename of web logo |
%WEBLOGOIMG% | Image URL of web logo |
%WEBLOGOURL% | Link of web logo |
%WEBLOGOALT% | Alt text of web logo |
%WIKILOGOURL% | Link of page logo |
%WIKILOGOIMG% | Image URL of page logo |
%WIKILOGOALT% | Alt text of page logo |
%WEBBGCOLOR% | Web-specific background color, defined in the WebPreferences |
%WIKITOOLNAME% | The name of your TWiki site |
%SCRIPTURL% | The script URL of TWiki |
%SCRIPTURLPATH% | The script URL path |
%SCRIPTSUFFIX% | The script suffix, ex: .pl , .cgi |
%WEB% | The name of the current web. |
%TOPIC% | The name of the current topic. |
%WEBTOPICLIST% | Common links of current web, defined in the WebPreferences. It includes a Go box |
%TEXT% | The topic text, e.g. the content that can be edited |
%META{"form"}% | TWikiForm, if any |
%META{"attachments"}% | FileAttachment table |
%META{"parent"}% | The topic parent |
%EDITTOPIC% | Edit link |
%REVTITLE% | The revision title, if any, ex: (r1.6) |
%REVINFO% | Revision info, ex: r1.6 - 24 Dec 2002 - 08:12 GMT - TWikiGuest |
%WEBCOPYRIGHT% | Copyright notice, defined in the WebPreferences |
%BROADCASTMESSAGE% | Broadcast message at the beginning of your view template, can be used to alert users of scheduled downtimes; can be set in TWikiPreferences |
The "Go" Box and Navigation Box
The default
%WEBTOPICLIST%
includes a "Go" box, also called "Jump" box, to jump to a topic. The box also understands URLs, e.g. you can type
http://www.google.com/ to jump to an external web site. The feature is handy if you build a skin that has a select box of frequently used links, like Intranet home, employee database, sales database and such. A little JavaScript gets into action on the onSelect method of the select tag to fill the selected URL into the "Go" box field, then submits the form.
Here is an example form that has a select box and the "Go" box for illustration purposes. You need to have JavaScript enabled for this to work:
Using Cascading Style Sheets
CSS is used by
PatternSkin, the TWiki skin that is selected in new installations. See that skin topic for information how CSS is used.
CSS files are gererally attachments to the skin topic that are included in the the skin templates - in the case of
PatternSkin in the template
css.pattern.tmpl
.
Write in your main template:
<style type='text/css' media='all'>@import url('%PUBURLPATH%/%TWIKIWEB%/MySkin/mystyle.css');</style>
Attachment Tables
Controlling the look and feel of attachment tables is a little bit more complex than for the rest of a skin. By default, the attachment table is a standard TWiki table, and the look is controlled in the same way as other tables. In a very few cases you may want to change the
content of the table as well.
The format of standard attachment tables is defined through the use of special
TWiki template macros which by default, are defined in the
attachtables.tmpl
template using the
%TMPL:DEF
macro syntax described in
TWikiTemplates. These macros are:
Macro | Description |
ATTACH:files:header | Standard title bar |
ATTACH:files:row | Standard row |
ATTACH:files:footer | Footer for all screens |
ATTACH:files:header:A | Title bar for upload screens, with attributes column |
ATTACH:files:row:A | Row for upload screen |
ATTACH:files:footer:A | Footer for all screens |
The format of tables of file versions in the Upload screen can also be changed, using the macros:
Macro | Description |
ATTACH:versions:header | Header for versions table on upload screen |
ATTACH:versions:row | Row format for versions table on upload screen |
ATTACH:versions:footer | Footer for versions table on upload screen |
The
ATTACH:row
macros are expanded for each file in the attachment table, using the following special tags:
Tag | Description |
%A_URL% | URL that will recover the file |
%A_REV% | Revision of this file |
%A_ICON% | A file icon suitable for representing the attachment content |
%A_FILE% | The name of the file |
%A_SIZE% | The size of the file |
%A_DATE% | The date the file was uploaded |
%A_USER% | The user who uploaded it |
%A_COMMENT% | The comment they put in when uploading it |
%A_ATTRS% | The attributes of the file as seen on the upload screen e.g "h" for a hidden file |
Packaging and Publishing Skins
See
TWiki:Plugins/SkinPackagingHowTo and
TWiki:Plugins/SkinDeveloperFAQ
Browsing Installed Skins
You can try out all installed skins in the
TWikiSkinBrowser.
Activating Skins
TWiki uses a
skin search path, which lets you combine skins additively. The skin path is defined using a combination of
TWikiVariables and URL parameters.
TWiki works by asking for a template for a particular function - for example, 'view'. The detail of how templates are searched for is described in
TWikiTemplates, but in summary, the templates directory is searched for a file called
view.
skin.tmpl
, where
skin is the name of the skin e.g.
pattern
. If no template is found, then the fallback is to use
view.tmpl
. Each skin on the path is searched for in turn. For example, if you have set the skin path to
local,pattern
then
view.local.tmpl
will be searched for first, then
view.pattern.tmpl
and finally
view.tmpl
.
The basic skin is defined by a
SKIN
setting:
-
Set SKIN = catskin, bearskin
You can also add a parameter to the URL, such as
?skin=catskin, bearskin
. Example activation of
PrintSkin that generates a printable page:
Setting
SKIN
(or the
?skin
parameter in the URL) replaces the existing skin path setting. You can also
extend the existing skin path as well, using
covers.
This pushes a different skin to the front of the skin search path (so for our example above, that final skin path will be
ruskin, catskin, bearskin
). There is also an equivalent
cover
URL parameter.
The full skin path is built up as follows:
SKIN
setting (or
?skin
if it is set), then
COVER
setting is added, then
?cover
.
Hard-Coded Skins
The
text
skin is reserved for TWiki internal use.
Skin names starting with
rss
also have a special meaning; if one or more of the skins in the skin path starts with 'rss' then 8-bit characters will be encoded as XML entities in the output, and the
content-type
header will be forced to
text/xml
.
Related Topics: TWikiSkinBrowser,
AdminDocumentationCategory,
DeveloperDocumentationCategory,
TWiki:TWiki.TWikiSkinsSupplement
--
Contributors: TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny,
TWiki:Main.MikeMannix,
TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie
TWiki Meta Data
Additional topic data, program-generated or from TWikiForms, is stored in META
variable name/value pairs
Overview
TWikiMetaData uses
META
variables to store topic data that's separate from the main free-form content. This includes program-generated info like
FileAttachment and topic movement data, and user-defined
TWikiForms info. Use
META
variables to format and display Meta Data.
Meta Data Syntax
- Format is the same as in TWikiVariables, except all fields have a key.
-
%META:<type>{key1="value1" key2="value2" ...}%
- Order of fields within the meta variables is not defined, except that if there is a field with key
name
, this appears first for easier searching (note the order of the variables themselves is defined).
- Each meta variable is on one line.
-
\n
(new line) is represented in values by %_N_
and "
(double-quotes) by %_Q_%
.
Example of Format
%META:TOPICINFO{version="1.6" date="976762663" author="LastEditorWikiName" format="1.0"}%
text of the topic
%META:TOPICMOVED{from="Codev.OldName" to="Codev.NewName"
by="TopicMoverWikiName" date="976762680"}%
%META:TOPICPARENT{name="NavigationByTopicContext"}%
%META:FILEATTACHMENT{name="Sample.txt" version="1.3" ... }%
%META:FILEATTACHMENT{name="Smile.gif" version="1.1" ... }%
%META:FORM{name="WebFormTemplate"}%
%META:FIELD{name="OperatingSystem" value="OsWin"}%
%META:FIELD{name="TopicClassification" value="PublicFAQ"}%
Meta Data Specifications
The current version of Meta Data is 1.0, with support for the following variables.
META:TOPICINFO
Key | Comment |
version | Same as RCS version |
date | integer, unix time, seconds since start 1970 |
author | last to change topic, is the REMOTE_USER |
format | Format of this topic, will be used for automatic format conversion |
META:TOPICMOVED
This is optional, exists if topic has ever been moved. If a topic is moved more than once, only the most recent META:TOPICMOVED meta variable exists in the topic, older ones are to be found in the rcs history.
%META:TOPICMOVED{from="Codev.OldName" to="Codev.NewName" by="talintj" date="976762680"}%
Key | Comment |
from | Full name, i.e., web.topic |
to | Full name, i.e., web.topic |
by | Who did it, is the REMOTE_USER, not WikiName |
date | integer, unix time, seconds since start 1970 |
Notes:
- at present version number is not supported directly, it can be inferred from the RCS history.
- there is only one META:TOPICMOVED in a topic, older move information can be found in the RCS history.
META:TOPICPARENT
Key | Comment |
name | The topic from which this was created, WebHome if done from Go , othewise topic where ? or form used. Normally just topic, but is full web.topic format if parent is in a different Web. Renaming a Web will then only break a few of these references or they can be scanned and fixed. |
META:FILEATTACHMENT
Key | Comment |
name | Name of file, no path. Must be unique within topic |
version | Same as RCS revision |
path | Full path file was loaded from |
size | In bytes |
date | integer, unix time, seconds since start 1970 |
user | the REMOTE_USER, not WikiName |
comment | As supplied when file uploaded |
attr | h if hidden, optional |
Extra fields that are added if an attachment is moved:
Key | Comment |
movedfrom | full topic name - web.topic |
movedby | the REMOTE_USER, not WikiName |
movedto | full topic name - web.topic |
moveddate | integer, unix time, seconds since start 1970 |
META:FORM
Key | Comment |
name | A topic name - the topic represents one of the TWikiForms. Can optionally include the web name (i.e., web.topic), but doesn't normally |
META:FIELD
Should only be present if there is a META:FORM entry. Note that this data is used when viewing a topic, the form template definition is not read.
Key | Name |
name | Ties to entry in TWikiForms template, is title with all bar alphanumerics and . removed |
title | Full text from TWikiForms template |
value | Value user has supplied via form |
Recommended Sequence
There is no absolute need for Meta Data variables to be listed in a specific order within a topic, but it makes sense to do so a couple of good reasons:
- form fields remain in the order they are defined
- the
diff
function output appears in a logical order
The recommended sequence is:
-
META:TOPICINFO
-
META:TOPICPARENT
(optional)
- text of topic
-
META:TOPICMOVED
(optional)
-
META:FILEATTACHMENT
(0 or more entries)
-
META:FORM
(optional)
-
META:FIELD
(0 or more entries; FORM required)
Viewing Meta Data in Page Source
When viewing a topic the
Raw Text
link can be clicked to show the text of a topic (i.e., as seen when editing). This is done by adding
raw=on
to URL.
raw=debug
shows the meta data as well as the topic data, ex:
debug view for this topic
Rendering Meta Data
Meta Data is rendered with the %META% variable. This is mostly used in the
view
,
preview
and
edit
scripts.
You can render form fields in topic text by using the FORMFIELD variable. Example:
%FORMFIELD{"TopicClassification"}%
For details, see
VarFORMFIELD.
Current support covers:
Variable usage: | Comment: |
%META{"form"}% | Show form data, see TWikiForms. |
%META{"formfield"}% | Show form field value. Parameter: name="field_name" . Example: %META{ "formfield" name="TopicClassification" }% |
%META{"attachments"}% | Show attachments, except for hidden ones. Options: all="on" : Show all attachments, including hidden ones. |
%META{"moved"}% | Details of any topic moves. |
%META{"parent"}% | Show topic parent. Options: dontrecurse="on" : By default recurses up tree, at some cost. nowebhome="on" : Suppress WebHome. prefix="..." : Prefix for parents, only if there are parents, default "" . suffix="..." : Suffix, only appears if there are parents, default "" . separator="..." : Separator between parents, default is " > " . |
Known Issues
At present, there is no Meta Data support for Plugins. However, the format is readily extendable and the
Meta.pm
code that supports the format needs only minor alteration.
Related Topics: DeveloperDocumentationCategory,
UserDocumentationCategory
TWiki Plugins
Add functionality to TWiki with readily available Plugins; create Plugins based on APIs
Overview
You can add Plugins to extend TWiki functionality, without altering the core code. A plug-in approach lets you:
- add virtually unlimited features while keeping the main TWiki code compact and efficient;
- heavily customize an installation and still do clean updates to new versions of TWiki;
- rapidly develop new TWiki functions in Perl using the Plugin API.
Everything to do with TWiki Plugins - demos, new releases, downloads, development, general discussion - is available at TWiki.org, in the
TWiki:Plugins web.
TWiki Plugins are developed and contributed by interested members of the community. Plugins are provided on an 'as is' basis; they are not a part of TWiki, but are independently developed and maintained.
Tip: TWiki:TWiki.TWikiPluginsSupplement on TWiki.org has supplemental documentation on TWiki Plugins.
Installing Plugins
Each TWiki Plugin comes with its own documentation: step-by-step installation instructions, a detailed description of any special requirements, version details, and a working example for testing. Many Plugins have an install script that automates these steps for you.
Special Requirements: Some Plugins need certain Perl modules to be preinstalled on the host system. Plugins may also use other resources, like graphics, other modules, applications, and templates. You should be able to find detailed instructions in the Plugin's documentation.
Each Plugin has a standard release topic, located in the
TWiki:Plugins web at TWiki.org. There's usually a number of other related topics, such as a developers page, and an appraisal page.
On-Site Pretesting
The recommended approach to testing new Plugins before making them public is to create a second local TWiki installation, and test the Plugin there. You can allow selected users access to the test area. Once you are satisifed that it won't compromise your main installation, you can install it there as well.
InstalledPlugins shows which Plugins are: 1) installed, 2) loading properly, and 3) what
TWiki:Codev.PluginHandlers they invoke. Any failures are shown in the Errors section. The
%FAILEDPLUGINS%
variable can be used to debug failures. You may also want to check your webserver error log and the various TWiki log files.
Some Notes on Plugin Performance
The performance of the system depends to some extent on the number of Plugins installed and on the Plugin implementation. Some Plugins impose no measurable performance decrease, some do. For example, a Plugin might use many Perl libraries that need to be initialized with each page view (unless you run mod_perl). You can only really tell the performance impact by installing the Plugin and by measuring the performance with and without the new Plugin. Use the
TWiki:Plugins.PluginBenchmarkAddOn, or test manually with the Apache
ab
utility. Example on Unix:
time wget -qO /dev/null /bin/view/TWiki/AbcPlugin
If you need to install an "expensive" Plugin, and you need its functionality only in one web, you can place the Plugin topic into that web. TWiki will initialize the Plugin only if the Plugin topic is found (which won't be the case for other webs.)
Managing Installed Plugins
Some Plugins require additional settings or offer extra options that you have to select. Also, you may want to make a Plugin available only in certain webs, or temporarily disable it. And may want to list all available Plugins in certain topics. You can handle all of these management tasks with simple procedures:
Enabling Plugins
Plugins can be enabled and disabled with the
configure script. An installed Plugin needs to be enabled before it can be used.
Plugin Evaluation Order
By default, TWiki executes Plugins in alphabetical order on Plugin name. It is possible to change the order, for example to evaluate database variables before the speadsheet CALCs. This can be done with
{PluginsOrder}
in the Plugins section of
configure.
Plugin-Specific Settings
Plugin-specific settings are done in individual Plugin topics. Two settings are standard for each Plugin:
- One line description, used to form the bullets describing the Plugins in the TextFormattingRules topic:
-
Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Create dynamic foo bar reports
- Debug Plugin, output can be seen in
data/debug.txt
. Set to 0=off or 1=on:
- The settings can be retrieved as Preferences variables like
%<pluginname>_<var>%
. For example, %DEFAULTPLUGIN_SHORTDESCRIPTION%
shows the description of the DefaultPlugin.
Listing Active Plugins
Plugin status variables let you list all active Plugins wherever needed.
%ACTIVATEDPLUGINS%
On this TWiki site, the enabled Plugins are:
SpreadSheetPlugin,
CommentPlugin,
EditTablePlugin,
InterwikiPlugin,
PreferencesPlugin,
SlideShowPlugin,
SmiliesPlugin,
TablePlugin,
WysiwygPlugin.
%PLUGINDESCRIPTIONS%
- SpreadSheetPlugin (any TWiki, 10197): Add spreadsheet calculation like
"$SUM( $ABOVE() )"
to tables located in TWiki topics. - CommentPlugin (Dakar, 8164): Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
- EditTablePlugin (Dakar, 8154): Edit TWiki tables using edit fields, date pickers and drop down boxes
- InterwikiPlugin (Dakar, $Rev: 8329$): Link
ExternalSite:Page
text to external sites based on aliases defined in a rules topic - PreferencesPlugin (Dakar, 9839): Allows editing of preferences using fields predefined in a form
- SlideShowPlugin (Dakar, $Rev: 8154$): Create web based presentations based on topics with headings.
- SmiliesPlugin (Dakar, 8154): Render smilies as icons, like
:-)
for or :cool:
for :cool: - TablePlugin (Dakar, 8154): Control attributes of tables and sorting of table columns
- WysiwygPlugin (Dakar, 9565): Translator framework and WYSIWYG editor for TWiki topics
%FAILEDPLUGINS%
Handler | Plugins |
---|
beforeCommonTagsHandler | PreferencesPlugin WysiwygPlugin |
beforeEditHandler | WysiwygPlugin |
beforeSaveHandler | CommentPlugin WysiwygPlugin |
commonTagsHandler | SpreadSheetPlugin CommentPlugin EditTablePlugin SlideShowPlugin SmiliesPlugin |
initPlugin | SpreadSheetPlugin CommentPlugin EditTablePlugin InterwikiPlugin PreferencesPlugin SlideShowPlugin SmiliesPlugin TablePlugin WysiwygPlugin |
modifyHeaderHandler | WysiwygPlugin |
postRenderingHandler | EditTablePlugin PreferencesPlugin WysiwygPlugin |
preRenderingHandler | InterwikiPlugin SmiliesPlugin TablePlugin |
9 plugins
The TWiki Plugin API
The Application Programming Interface (API) for TWiki Plugins provides the specifications for hooking into the core TWiki code from your external Perl Plugin module.
Available Core Functions
The
TWikiFuncDotPm module (
lib/TWiki/Func.pm
) describes
all the interfaces available to Plugins. Plugins should
only use the interfaces described in this module.
Note: If you use other core functions not described in
Func.pm
, you run the risk of creating security holes. Also, your Plugin will likely break and require updating when you upgrade to a new version of TWiki.
Predefined Hooks
In addition to TWiki core functions, Plugins can use
predefined hooks, or
callbacks, as described in the
lib/TWiki/Plugins/EmptyPlugin.pm
module.
- All but the initPlugin are disabled. To enable a callback, remove
DISABLE_
from the function name.
TWiki:Codev/StepByStepRenderingOrder helps you decide which rendering handler to use.
Hints on Writing Fast Plugins
- Delay initialization as late as possible. For example, if your Plugin is a simple syntax processor, you might delay loading extra Perl modules until you actually see the syntax in the text.
- For example, use an
eval
block like this:
eval { require IPC::Run }
return "<font color=\"red\">SamplePlugin: Can't load required modules ($@)</font>" if $@;
- You can use a flag to avoid running the initialization twice
- The TWiki:Plugins.PluginBenchmarkAddOn comes in handy to measure and fine-tune the performance of your Plugin
Plugin Version Detection
To eliminate the incompatibility problems bound to arise from active open Plugin development, a Plugin versioning system is provided for automatic compatibility checking.
- All modules require a
$VERSION='0.000'
variable, beginning at 1.000
.
- The
initPlugin
handler should check all dependencies and return TRUE if the initialization is OK or FALSE if something went wrong.
- The Plugin initialization code does not register a Plugin that returns FALSE (or that has no
initPlugin
handler).
-
$TWiki::Plugins::VERSION
in the TWiki::Plugins
module contains the TWiki Plugin API version, currently 1.1.
- You can also use the
%PLUGINVERSION{}%
variable to query the Plugin API version or the version of installed Plugins.
Security
- Badly written Plugins can open huge security holes in TWiki. This is especially true if care isn't taken to prevent execution of arbitrary commands on the server.
- Don't allow sensitive configuration data to be edited by users. it is better to add sensitive configuration options to the
%TWiki::cfg
hash than adding it as preferences in the Plugin topic
- Always use the TWiki::Sandbox to execute commands.
- Always audit the Plugins you install, and make sure you are happy with the level of security provided. While every effort is made to monitor Plugin authors activities, at the end of the day they are uncontrolled user contributions.
Creating Plugins
With a reasonable knowledge of the Perl scripting language, you can create new Plugins or modify and extend existing ones. Basic plug-in architecture uses an Application Programming Interface (API), a set of software instructions that allow external code to interact with the main program. The
TWiki Plugin API Plugins by providing a programming interface for TWiki.
Anatomy of a Plugin
A basic TWiki Plugin consists of two elements:
- a Perl module, ex:
MyFirstPlugin.pm
- a documentation topic, ex:
MyFirstPlugin.txt
The Perl module can be a block of code that connects with TWiki alone, or it can include other elements, like other Perl modules (including other Plugins), graphics, TWiki templates, external applications (ex: a Java applet), or just about anything else it can call.
In particular, files that should be web-accessible (graphics, Java applets ...) are best placed as attachments of the
MyFirstPlugin
topic. Other needed Perl code is best placed in a
lib/TWiki/Plugins/MyFirstPlugin/
directory.
The Plugin API handles the details of connecting your Perl module with main TWiki code. When you're familiar with the
Plugin API, you're ready to develop Plugins.
Creating the Perl Module
Copy file
lib/TWiki/Plugins/EmptyPlugin.pm
to
<name>Plugin.pm
. The
EmptyPlugin.pm
module contains mostly empty functions, so it does nothing, but it's ready to be used. Customize it. Refer to the
Plugin API specs for more information.
If your Plugin uses its own modules and objects, you must include the name of the Plugin in the package name. For example, write
Package MyFirstPlugin::Attrs;
instead of just
Package Attrs;
. Then call it using:
use TWiki::Plugins::MyFirstPlugin::Attrs;
$var = MyFirstPlugin::Attrs->new();
Measuring and Improving the Plugin Performance
A high quality Plugin performs well. You can use the
TWiki:Plugins.PluginBenchmarkAddOn to measure your
TWiki:Plugins.PluginBenchmarks. The data is needed as part of the Documentation Topic.
See also
Hints on Writing Fast Plugins.
Writing the Documentation Topic
The Plugin documentation topic contains usage instructions and version details. It serves the Plugin files as
FileAttachments for downloading. (The doc topic is also included
in the
distribution package.) To create a documentation topic:
- Copy the Plugin topic template from TWiki.org. To copy the text, go to TWiki:Plugins/PluginPackage and:
- enter the Plugin name in the "How to Create a Plugin" section
- click Create
- select all in the Edit box & copy
- Cancel the edit
- go back to your site to the TWiki web
- In the GoBox enter your Plugin name, for example
MyFirstPlugin
, press enter and create the new topic
- paste & save new Plugin topic on your site
- Customize your Plugin topic.
- Important: In case you plan to publish your Plugin on TWiki.org, use Interwiki names for author names and links to TWiki.org topics, such as TWiki:Main/TWikiGuest. This is important because links should work properly in a Plugin topic installed on any TWiki, not just on TWiki.org.
- Document the performance data you gathered while measuring the performance
- Save your topic, for use in packaging and publishing your Plugin.
OUTLINE: Doc Topic Contents
Check the Plugins web on TWiki.org for the latest Plugin doc topic template. Here's a quick overview of what's covered:
Syntax Rules: <Describe any special text formatting that will be rendered.>"
Example: <Include an example of the Plugin in action. Possibly include a static HTML version of the example to compare if the installation was a success!>"
Plugin Settings: <Description and settings for custom Plugin %VARIABLES%, and those required by TWiki.>"
- Plugins Preferences <If user settings are needed, explain... Entering values works exactly like TWikiPreferences and WebPreferences: six (6) spaces and then:>"
- Set <EXAMPLE = value added>
Plugin Installation Instructions: <Step-by-step set-up guide, user help, whatever it takes to install and run, goes here.>"
Plugin Info: <Version, credits, history, requirements - entered in a form, displayed as a table. Both are automatically generated when you create or edit a page in the TWiki:Plugins web.>"
Packaging for Distribution
The
TWiki:Plugins.BuildContrib is a powerful build environment that is used by the TWiki project to build TWiki itself, as well as many of the Plugins. You don't
have to use it, but it is highly recommended!
If you don't want (or can't) use the BuildContrib, then a minimum Plugin release consists of a Perl module with a
WikiName that ends in
Plugin
, ex:
MyFirstPlugin.pm
, and a documentation page with the same name(
MyFirstPlugin.txt
).
- Distribute the Plugin files in a directory structure that mirrors TWiki. If your Plugin uses additional files, include them all:
-
lib/TWiki/Plugins/MyFirstPlugin.pm
-
data/TWiki/MyFirstPlugin.txt
-
pub/TWiki/MyFirstPlugin/uparrow.gif
[a required graphic]
- Create a zip archive with the Plugin name (
MyFirstPlugin.zip
) and add the entire directory structure from Step 1. The archive should look like this:
-
lib/TWiki/Plugins/MyFirstPlugin.pm
-
data/TWiki/MyFirstPlugin.txt
-
pub/TWiki/MyFirstPlugin/uparrow.gif
Publishing for Public Use
You can release your tested, packaged Plugin to the TWiki community through the
TWiki:Plugins web. All Plugins submitted to TWiki.org are available for download and further development in
TWiki:Plugins/PluginPackage.
Publish your Plugin by following these steps:
- Post the Plugin documentation topic in the TWiki:Plugins/PluginPackage:
- enter the Plugin name in the "How to Create a Plugin" section, for example
MyFirstPlugin
- paste in the topic text from Writing the Documentation Topic and save
- Attach the distribution zip file to the topic, ex:
MyFirstPlugin.zip
- Link from the doc page to a new, blank page named after the Plugin, and ending in
Dev
, ex: MyFirstPluginDev
. This is the discussion page for future development. (User support for Plugins is handled in TWiki:Support.)
- Put the Plugin into the SVN repository, see TWiki:Plugins/ReadmeFirst (optional)
Once you have done the above steps once, you can use the BuildContrib to upload updates to your Plugin.
Thank you very much for sharing your Plugin with the TWiki community
Recommended Storage of Plugin Specific Data
Plugins sometimes need to store data. This can be Plugin internal data such as cache data, or data generated for browser consumption such as images. Plugins should store data using
TWikiFuncDotPm functions that support saving and loading of topics and attachments.
Plugin Internal Data
You can create a Plugin "work area" using the
TWiki::Func::getWorkArea()
function, which gives you a persistant directory where you can store data files. By default they will not be web accessible. The directory is guaranteed to exist, and to be writable by the webserver user. For convenience,
TWiki::Func::storeFile()
and
TWiki::Func::readFile()
are provided to persistently store and retrieve simple data in this area.
Web Accessible Data
Topic-specific data such as generated images can be stored in the topics attachment area, which is web accessible. Use the
TWiki::Func::saveAttachment()
function to store the data.
Recommendation for file name:
- Prefix the filename with an underscore (the leading underscore avoids a nameclash with files attached to the same topic)
- Identify where the attachment originated from, typically by including the Plugin name in the file name
- Use only alphanumeric characters, underscores, dashes and periods to avoid platform dependency issues and URL issues
- Example:
_FooBarPlugin_img123.gif
Web specific data can be stored in the Plugin's attachment area, which is web accessible. Use the
TWiki::Func::saveAttachment()
function to store the data.
Recommendation for file names in Plugin attachment area:
- Prefix the filename with an underscore
- Include the name of the web in the filename
- Use only alphanumeric characters, underscores, dashes and periods to avoid platform dependency issues and URL issues
- Example:
_Main_roundedge-ul.gif
Maintaining Plugins
Discussions and Feedback on Plugins
Each published Plugin has a Plugin development topic on TWiki.org. Plugin development topics are named after your Plugin and end in
Dev
, such as
MyFirstPluginDev
. The Plugin development topic is a great resource to discuss feature enhancements and to get feedback from the TWiki community.
Maintaining Compatibility with Earlier TWiki Versions
The Plugin interface (
TWikiFuncDotPm functions and handlers) evolve over time. TWiki 4.0 introduced new API functions to address the needs of Plugin authors. It also deprecated some functions. Some Plugins written for earlier TWiki releases using unofficial TWiki internal functions no longer work on the TWiki 4.0 codebase. All this means that some Plugins need to be updated to work on the TWiki 4.0 codebase.
Organizations typically do not upgrade to the latest TWiki for many months. However, many administrators still would like to install the latest versions of a Plugin on their older TWiki installation. This need is fullfilled if Plugins are maintained in a compatible manner.
Tip: Plugins can be written to be compatible with older and newer TWiki releases. This can be done also for Plugins using unofficial TWiki internal functions of an earlier release that no longer work on the latest TWiki codebase.
TWiki:TWiki.TWikiPluginsSupplement#MaintainPlugins has more.
Handling deprecated functions
From time-to-time, the TWiki developers will add new functions to the interface (either to
TWikiFuncDotPm, or new handlers). Sometimes these improvements mean that old functions have to be deprecated to keep the code manageable. When this happens, the deprecated functions will be supported in the interface for at least one more TWiki release, and probably longer, though this cannot be guaranteed.
When a plugin defines deprecated handlers, a warning will be shown in the list generated by %FAILEDPLUGINS%. Admins who see these warnings should check TWiki.org and if necessary, contact the plugin author, for an updated version of the plugin.
Updated plugins may still need to define deprecated handlers for compatibility with old TWiki versions. In this case, the plugin package that defines old handlers can suppress the warnings in %FAILEDPLUGINS%.
This is done by defining a map from the handler name to the
TWiki::Plugins
version
in which the handler was first deprecated. For example, if we need to define the
endRenderingHandler
for compatibility with
TWiki::Plugins
versions before 1.1, we would add this to the plugin:
package TWiki::Plugins::SinkPlugin;
use vars qw( %TWikiCompatibility );
$TWikiCompatibility{endRenderingHandler} = 1.1;
If the currently-running TWiki version is 1.1
or later, then the
handler will not be called and
the warning will not be issued. TWiki with versions of
TWiki::Plugins
before 1.1 will still call the handler as required.
Official list of stable TWiki functions for Plugin developers
This module defines official functions that
Plugins
can use to interact with the TWiki engine and content.
Refer to
EmptyPlugin and lib/TWiki/Plugins/EmptyPlugin.pm for a template Plugin and documentation on how to write a Plugin.
Plugins should
only use functions published in this module. If you use
functions in other TWiki libraries you might create a security hole and
you will probably need to change your Plugin when you upgrade TWiki.
Deprecated functions will still work in older code, though they should
not be called in new Plugins and should be replaced in older Plugins
as soon as possible.
The version of the TWiki::Func module is defined by the VERSION number of the
TWiki::Plugins module, currently 1.1. This can be shown
by the
%PLUGINVERSION%
variable. The 'Since' field in the function
documentation refers to the VERSION number and the date that the function
was addded.
Note: Beware! These methods should only ever be called
from the context of a TWiki Plugin. They require a Plugins SESSION context to be
established before they are called, and will not work if simply called from
another TWiki module. For example,
use TWiki;
print TWiki::Func::getSkin(),"\n";
will fail with
Can't call method "getSkin" on an undefined value at TWiki/Func.pm line 83
.
If you want to call the methods outside the context of a plugin, you can create a Plugins SESSION object. For example,
the script:
use TWiki:
$TWiki::Plugins::SESSION = new TWiki();
print TWiki::Func::getSkin(),"\n";
will work happily.
- TWiki System Requirements
- TWiki Installation Guide
- TWiki Upgrade Guide
- TWiki User Authentication
- TWiki Access Control
- TWiki Text Formatting
- TWiki Variables
- TWiki Formatted Search
- File Attachments
- TWiki Forms
- TWiki Templates
- TWiki Skins
- TWiki Meta Data
- TWiki Plugins
- Overview
- Installing Plugins
- Managing Installed Plugins
- The TWiki Plugin API
- Creating Plugins
- Recommended Storage of Plugin Specific Data
- Maintaining Plugins
- Environment
- getSkin( ) -> $skin
- getUrlHost( ) -> $host
- getScriptUrl( $web, $topic, $script, ... ) -> $url
- getViewUrl( $web, $topic ) -> $url
- getOopsUrl( $web, $topic, $template, $param1, $param2, $param3, $param4 ) -> $url
- getPubUrlPath( ) -> $path
- getCgiQuery( ) -> $query
- getSessionValue( $key ) -> $value
- setSessionValue( $key, $value ) -> $boolean
- clearSessionValue( $key ) -> $boolean
- getContext() -> \%hash
- Preferences
- User Handling and Access Control
- Webs, Topics and Attachments
- getListOfWebs( $filter ) -> @webs
- webExists( $web ) -> $boolean
- createWeb( $newWeb, $baseWeb, $opts )
- moveWeb( $oldName, $newName )
- getTopicList( $web ) -> @topics
- topicExists( $web, $topic ) -> $boolean
- checkTopicEditLock( $web, $topic ) -> ( $oopsUrl, $loginName, $unlockTime )
- setTopicEditLock( $web, $topic, $lock )
- saveTopic( $web, $topic, $meta, $text, $options ) -> $error
- saveTopicText( $web, $topic, $text, $ignorePermissions, $dontNotify ) -> $oopsUrl
- moveTopic( $web, $topic, $newWeb, $newTopic )
- getRevisionInfo($web, $topic, $rev, $attachment ) -> ( $date, $user, $rev, $comment )
- getRevisionAtTime( $web, $topic, $time ) -> $rev
- readTopic( $web, $topic, $rev ) -> ( $meta, $text )
- readTopicText( $web, $topic, $rev, $ignorePermissions ) -> $text
- attachmentExists( $web, $topic, $attachment ) -> $boolean
- readAttachment( $web, $topic, $name, $rev ) -> $data
- saveAttachment( $web, $topic, $attachment, $opts )
- moveAttachment( $web, $topic, $attachment, $newWeb, $newTopic, $newAttachment )
- Assembling Pages
- readTemplate( $name, $skin ) -> $text
- loadTemplate ( $name, $skin, $web ) -> $text
- expandTemplate( $def ) -> $string
- writeHeader( $query, $contentLength )
- redirectCgiQuery( $query, $url )
- addToHEAD( $id, $header )
- expandCommonVariables( $text, $topic, $web ) -> $text
- renderText( $text, $web ) -> $text
- internalLink( $pre, $web, $topic, $label, $anchor, $createLink ) -> $text
- E-mail
- Creating New Topics
- Special handlers
- Searching
- Plugin-specific file handling
- General Utilities
- Deprecated functions
- TWiki CGI and Command Line Scripts
- TWiki Site Tools
- Managing Topics
- Managing Webs
- Manage Users
- Appendix A: TWiki Development Timeline
- Appendix B: Encode URLs With UTF8
- Appendix C: TWiki CSS
Environment
getSkin( ) -> $skin
Get the skin path, set by the
SKIN
and
COVER
preferences variables or the
skin
and
cover
CGI parameters
Return:
$skin
Comma-separated list of skins, e.g.
'gnu,tartan'
. Empty string if none.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (29 Jul 2001)
getUrlHost( ) -> $host
Get protocol, domain and optional port of script URL
Return:
$host
URL host, e.g.
"http://example.com:80"
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
getScriptUrl( $web, $topic, $script, ... ) -> $url
Compose fully qualified URL
-
$web
- Web name, e.g. 'Main'
-
$topic
- Topic name, e.g. 'WebNotify'
-
$script
- Script name, e.g. 'view'
Return:
$url
URL, e.g.
"http://example.com:80/cgi-bin/view.pl/Main/WebNotify"
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
getViewUrl( $web, $topic ) -> $url
Compose fully qualified view URL
-
$web
- Web name, e.g. 'Main'
. The current web is taken if empty
-
$topic
- Topic name, e.g. 'WebNotify'
Return:
$url
URL, e.g.
"http://example.com:80/cgi-bin/view.pl/Main/WebNotify"
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
getOopsUrl( $web, $topic, $template, $param1, $param2, $param3, $param4 ) -> $url
Compose fully qualified 'oops' dialog URL
-
$web
- Web name, e.g. 'Main'
. The current web is taken if empty
-
$topic
- Topic name, e.g. 'WebNotify'
-
$template
- Oops template name, e.g. 'oopsmistake'
. The 'oops' is optional; 'mistake' will translate to 'oopsmistake'.
-
$param1
... $param4
- Parameter values for %PARAM1% ... %PARAMn% variables in template, optional
Return:
$url
URL, e.g.
"http://example.com:80/cgi-bin/oops.pl/ Main/WebNotify?template=oopslocked¶m1=joe"
This might be used like this:
my $url = TWiki::Func::getOopsUrl($web, $topic, 'oopsmistake', 'I made a boo-boo');
TWiki::Func::redirectCgiQuery( undef, $url );
return 0;
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
Since TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1, the recommended approach is to throw an
oops exception.
use Error qw( :try );
throw TWiki::OopsException($web, $topic, undef, 0, [ 'I made a boo-boo' ]);
and let TWiki handle the cleanup.
getPubUrlPath( ) -> $path
Get pub URL path
Return:
$path
URL path of pub directory, e.g.
"/pub"
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (14 Jul 2001)
getCgiQuery( ) -> $query
Get CGI query object. Important: Plugins cannot assume that scripts run under CGI, Plugins must always test if the CGI query object is set
Return:
$query
CGI query object; or 0 if script is called as a shell script
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
getSessionValue( $key ) -> $value
Get a session value from the client session module
Return:
$value
Value associated with key; empty string if not set
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (27 Feb 200)
setSessionValue( $key, $value ) -> $boolean
Set a session value via the client session module
-
$key
- Session key
-
$value
- Value associated with key
Return: true if function succeeded
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (17 Aug 2001)
clearSessionValue( $key ) -> $boolean
Clear a session value via the client session module
Return: true if function succeeded
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
getContext() -> \%hash
Get a hash of context identifiers representing the currently active
context.
The context is a set of identifiers that are set
during specific phases of TWiki processing. For example, each of
the standard scripts in the 'bin' directory each has a context
identifier - the view script has 'view', the edit script has 'edit'
etc. So you can easily tell what 'type' of script your Plugin is
being called within. The core context identifiers are listed
in the
TWikiTemplates topic. Please be careful not to
overwrite any of these identifiers!
Context identifiers can be used to communicate between Plugins, and between
Plugins and templates. For example, in
FirstPlugin?.pm, you might write:
sub initPlugin {
TWiki::Func::getContext()->{'MyID'} = 1;
...
This can be used in SecondPlugin.pm like this:
sub initPlugin {
if( TWiki::Func::getContext()->{'MyID'} ) {
...
}
...
or in a template, like this:
%TMPL:DEF{"ON"}% Not off %TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{"OFF"}% Not on %TMPL:END%
%TMPL:P{context="MyID" then="ON" else="OFF"}%
or in a topic:
%IF{"context MyID" then="MyID is ON" else="MyID is OFF"}%
Note:
all plugins have an
automatically generated context identifier
if they are installed and initialised. For example, if the
FirstPlugin? is
working, the context ID 'FirstPlugin' will be set.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
Preferences
getPreferencesValue( $key, $web ) -> $value
Get a preferences value from TWiki or from a Plugin
-
$key
- Preferences key
-
$web
- Name of web, optional. Current web if not specified; does not apply to settings of Plugin topics
Return:
$value
Preferences value; empty string if not set
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
- Example for Plugin setting:
- MyPlugin? topic has:
* Set COLOR = red
- Use
"MYPLUGIN_COLOR"
for $key
-
my $color = TWiki::Func::getPreferencesValue( "MYPLUGIN_COLOR" );
- Example for preferences setting:
- WebPreferences topic has:
* Set WEBBGCOLOR = #FFFFC0
-
my $webColor = TWiki::Func::getPreferencesValue( 'WEBBGCOLOR', 'Sandbox' );
getPluginPreferencesValue( $key ) -> $value
Get a preferences value from your Plugin
-
$key
- Plugin Preferences key w/o PLUGINNAME_ prefix.
Return:
$value
Preferences value; empty string if not set
Note: This function will will
only work when called from the Plugin.pm file itself. it
will not work if called from a sub-package (e.g. TWiki::Plugins::MyPlugin::MyModule)
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.021 (27 Mar 2004)
getPreferencesFlag( $key, $web ) -> $value
Get a preferences flag from TWiki or from a Plugin
-
$key
- Preferences key
-
$web
- Name of web, optional. Current web if not specified; does not apply to settings of Plugin topics
Return:
$value
Preferences flag
'1'
(if set), or
"0"
(for preferences values
"off"
,
"no"
and
"0"
)
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
- Example for Plugin setting:
- MyPlugin? topic has:
* Set SHOWHELP = off
- Use
"MYPLUGIN_SHOWHELP"
for $key
-
my $showHelp = TWiki::Func::getPreferencesFlag( "MYPLUGIN_SHOWHELP" );
getPluginPreferencesFlag( $key ) -> $boolean
Get a preferences flag from your Plugin
-
$key
- Plugin Preferences key w/o PLUGINNAME_ prefix.
Return: false for preferences values
"off"
,
"no"
and
"0"
, or values not set at all. True otherwise.
Note: This function will will
only work when called from the Plugin.pm file itself. it
will not work if called from a sub-package (e.g. TWiki::Plugins::MyPlugin::MyModule)
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.021 (27 Mar 2004)
getWikiToolName( ) -> $name
Get toolname as defined in TWiki.cfg
Return:
$name
Name of tool, e.g.
'TWiki'
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (27 Feb 2001)
getMainWebname( ) -> $name
Get name of Main web as defined in TWiki.cfg
Return:
$name
Name, e.g.
'Main'
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (27 Feb 2001)
getTwikiWebname( ) -> $name
Get name of TWiki documentation web as defined in TWiki.cfg
Return:
$name
Name, e.g.
'TWiki'
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (27 Feb 2001)
User Handling and Access Control
getDefaultUserName( ) -> $loginName
Get default user name as defined in the configuration as
DefaultUserLogin
Return:
$loginName
Default user name, e.g.
'guest'
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
getWikiName( ) -> $wikiName
Get Wiki name of logged in user
Return:
$wikiName
Wiki Name, e.g.
'JohnDoe'
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
getWikiUserName( ) -> $wikiName
Get Wiki name of logged in user with web prefix
Return:
$wikiName
Wiki Name, e.g.
"Main.JohnDoe"
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
wikiToUserName( $wikiName ) -> $loginName
Translate a Wiki name to a login name based on
Main.TWikiUsers topic
-
$wikiName
- Wiki name, e.g. 'Main.JohnDoe'
or 'JohnDoe'
Return:
$loginName
Login name of user, e.g.
'jdoe'
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
userToWikiName( $loginName, $dontAddWeb ) -> $wikiName
Translate a login name to a Wiki name based on
Main.TWikiUsers topic
-
$loginName
- Login name, e.g. 'jdoe'
-
$dontAddWeb
- Do not add web prefix if "1"
Return:
$wikiName
Wiki name of user, e.g.
'Main.JohnDoe'
or
'JohnDoe'
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
isGuest( ) -> $boolean
Test if logged in user is a guest (
TWikiGuest?)
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
permissionsSet( $web ) -> $boolean
Test if any access restrictions are set for this web, ignoring settings on individual pages
-
$web
- Web name, required, e.g. 'Sandbox'
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (27 Feb 2001)
checkAccessPermission( $type, $wikiName, $text, $topic, $web ) -> $boolean
Check access permission for a topic based on the
TWiki.TWikiAccessControl rules
-
$type
- Access type, e.g. 'VIEW'
, 'CHANGE'
, 'CREATE'
-
$wikiName
- WikiName of remote user, i.e. "Main.PeterThoeny"
-
$text
- Topic text, optional. If empty, topic $web.$topic
is consulted
-
$topic
- Topic name, required, e.g. 'PrivateStuff'
-
$web
- Web name, required, e.g. 'Sandbox'
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (27 Feb 2001)
Webs, Topics and Attachments
getListOfWebs( $filter ) -> @webs
-
$filter
- spec of web types to recover
Gets a list of webs, filtered according to the spec in the $filter,
which may include one of:
- 'user' (for only user webs)
- 'template' (for only template webs i.e. those starting with "_")
$filter
may also contain the word 'public' which will further filter
out webs that have NOSEARCHALL set on them.
'allowed' filters out webs the current user can't read.
For example, the deprecated getPublicWebList function can be duplicated
as follows:
my @webs = TWiki::Func::getListOfWebs( "user,public" );
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
webExists( $web ) -> $boolean
Test if web exists
-
$web
- Web name, required, e.g. 'Sandbox'
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (14 Jul 2001)
createWeb( $newWeb, $baseWeb, $opts )
-
$newWeb
is the name of the new web.
-
$baseWeb
is the name of an existing web (a template web). If the base web is a system web, all topics in it will be copied into the new web. If it is a normal web, only topics starting with 'Web' will be copied. If no base web is specified, an empty web (with no topics) will be created. If it is specified but does not exist, an error will be thrown.
-
$opts
is a ref to a hash that contains settings to be modified in
the web preferences topic in the new web.
use Error qw( :try );
use TWiki::AccessControlException;
try {
TWiki::Func::createWeb( "Newweb" );
} catch Error::Simple with {
my $e = shift;
# see documentation on Error::Simple
} catch TWiki::AccessControlException with {
my $e = shift;
# see documentation on TWiki::AccessControlException
} otherwise {
...
};
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
moveWeb( $oldName, $newName )
Move (rename) a web.
use Error qw( :try );
use TWiki::AccessControlException;
try {
TWiki::Func::moveWeb( "Oldweb", "Newweb" );
} catch Error::Simple with {
my $e = shift;
# see documentation on Error::Simple
} catch TWiki::AccessControlException with {
my $e = shift;
# see documentation on TWiki::AccessControlException
} otherwise {
...
};
To delete a web, move it to a subweb of
Trash
TWiki::Func::moveWeb( "Deadweb", "Trash.Deadweb" );
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
getTopicList( $web ) -> @topics
Get list of all topics in a web
-
$web
- Web name, required, e.g. 'Sandbox'
Return:
@topics
Topic list, e.g.
( 'WebChanges', 'WebHome', 'WebIndex', 'WebNotify' )
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
topicExists( $web, $topic ) -> $boolean
Test if topic exists
-
$web
- Web name, optional, e.g. 'Main'
.
-
$topic
- Topic name, required, e.g. 'TokyoOffice'
, or "Main.TokyoOffice"
$web and $topic are parsed as described in the documentation for
normalizeWebTopicName
.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (14 Jul 2001)
checkTopicEditLock( $web, $topic ) -> ( $oopsUrl, $loginName, $unlockTime )
Check if a lease has been taken by some other user.
-
$web
Web name, e.g. "Main"
, or empty
-
$topic
Topic name, e.g. "MyTopic"
, or "Main.MyTopic"
Return:
( $oopsUrl, $loginName, $unlockTime )
- The
$oopsUrl
for calling redirectCgiQuery(), user's
$loginName
, and estimated
$unlockTime
in minutes, or ( '', '', 0 ) if no lease exists.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.010 (31 Dec 2002)
setTopicEditLock( $web, $topic, $lock )
-
$web
Web name, e.g. "Main"
, or empty
-
$topic
Topic name, e.g. "MyTopic"
, or "Main.MyTopic"
-
$lock
1 to lease the topic, 0 to clear the lease=
Takes out a "lease" on the topic. The lease doesn't prevent
anyone from editing and changing the topic, but it does redirect them
to a warning screen, so this provides some protection. The
edit
script
always takes out a lease.
It is
impossible to fully lock a topic. Concurrent changes will be
merged.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.010 (31 Dec 2002)
saveTopic( $web, $topic, $meta, $text, $options ) -> $error
-
$web
- web for the topic
-
$topic
- topic name
-
$meta
- reference to TWiki::Meta object
-
$text
- text of the topic (without embedded meta-data!!!
-
\%options
- ref to hash of save options \%options
may include: dontlog | don't log this change in twiki log |
comment | comment for save |
minor | True if this is a minor change, and is not to be notified |
Return: error message or undef.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (29 Jul 2001)
For example,
my( $meta, $text ) = TWiki::Func::readTopic( $web, $topic )
$text =~ s/APPLE/ORANGE/g;
TWiki::Func::saveTopic( $web, $topic, $meta, $text, { comment => 'refruited' } );
Note: Plugins handlers ( e.g.
beforeSaveHandler
) will be called as
appropriate.
saveTopicText( $web, $topic, $text, $ignorePermissions, $dontNotify ) -> $oopsUrl
Save topic text, typically obtained by readTopicText(). Topic data usually includes meta data; the file attachment meta data is replaced by the meta data from the topic file if it exists.
-
$web
- Web name, e.g. 'Main'
, or empty
-
$topic
- Topic name, e.g. 'MyTopic'
, or "Main.MyTopic"
-
$text
- Topic text to save, assumed to include meta data
-
$ignorePermissions
- Set to "1"
if checkAccessPermission() is already performed and OK
-
$dontNotify
- Set to "1"
if not to notify users of the change
Return:
$oopsUrl
Empty string if OK; the
$oopsUrl
for calling redirectCgiQuery() in case of error
This method is a lot less efficient and much more dangerous than
saveTopic
.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.010 (31 Dec 2002)
my $text = TWiki::Func::readTopicText( $web, $topic );
# check for oops URL in case of error:
if( $text =~ /^http.*?\/oops/ ) {
TWiki::Func::redirectCgiQuery( $query, $text );
return;
}
# do topic text manipulation like:
$text =~ s/old/new/g;
# do meta data manipulation like:
$text =~ s/(META\:FIELD.*?name\=\"TopicClassification\".*?value\=\")[^\"]*/$1BugResolved/;
$oopsUrl = TWiki::Func::saveTopicText( $web, $topic, $text ); # save topic text
moveTopic( $web, $topic, $newWeb, $newTopic )
-
$web
source web - required
-
$topic
source topic - required
-
$newWeb
dest web
-
$newTopic
dest topic
Renames the topic. Throws an exception if something went wrong.
If $newWeb is undef, it defaults to $web. If $newTopic is undef, it defaults
to $topic.
The destination topic must not already exist.
Rename a topic to the $TWiki::cfg{TrashWebName} to delete it.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
use Error qw( :try );
try {
moveTopic( "Work", "TokyoOffice", "Trash", "ClosedOffice" );
} catch Error::Simple with {
my $e = shift;
# see documentation on Error::Simple
} catch TWiki::AccessControlException with {
my $e = shift;
# see documentation on TWiki::AccessControlException
} otherwise {
...
};
getRevisionInfo($web, $topic, $rev, $attachment ) -> ( $date, $user, $rev, $comment )
Get revision info of a topic or attachment
-
$web
- Web name, optional, e.g. 'Main'
-
$topic
- Topic name, required, e.g. 'TokyoOffice'
-
$rev
- revsion number, or tag name (can be in the format 1.2, or just the minor number)
-
$attachment
-attachment filename
Return:
( $date, $user, $rev, $comment )
List with: ( last update date, login name of last user, minor part of top revision number ), e.g.
( 1234561, 'phoeny', "5" )
$date | in epochSec |
$user | Wiki name of the author (not login name) |
$rev | actual rev number |
$comment | WHAT COMMENT? |
NOTE: if you are trying to get revision info for a topic, use
$meta->getRevisionInfo
instead if you can - it is significantly
more efficient, and returns a user object that contains other user
information.
NOTE: prior versions of TWiki may under some circumstances have returned
the login name of the user rather than the wiki name; the code documentation
was totally unclear, and we have been unable to establish the intent.
However the wikiname is obviously more useful, so that is what is returned.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (29 Jul 2001)
getRevisionAtTime( $web, $topic, $time ) -> $rev
Get the revision number of a topic at a specific time.
-
$web
- web for topic
-
$topic
- topic
-
$time
- time (in epoch secs) for the rev
Return: Single-digit revision number, or undef if it couldn't be determined
(either because the topic isn't that old, or there was a problem)
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
readTopic( $web, $topic, $rev ) -> ( $meta, $text )
Read topic text and meta data, regardless of access permissions.
-
$web
- Web name, required, e.g. 'Main'
-
$topic
- Topic name, required, e.g. 'TokyoOffice'
-
$rev
- revision to read (default latest)
Return:
( $meta, $text )
Meta data object and topic text
$meta
is a perl 'object' of class
TWiki::Meta
. This class is
fully documented in the source code documentation shipped with the
release, or can be inspected in the
lib/TWiki/Meta.pm
file.
This method
ignores topic access permissions. You should be careful to use
checkAccessPermissions
to ensure the current user has read access to the topic.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
readTopicText( $web, $topic, $rev, $ignorePermissions ) -> $text
Read topic text, including meta data
-
$web
- Web name, e.g. 'Main'
, or empty
-
$topic
- Topic name, e.g. 'MyTopic'
, or "Main.MyTopic"
-
$rev
- Topic revision to read, optional. Specify the minor part of the revision, e.g. "5"
, not "1.5"
; the top revision is returned if omitted or empty.
-
$ignorePermissions
- Set to "1"
if checkAccessPermission() is already performed and OK; an oops URL is returned if user has no permission
Return:
$text
Topic text with embedded meta data; an oops URL for calling redirectCgiQuery() is returned in case of an error
This method is more efficient than
readTopic
, but returns meta-data embedded in the text. Plugins authors must be very careful to avoid damaging meta-data. You are recommended to use readTopic instead, which is a lot safer..
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.010 (31 Dec 2002)
attachmentExists( $web, $topic, $attachment ) -> $boolean
Test if attachment exists
-
$web
- Web name, optional, e.g. Main
.
-
$topic
- Topic name, required, e.g. TokyoOffice
, or Main.TokyoOffice
-
$attachment
- attachment name, e.g.=logo.gif=
$web and $topic are parsed as described in the documentation for
normalizeWebTopicName
.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
readAttachment( $web, $topic, $name, $rev ) -> $data
-
$web
- web for topic
-
$topic
- topic
-
$name
- attachment name
-
$rev
- revision to read (default latest)
Read an attachment from the store for a topic, and return it as a string. The
names of attachments on a topic can be recovered from the meta-data returned
by
readTopic
. If the attachment does not exist, or cannot be read, undef
will be returned. If the revision is not specified, the latest version will
be returned.
View permission on the topic is required for the
read to be successful. Access control violations are flagged by a
TWiki::AccessControlException. Permissions are checked for the current user.
my( $meta, $text ) = TWiki::Func::readTopic( $web, $topic );
my @attachments = $meta->find( 'FILEATTACHMENT' );
foreach my $a ( @attachments ) {
try {
my $data = TWiki::Func::readAttachment( $web, $topic, $a->{name} );
...
} catch TWiki::AccessControlException with {
};
}
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
saveAttachment( $web, $topic, $attachment, $opts )
-
$web
- web for topic
-
$topic
- topic to atach to
-
$attachment
- name of the attachment
-
$opts
- Ref to hash of options
$opts
may include:
dontlog | don't log this change in twiki log |
comment | comment for save |
hide | if the attachment is to be hidden in normal topic view |
stream | Stream of file to upload |
file | Name of a file to use for the attachment data. ignored if stream is set. Local file on the server. |
filepath | Client path to file |
filesize | Size of uploaded data |
filedate | Date |
Save an attachment to the store for a topic. On success, returns undef. If there is an error, an exception will be thrown.
try {
TWiki::Func::saveAttachment( $web, $topic, 'image.gif',
{ file => 'image.gif',
comment => 'Picture of Health',
hide => 1 } );
} catch Error::Simple with {
# see documentation on Error
} otherwise {
...
};
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
moveAttachment( $web, $topic, $attachment, $newWeb, $newTopic, $newAttachment )
-
$web
source web - required
-
$topic
source topic - required
-
$attachment
source attachment - required
-
$newWeb
dest web
-
$newTopic
dest topic
-
$newAttachment
dest attachment
Renames the topic. Throws an exception on error or access violation.
If $newWeb is undef, it defaults to $web. If $newTopic is undef, it defaults
to $topic. If $newAttachment is undef, it defaults to $attachment. If all of $newWeb, $newTopic and $newAttachment are undef, it is an error.
The destination topic must already exist, but the destination attachment must
not exist.
Rename an attachment to $TWiki::cfg{TrashWebName}.TrashAttament to delete it.
use Error qw( :try );
try {
# move attachment between topics
moveAttachment( "Countries", "Germany", "AlsaceLorraine.dat",
"Countries", "France" );
# Note destination attachment name is defaulted to the same as source
} catch TWiki::AccessControlException with {
my $e = shift;
# see documentation on TWiki::AccessControlException
} catch Error::Simple with {
my $e = shift;
# see documentation on Error::Simple
};
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
Assembling Pages
readTemplate( $name, $skin ) -> $text
Read a template or skin. Embedded
template directives get expanded
-
$name
- Template name, e.g. 'view'
-
$skin
- Comma-separated list of skin names, optional, e.g. 'print'
Return:
$text
Template text
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
loadTemplate ( $name, $skin, $web ) -> $text
-
$name
- template file name
-
$skin
- comma-separated list of skins to use (default: current skin)
-
$web
- the web to look in for topics that contain templates (default: current web)
Return: expanded template text (what's left after removal of all %TMPL:DEF% statements)
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
Reads a template and extracts template definitions, adding them to the
list of loaded templates, overwriting any previous definition.
How TWiki searches for templates is described in
TWikiTemplates.
If template text is found, extracts include statements and fully expands them.
expandTemplate( $def ) -> $string
Do a , only expanding the template (not expanding any variables other than %TMPL)
Return: the text of the expanded template
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
A template is defined using a %TMPL:DEF% statement in a template
file. See the documentation on TWiki templates for more information.
writeHeader( $query, $contentLength )
Prints a basic content-type HTML header for text/html to standard out
-
$query
- CGI query object. If not given, the default CGI query will be used. In most cases you should not pass this parameter.
-
$contentLength
- Length of content
Return: none
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
redirectCgiQuery( $query, $url )
Redirect to URL
-
$query
- CGI query object. Ignored, only there for compatibility. The session CGI query object is used instead.
-
$url
- URL to redirect to
Return: none, never returns
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
addToHEAD( $id, $header )
Adds
$header
to the HTML header (the tag).
This is useful for Plugins that want to include some javascript custom css.
-
$id
- Unique ID to prevent the same HTML from being duplicated. Plugins should use a prefix to prevent name clashes (e.g EDITTABLEPLUGIN_JSCALENDAR)
-
$header
- the HTML to be added to the section. The HTML must be valid in a HEAD tag - no checks are performed.
All TWiki variables present in
$header
will be expanded before being inserted into the
section.
Note that this is
not the same as the HTTP header, which is modified through the Plugins
modifyHeaderHandler
.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
example:
TWiki::Func::addToHEAD('PATTERN_STYLE','<link id="twikiLayoutCss" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="%PUBURL%/TWiki/PatternSkin/layout.css" media="all" />')
expandCommonVariables( $text, $topic, $web ) -> $text
Expand all common
%VARIABLES%
-
$text
- Text with variables to expand, e.g. 'Current user is %WIKIUSER%'
-
$topic
- Current topic name, e.g. 'WebNotify'
-
$web
- Web name, optional, e.g. 'Main'
. The current web is taken if missing
Return:
$text
Expanded text, e.g.
'Current user is TWikiGuest'
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
See also: expandVariablesOnTopicCreation
renderText( $text, $web ) -> $text
Render text from TWiki markup into XHTML as defined in
TWiki.TextFormattingRules
-
$text
- Text to render, e.g. '*bold* text and =fixed font='
-
$web
- Web name, optional, e.g. 'Main'
. The current web is taken if missing
Return:
$text
XHTML text, e.g.
'<b>bold</b> and <code>fixed font</code>'
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
internalLink( $pre, $web, $topic, $label, $anchor, $createLink ) -> $text
Render topic name and link label into an XHTML link. Normally you do not need to call this funtion, it is called internally by
renderText()
-
$pre
- Text occuring before the TWiki link syntax, optional
-
$web
- Web name, required, e.g. 'Main'
-
$topic
- Topic name to link to, required, e.g. 'WebNotify'
-
$label
- Link label, required. Usually the same as $topic
, e.g. 'notify'
-
$anchor
- Anchor, optional, e.g. '#Jump'
-
$createLink
- Set to '1'
to add question linked mark after topic name if topic does not exist;
set to '0'
to suppress link for non-existing topics
Return:
$text
XHTML anchor, e.g.
'<a href='/cgi-bin/view/Main/WebNotify#Jump'>notify</a>'
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
E-mail
sendEmail ( $text, $retries ) -> $error
-
$text
- text of the mail, including MIME headers
-
$retries
- number of times to retry the send (default 1)
Send an e-mail specified as MIME format content. To specify MIME
format mails, you create a string that contains a set of header
lines that contain field definitions and a message body such as:
To: liz@windsor.gov.uk
From: serf@hovel.net
CC: george@whitehouse.gov
Subject: Revolution
Dear Liz,
Please abolish the monarchy (with King George's permission, of course)
Thanks,
A. Peasant
Leave a blank line between the last header field and the message body.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
wikiToEmail( $wikiName ) -> $email
-
$wikiName
- wiki name of the user
Get the e-mail address(es) of the named user. If the user has multiple
e-mail addresses (for example, the user is a group), then the list will
be comma-separated.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
Creating New Topics
expandVariablesOnTopicCreation ( $text ) -> $text
Expand the limited set of variables that are always expanded during topic creation
-
$text
- the text to process
Return: text with variables expanded
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
Expands only the variables expected in templates that must be statically
expanded in new content.
The expanded variables are:
-
%DATE%
Signature-format date
-
%SERVERTIME%
See TWikiVariables
-
%GMTIME%
See TWikiVariables
-
%USERNAME%
Base login name
-
%WIKINAME%
Wiki name
-
%WIKIUSERNAME%
Wiki name with prepended web
-
%URLPARAM{...}%
- Parameters to the current CGI query
-
%NOP%
No-op
See also: expandVariables
Special handlers
Special handlers can be defined to make functions in plugins behave as if they were built-in to TWiki.
registerTagHandler( $var, \&fn, $syntax )
Should only be called from initPlugin.
Register a function to handle a simple variable. Handles both %VAR% and %VAR{...}%. Registered variables are treated the same as TWiki internal variables, and are expanded at the same time. This is a
lot more efficient than using the
commonTagsHandler
.
-
$var
- The name of the variable, i.e. the 'MYVAR' part of %MYVAR%. The variable name must match /^[A-Z][A-Z0-9_]*$/ or it won't work.
-
\&fn
- Reference to the handler function.
-
$syntax
can be 'classic' (the default) or 'context-free'. 'classic' syntax is appropriate where you want the variable to support classic TWiki syntax i.e. to accept the standard %MYVAR{ "unnamed" param1="value1" param2="value2" }%
syntax, as well as an unquoted default parameter, such as %MYVAR{unquoted parameter}%
. If your variable will only use named parameters, you can use 'context-free' syntax, which supports a more relaxed syntax. For example, %MYVAR{param1=value1, value 2, param3="value 3", param4='value 5"}%
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
The variable handler function must be of the form:
sub handler(\%session, \%params, $topic, $web)
where:
-
\%session
- a reference to the TWiki session object (may be ignored)
-
\%params
- a reference to a TWiki::Attrs object containing parameters. This can be used as a simple hash that maps parameter names to values, with _DEFAULT being the name for the default parameter.
-
$topic
- name of the topic in the query
-
$web
- name of the web in the query
for example, to execute an arbitrary command on the server, you might do this:
sub initPlugin{
TWiki::Func::registerTagHandler('EXEC', \&boo);
}
sub boo {
my( $session, $params, $topic, $web ) = @_;
my $cmd = $params->{_DEFAULT};
return "NO COMMAND SPECIFIED" unless $cmd;
my $result = `$cmd 2>&1`;
return $params->{silent} ? '' : $result;
}
}
would let you do this:
%EXEC{"ps -Af" silent="on"}%
registerRESTHandler( $alias, \&fn, )
Should only be called from initPlugin.
Adds a function to the dispatch table of the REST interface
-
$alias
- The name .
-
\&fn
- Reference to the function.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
The handler function must be of the form:
sub handler(\%session)
where:
-
\%session
- a reference to the TWiki session object (may be ignored)
From the REST interface, the name of the plugin must be used
as the subject of the invokation.
Example
The
EmptyPlugin has the following call in the initPlugin handler:
TWiki::Func::registerRESTHandler('example', \&restExample);
This adds the
restExample
function to the REST dispatch table
for the
EmptyPlugin under the 'example' alias, and allows it
to be invoked using the URL
http://server:port/bin/rest/EmptyPlugin/example
note that the URL
http://server:port/bin/rest/EmptyPlugin/restExample
(ie, with the name of the function instead of the alias) will not work.
Searching
searchInWebContent($searchString, $web, \@topics, \%options ) -> \%map
Search for a string in the content of a web. The search is over all content, including meta-data. Meta-data matches will be returned as formatted lines within the topic content (meta-data matches are returned as lines of the format %META:\w+{.*}%)
-
$searchString
- the search string, in egrep format
-
$web
- The web to search in
-
\@topics
- reference to a list of topics to search
-
\%option
- reference to an options hash
The
\%options
hash may contain the following options:
-
type
- if regex
will perform a egrep-syntax RE search (default '')
-
casesensitive
- false to ignore case (defaulkt true)
-
files_without_match
- true to return files only (default false). If files_without_match
is specified, it will return on the first match in each topic (i.e. it will return only one match per topic, and will not return matching lines).
The return value is a reference to a hash which maps each matching topic
name to a list of the lines in that topic that matched the search,
as would be returned by 'grep'.
To iterate over the returned topics use:
my $result = TWiki::Func::searchInWebContent( "Slimy Toad", $web, \@topics,
{ casesensitive => 0, files_without_match => 0 } );
foreach my $topic (keys %$result ) {
foreach my $matching_line ( @{$result->{$topic}} ) {
...etc
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
Plugin-specific file handling
getWorkArea( $pluginName ) -> $directorypath
Gets a private directory for Plugin use. The Plugin is entirely responsible
for managing this directory; TWiki will not read from it, or write to it.
The directory is guaranteed to exist, and to be writable by the webserver
user. By default it will
not be web accessible.
The directory and it's contents are permanent, so Plugins must be careful
to keep their areas tidy.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1 (Dec 2005)
readFile( $filename ) -> $text
Read file, low level. Used for Plugin workarea.
-
$filename
- Full path name of file
Return:
$text
Content of file, empty if not found
NOTE: Use this function only for the Plugin workarea,
not for topics and attachments. Use the appropriate functions to manipulate topics and attachments.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (07 Dec 2002)
saveFile( $filename, $text )
Save file, low level. Used for Plugin workarea.
-
$filename
- Full path name of file
-
$text
- Text to save
Return: none
NOTE: Use this function only for the Plugin workarea,
not for topics and attachments. Use the appropriate functions to manipulate topics and attachments.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (07 Dec 2002)
General Utilities
getRegularExpression( $name ) -> $expr
Retrieves a TWiki predefined regular expression or character class.
-
$name
- Name of the expression to retrieve. See notes below
Return: String or precompiled regular expression matching as described below.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.020 (9 Feb 2004)
Note: TWiki internally precompiles several regular expressions to
represent various string entities in an I18N-compatible manner. Plugins
authors are encouraged to use these in matching where appropriate. The
following are guaranteed to be present. Others may exist, but their use
is unsupported and they may be removed in future TWiki versions.
In the table below, the expression marked type 'String' are intended for
use within character classes (i.e. for use within square brackets inside
a regular expression), for example:
my $upper = TWiki::Func::getRegularExpression('upperAlpha');
my $alpha = TWiki::Func::getRegularExpression('mixedAlpha');
my $capitalized = qr/[$upper][$alpha]+/;
Those expressions marked type 'RE' are precompiled regular expressions that can be used outside square brackets. For example:
my $webRE = TWiki::Func::getRegularExpression('webNameRegex');
my $isWebName = ( $s =~ m/$webRE/ );
Name | Matches | Type |
upperAlpha | Upper case characters | String |
upperAlphaNum | Upper case characters and digits | String |
lowerAlpha | Lower case characters | String |
lowerAlphaNum | Lower case characters and digits | String |
numeric | Digits | String |
mixedAlpha | Alphabetic characters | String |
mixedAlphaNum | Alphanumeric characters | String |
wikiWordRegex | WikiWords | RE |
webNameRegex | User web names | RE |
anchorRegex | #AnchorNames | RE |
abbrevRegex | Abbreviations e.g. GOV, IRS | RE |
emailAddrRegex | email@address.com | RE |
tagNameRegex | Standard variable names e.g. %THIS_BIT% (THIS_BIT only) | RE |
normalizeWebTopicName($web, $topic) -> ($web, $topic)
Parse a web and topic name, supplying defaults as appropriate.
-
$web
- Web name, identifying variable, or empty string
-
$topic
- Topic name, may be a web.topic string, required.
Return: the parsed Web/Topic pai
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
Input | Return |
( 'Web', 'Topic' ) | ( 'Web', 'Topic' ) |
( '', 'Topic' ) | ( 'Main', 'Topic' ) |
( '', '' ) | ( 'Main', 'WebHome' ) |
( '', 'Web/Topic' ) | ( 'Web', 'Topic' ) |
( '', 'Web.Topic' ) | ( 'Web', 'Topic' ) |
( 'Web1', 'Web2.Topic' ) | ( 'Web2', 'Topic' ) |
( 'Main', 'Topic' ) | ( 'Main', 'Topic' ) |
( 'TWiki', 'Topic' ) | ( 'TWiki', 'Topic' ) |
where
Main
and
TWiki
are the web names set in $cfg{UsersWebName} and $cfg{SystemWebName} respectively.
writeWarning( $text )
Log Warning that may require admin intervention to data/warning.txt
-
$text
- Text to write; timestamp gets added
Return: none
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.020 (16 Feb 2004)
writeDebug( $text )
Log debug message to data/debug.txt
-
$text
- Text to write; timestamp gets added
Return: none
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.020 (16 Feb 2004)
formatTime( $time, $format, $timezone ) -> $text
Format the time in seconds into the desired time string
-
$time
- Time in epoc seconds
-
$format
- Format type, optional. Default e.g. '31 Dec 2002 - 19:30'
. Can be '$iso'
(e.g. '2002-12-31T19:30Z'
), '$rcs'
(e.g. '2001/12/31 23:59:59'
, '$http'
for HTTP header format (e.g. 'Thu, 23 Jul 1998 07:21:56 GMT'
), or any string with tokens '$seconds, $minutes, $hours, $day, $wday, $month, $mo, $year, $ye, $tz'
for seconds, minutes, hours, day of month, day of week, 3 letter month, 2 digit month, 4 digit year, 2 digit year, timezone string, respectively
-
$timezone
- either not defined (uses the displaytime setting), 'gmtime', or 'servertime'
Return:
$text
Formatted time string
Note: | if you used the removed formatGmTime, add a third parameter 'gmtime' |
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.020 (26 Feb 2004)
isValidWikiWord ( $text ) -> $boolean
Check for a valid
WikiWord or
WikiName
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.100 (Dec 2005)
extractParameters($attr ) -> %params
Extract all parameters from a variable string and returns a hash of parameters
Return:
%params
Hash containing all parameters. The nameless parameter is stored in key
_DEFAULT
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.025 (26 Aug 2004)
- Example:
- Variable:
%TEST{ 'nameless' name1="val1" name2="val2" }%
- First extract text between
{...}
to get: 'nameless' name1="val1" name2="val2"
- Then call this on the text:
- params = TWiki::Func::extractParameters( $text );=
- The
%params
hash contains now:
_DEFAULT => 'nameless'
name1 => "val1"
name2 => "val2"
extractNameValuePair( $attr, $name ) -> $value
Extract a named or unnamed value from a variable parameter string
- Note: | Function TWiki::Func::extractParameters is more efficient for extracting several parameters
-
$attr
- Attribute string
-
$name
- Name, optional
Return:
$value
Extracted value
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
- Example:
- Variable:
%TEST{ 'nameless' name1="val1" name2="val2" }%
- First extract text between
{...}
to get: 'nameless' name1="val1" name2="val2"
- Then call this on the text:
my $noname = TWiki::Func::extractNameValuePair( $text );
my $val1 = TWiki::Func::extractNameValuePair( $text, "name1" );
my $val2 = TWiki::Func::extractNameValuePair( $text, "name2" );
Deprecated functions
From time-to-time, the TWiki developers will add new functions to the interface (either to
TWikiFuncDotPm, or new handlers). Sometimes these improvements mean that old functions have to be deprecated to keep the code manageable. When this happens, the deprecated functions will be supported in the interface for at least one more TWiki release, and probably longer, though this cannot be guaranteed.
Updated plugins may still need to define deprecated handlers for compatibility with old TWiki versions. In this case, the plugin package that defines old handlers can suppress the warnings in %FAILEDPLUGINS%.
This is done by defining a map from the handler name to the
TWiki::Plugins
version
in which the handler was first deprecated. For example, if we need to define the
endRenderingHandler
for compatibility with
TWiki::Plugins
versions before 1.1, we would add this to the plugin:
package TWiki::Plugins::SinkPlugin;
use vars qw( %TWikiCompatibility );
$TWikiCompatibility{endRenderingHandler} = 1.1;
If the currently-running TWiki version is 1.1
or later, then the
handler will not be called and
the warning will not be issued. TWiki with versions of
TWiki::Plugins
before 1.1 will still call the handler as required.
The following functions are retained for compatibility only. You should
stop using them as soon as possible.
getScriptUrlPath( ) -> $path
Get script URL path
DEPRECATED since 1.1 - use
getScriptUrl
instead.
Return:
$path
URL path of TWiki scripts, e.g.
"/cgi-bin"
WARNING: you are strongly recommended
not to use this function, as the
{ScriptUrlPaths} URL rewriting rules will not apply to urls generated
using it.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
getPublicWebList( ) -> @webs
DEPRECATED since 1.1 - use
getListOfWebs
instead.
Get list of all public webs, e.g. all webs that do not have the
NOSEARCHALL
flag set in the
WebPreferences
Return:
@webs
List of all public webs, e.g.
( 'Main', 'Know', 'TWiki' )
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (07 Dec 2002)
formatGmTime( $time, $format ) -> $text
DEPRECATED since 1.1 - use
formatTime
instead.
Format the time to GM time
-
$time
- Time in epoc seconds
-
$format
- Format type, optional. Default e.g. '31 Dec 2002 - 19:30'
, can be 'iso'
(e.g. '2002-12-31T19:30Z'
), 'rcs'
(e.g. '2001/12/31 23:59:59'
, 'http'
for HTTP header format (e.g. 'Thu, 23 Jul 1998 07:21:56 GMT'
)
Return:
$text
Formatted time string
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (7 Dec 2002)
getDataDir( ) -> $dir
DEPRECATED since 1.1 - use the
content handling functions to manipulate topics instead
Get data directory (topic file root)
Return:
$dir
Data directory, e.g.
'/twiki/data'
This function violates store encapsulation and is therefore
deprecated.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (07 Dec 2002)
getPubDir( ) -> $dir
DEPRECATED since 1.1 - use the
content handling functions to manipulateattachments instead
Get pub directory (file attachment root). Attachments are in
$dir/Web/TopicName
Return:
$dir
Pub directory, e.g.
'/htdocs/twiki/pub'
This function violates store encapsulation and is therefore
deprecated.
Use
readAttachment
and
saveAttachment
instead.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.000 (07 Dec 2002)
checkDependencies( $moduleName, $dependenciesRef ) -> $error
DEPRECATED since 1.1 - use
TWiki:Plugins.BuildContrib and define DEPENDENCIES that can be statically
evaluated at install time instead. It is a lot more efficient.
Since: TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.025 (01 Aug 2004)
TWiki CGI and Command Line Scripts
Programs on the TWiki server performing actions such as rendering, saving and renaming topics.
The TWiki scripts are located in the
twiki/bin
and
twiki/tools
directories. This topic describes the interfaces to some of those scripts. All scripts in the
twiki/bin
directory can be called from the CGI (
Common Gateway Interface) environment or from the command line. The scripts in the
twiki/tools
directory can only be called from the command line.
CGI Scripts
Details on CGI scripts located in the
twiki/bin
directory.
General Information
CGI environment
In the CGI environment parameters are passed to the scripts via the URL and URL parameters. Environment variables are also used to determine the user performing the action. If the environment is not set up, the default TWiki user is used (usually
guest
).
Command-line
You
must be cd'd to the
twiki/bin
directory to run the scripts from the command line. To avoid issues with file permissions, run the scripts as the web server user such as
nobody
or
www
.
Parameters are passed on the command line using '-name' - for example,
$ cd /usr/local/twiki/bin
$ save -topic MyWeb.MyTopic -user admin -action save -text "New text of the topic"
All parameters require a value.
Common parameters
All the scripts accept a number of common parameters. The first two components of the URL after the script name are taken as the web and the topic, respectively. Standard URL parameters are:
Parameter | Description | Default |
topic | If this is set to a URL, TWiki will immediately redirect to that URL. Otherwise it overrides the URL and is taken as the topic name (you can pass Web.TopicName) | |
user | Command-line only; set the name of the user performing the action. Note: this usage is inherently insecure, as it bypasses webserver login constraints. For this reason only authorised users should be allowed to execute scripts from the command line. | |
skin | Overrides the default skin path (see TWikiSkins) | |
cover | Specifies temporary skin path to prepend to the skin path for this script only (see TWikiSkins) | |
attach
Despite the name, this script doesn't actually attach a file to a topic - for that, use
upload
. This script is part of the transactions sequence executed when a file is uploaded from the browser. it just generates the "new attachment" page for a topic.
Parameter | Description | Default |
filename | Name of existing attachment (if provided, this is a "manage attachment" action) | none (in which case this is a "new attachment" action) |
changes
Shows all the changes in the given web.
The
changes
script can receive one parameter:
The main difference between invoking this script and using
WebChanges is that
WebChanges is based on a
%SEARCH%
, while this script reads the
changes
file in each web, making it much faster.
NOTE: The result from
changes
script and the topic
WebChanges can be different, if the
changes
file is deleted from a web. In particular, in new installations the
changes
script will return no results while the
WebChanges topic will.
configure
configure
is the browser script used for inspection and configuration of the TWiki configuration. None of the parameters to this script are useable for any purpose except
configure
.
edit
The
edit
scipt understands the following parameters, typically supplied by HTML input fields:
Parameter | Description | Default |
action | Optional. Use the editaction template instead of the standard edit. If action=text, then hide the form. If action=form hide the normal text area and only edit the form. | |
onlynewtopic | If set, error if topic already exists | |
onlywikiname | If set, error if topic name is not a WikiWord | |
templatetopic | The name of the template topic, copied to get the initial content | |
text | Initial text for the topic | |
topicparent | The parent topic | |
formtemplate | Name of the form to instantiate in the topic. Overrides the form set in the templatetopic if defined. | |
contenttype | Optional parameter that defines the application type to write into the CGI header. Defaults to text/html . May be used to invoke alternative client applications | |
anyname | Any parameter can passed to the new topic; if the template topic contains %URLPARAM{"anyname"}% , it will be replaced by its value | |
breaklock | If set, any lease conflicts will be ignored, and the edit will proceed even if someone is already editing the topic. | |
Form field values are passed in parameters named 'field' - for example, if I have a field
Status
the parameter name is
Status
.
- The first sequence of ten or more
X
characters in the topic name will be converted on save to a number such that the resulting topic name is unique in the target web.
NOTE: most skins support the definition of
EDIT_SKIN
, which is used as the value of the
cover
parameter in
edit
URLs. This allows you to override the default edit skin on a web, topic or user basis.
login
Used for logging in when TWiki login is being used (e.g TemplateLoginManager).
Parameter | Description | Default |
origurl | URL that was being accessed when an access violation occurred. the login process will redirect to this URL if it is successful | none |
username | username of user logging in | none |
password | password of user logging in | none |
logon
Used for logging in when Web Server authentication is being used (e.g. ApacheLoginManager). The script does nothing; it is purely a placeholder for triggering the login process. The webserver will be set up to require a valid user to access this script, thus triggering the webserver login process.
manage
Performs a range of management functions.
action=createweb
Parameter | Description | Default |
newweb | Name of the new web | '' |
baseweb | Name of the web to copy to create the new web | '' |
webbgcolor | value for WEBBGCOLOR | '' |
sitemapwhat | Value for SITEMAPWHAT | '' |
sitemapuseto | Value for SITEMAPUSETO | '' |
nosearchall | Value for NOSEARCHALL | '' |
action=deleteUserAccount
Unregisters (removes) the currently logged-in user.
action=editSettings
No parameters
action=bulkRegister
See
BulkRegistration.
Parameter | Description | Default |
OverwriteHomeTopics | Whether to overwrite existing home topics or not | false |
EmailUsersWithDetails | Whether to mail registered users or not | false |
LogTopic | Topic to save the log in | Same as topic name, with 'Result' appended. |
action=saveSettings
All other parameters may be interpreted as form fields, depending on the current form definition in the topic.
oops
This script is mainly used for rendering pages containing error messages, though it is also used for some functional actions such as manage pages (move topic etc).
oops
templates are used with the
oops
script to generate system messages. This is done to make internationalisation or other local customisations simple.
The
oops
script supports the following parameters:
Parameter | Description | Default |
template | Name of the template file to display | |
def | Optional, can be set to the name of a single definition within template . This definition will be instantiated in the template wherever %INSTANTIATE% is seen. This lets you use a single template file for many messages. For an example, see oopsmanagebad.tmpl . | |
paramN | Where N is an integer from 1 upwards. These values will be substituted into template for %PARAM1% etc. | |
passwd
Other parameters as described under
manage
,
action=changePassword
.
action=changePassword
Parameter | Description | Default |
username | Username | |
oldpassword | Existing password (plain text) | |
password | New password (plain text) | |
passwordA | New password confirmation (plain text) | |
TopicName | ? | |
preview
This script is
deprecated. Its functions are covered by the
save
script.
rdiff
Renders the differences between version of a TWiki topic
Parameter | Description | Default |
rev1 | the higher revision | |
rev2 | the lower revision | |
render | the rendering style {sequential, sidebyside, raw, debug} | DIFFRENDERSTYLE, sequential |
type | {history, diff, last} history diff, version to version, last version to previous | diff |
context | number of lines of context | |
TODO:
- add a {word} render style
register
rename
Used for renaming topics.
Parameter | Description | Default |
skin | skin(s) to use | |
newweb | new web name | |
newtopic | new topic name | |
breaklock | | |
attachment | | |
confirm | if defined, requires a second level of confirmation | |
currentwebonly | if defined, searches current web only for links to this topic | |
nonwikiword | if defined, a non-wikiword is acceptable for the new topic name | |
resetpasswd
Reset the password for a single or multiple users
Parameter | Description | Default |
LoginName | list of usernames to reset | none - error if not set |
Introduction | message to be sent alongside the reset, most often used to announce to the user that they have been given an account. | '' |
This is used by
BulkResetPassword and
ResetPassword. Only users belonging to the
TWikiAdminGroup can provide a list of
LoginNames, non-admins can only provide a single
LoginName.
BulkRegistration provides the means to create multiple accounts but it does not announce those accounts to the users who own them.
BulkResetPassword is used to assign the passwords, the Introduction is used to explain why they are receiving the mail.
rest
This REST (
Representational State Transfer) script can be invoked via http in a similar way as the view script (see
Invocation Examples, below) to execute a function that is associated to a "subject" and a "verb" (see below). It'll print the result directly to the stream unless the
endPoint
parameter is specified, in which case the control is redirected to the given topic.
The
rest
script itself uses one parameter:
endPoint | Where to redirect the response once the request is served, in the form "Web.Topic" |
Any additional parameters are passed directly to the function (i.e: The function can get any other parameter using the CGI $query object)
Invocation Examples
The
rest
script assumes that it will be called with URL in the form:
http://my.host/bin/rest/<subject>/<verb>
where
<subject>
must be the
WikiWord name of one of the installed
TWikiPlugins, and the
<verb>
is the alias for the function registered using the
registerRESTHandler
. The
<subject>
and
<verb>
are then used to lookup and call the registered function.
Functions outside the Plugins also can be registered, but please consider the security implications of allowing URL access, as functions can sidestep TWiki Authentication & Authorisation settings.
<subject>
and
<verb>
are checked for illegal characters exactly in the same way as the web and topic names.
As an example, the
EmptyPlugin has registered a function to be used with the
rest
script under the subject
EmptyPlugin and the verb
example. Click below to see the
rest
script in action (run as
TWikiGuest).
Call the Plugin
You can also call the function from the command line, but this will be run as the
TWikiAdminGroup (as it is assumed that shell access is secure) - eg:
./rest EmptyPlugin.example
Note that for calls to Plugins, they must be enabled in
configure
.
save
The
save
script performs a range of save-related functions, as selected by the
action
parameter.
Parameter | Description | Default |
action_save=1 | default; save, return to view, dontnotify is OFF | |
action_quietsave=1 | save, and return to view, dontnotify is ON | |
action_checkpoint | save and redirect to the edit script, dontnotify is ON | |
action_cancel | exit without save, return to view | |
action_preview | preview edited text | |
action_addform | Redirect to the "change form" page. | |
action_replaceform... | Redirect to the "change form" page. | |
action_delRev | Administrators only delete the most recent revision of the topic - all other parameters are ignored. You have to be a member of TWikiAdminGroup to use this, and not all store implementations will support it. | |
action_repRev | Administrators only replace the text of the most recent revision of the topic with the text in the text parameter. text must included embedded meta-data tags. All other parameters are ignored. You have to be a member of TWikiAdminGroup to use this, and not all store implementations will support it. | |
onlynewtopic | If set, error if topic already exists | |
onlywikiname | If set, error if topic name is not a WikiWord | |
dontnotify | if defined, suppress change notification | |
templatetopic | Name of a topic to use as a template for the text and form | |
text | New text of the topic | |
forcenewrevision | if set, forces a revision even if TWiki thinks one isn't needed | |
topicparent | If 'none' remove any current topic parent. If the name of a topic, set the topic parent to this. | |
formtemplate | if defined, use the named template for the form | |
editaction | When action is checkpoint , add form or replace form... , this is used as the action parameter to the edit script that is redirected to after the save is complete. | |
originalrev | Revision on which the edit started. | |
Any errors will cause a redirect to an
oops
page.
The parameters are interpreted in according to the following rules.
- The first sequence of ten or more
X
characters in the topic name will be converted to a number such that the resulting topic name is unique in the target web.
- When the action is
save
, checkpoint
, quietsave
, or preview
:
- The new text is taken from the
text
parameter, if it is defined,
- otherwise it is taken from the
templatetopic
, if it is defined,
- otherwise it is taken from the previous version of the topic, if any,
- The name of the new form is taken from the
formtemplate
, if defined
- otherwise it is taken from the
templatetopic
, if defined,
- otherwise it is taken from the previous version of the topic, if any,
- otherwise no form is attached.
- The value for each field in the form is taken from the query, if it is defined
- otherwise it is taken from the
templatetopic
, if defined,
- otherwise it is taken from the previous version of the topic, if any,
- otherwise it defaults to the empty string.
Merging is only enabled if the topic text comes from
text
and
originalrev
is > 0 and is not the same as the revision number of the most recent revision. If merging is enabled both the topic and the meta-data are merged.
Form field values are passed in parameters named 'field' - for example, if I have a field
Status
the parameter name is
Status
.
search
CGI gateway to the
%SEARCH%
functionality driven by the following CGI parameters:
Parameter: | Description: | Default: |
"text" | Search term. Is a keyword search, literal search or regular expression search, depending on the type parameter. SearchHelp has more | required |
search="text" | (Alternative to above) | N/A |
web="Name" web="Main, Know" web="all" | Comma-separated list of webs to search. See TWikiVariables#VarSEARCH for more details. | Current web |
topic="WebPreferences" topic="*Bug" | Limit search to topics: A topic, a topic with asterisk wildcards, or a list of topics separated by comma. | All topics in a web |
excludetopic="Web*" excludetopic="WebHome, WebChanges" | Exclude topics from search: A topic, a topic with asterisk wildcards, or a list of topics separated by comma. | None |
type="keyword" type="literal" type="regex" | Do a keyword search like soap "web service" -shampoo ; a literal search like web service ; or RegularExpression search like soap;web service;!shampoo | %SEARCHVAR- DEFAULTTYPE% preferences setting (literal) |
scope="topic" scope="text" scope="all" | Search topic name (title); the text (body) of topic; or all (both) | "text" |
order="topic" order="created" order="modified" order="editby" order= "formfield(name)" | Sort the results of search by the topic names, topic creation time, last modified time, last editor, or named field of TWikiForms. The sorting is done web by web; in case you want to sort across webs, create a formatted table and sort it with TablePlugin's initsort | Sort by topic name |
limit="all" limit="16" | Limit the number of results returned. This is done after sorting if order is specified | All results |
date="..." | limits the results to those pages with latest edit time in the given TimeInterval. | All results |
reverse="on" | Reverse the direction of the search | Ascending search |
casesensitive="on" | Case sensitive search | Ignore case |
bookview="on" | BookView search, e.g. show complete topic text | Show topic summary |
nonoise="on" | Shorthand for nosummary="on" nosearch="on" nototal="on" zeroresults="off" noheader="on" noempty="on" | Off |
nosummary="on" | Show topic title only | Show topic summary |
nosearch="on" | Suppress search string | Show search string |
noheader="on" | Suppress search header Topics: Changed: By: | Show search header |
nototal="on" | Do not show number of topics found | Show number |
zeroresults="off" | Suppress all output if there are no hits | zeroresults="on" , displays: "Number of topics: 0" |
noempty="on" | Suppress results for webs that have no hits. | Show webs with no hits |
header="..." format="..." | Custom format results: see FormattedSearch for usage, variables & examples | Results in table |
expandvariables="on" | Expand variables before applying a FormattedSearch on a search hit. Useful to show the expanded text, e.g. to show the result of a SpreadSheetPlugin %CALC{}% instead of the formula | Raw text |
multiple="on" | Multiple hits per topic. Each hit can be formatted. The last token is used in case of a regular expression ";" and search | Only one hit per topic |
nofinalnewline="on" | If on , the search variable does not end in a line by itself. Any text continuing immediately after the search tag on the same line will be rendered as part of the table generated by the search, if appropriate. | off |
separator=", " | Line separator between hits | Newline "$n" |
statistics
Refresh the
WebStatistics topics in range of webs.
Parameter | Description | Default |
webs | comma-separated list of webs to run stats on | all accessible webs |
logdate | YYYYMM to generate statistics for | current month |
twiki
Single-script interface to the functionality of all the other scripts. Experimental, not for production use. Read the code if you want to know more.
upload
Uploads an attachment to a topic. The HTTP request is expected to be in
multipart/form-data
format.
Parameter | Description | Default |
hidefile | if defined, will not show file in attachment table | |
filepath | local (client) path name of the file being uploaded. This is used to look up the data for the file in the HTTP query. | |
filename | deprecated, do not use | |
filecomment | Comment to associate with file in attachment table | |
createlink | if defined, will create a link to file at end of topic | |
changeproperties | if defined, this is a property change operation only - no file will be uploaded. | null |
You can use a tool like
curl
to upload files from the command line using this script.
view
Used for viewing topics.
Parameter | Description | Default |
raw=on | Shows the text of the topic in a scrollable textarea | |
raw=debug | As raw=on , but also shows the metadata (forms etc) associated with the topic. | |
raw=text | Shows only the source of the topic, as plain text (Content-type: text/plain). Only shows the body text, not the form or other meta-data. | |
raw=all | Shows only the source of the topic, as plain text (Content-type: text/plain), with embedded meta-data. This may be useful if you want to extract the source of a topic to a local file on disc. | |
contenttype | Allows you to specify a different Content-Type: (e.g. contenttype=text/plain ) | |
rev | Revision to view (e.g. rev=45 ) | |
template | Allows you to specify a different skin template, overriding the 'view' template the view script would normally use. The default template is view . For example, you could specify /bin/view/TWiki/TWikiScripts?template=edit. This is mainly useful when you have specialised templates for a TWiki Application. | |
For historical reasons, the view script has a special interpretation of the
text
skin. In earlier TWiki versions the
skin=text
parameter was used like this:
http://.../view/MyWeb/MyTopic?skin=text&contenttype=text/plain&raw=on
which shows the topic as plain text; useful for those who want to download plain text for the topic.
Using
skin=text
this way is
DEPRECATED, use
raw=text
instead.
viewfile
Used for viewing attachments. Normally, a site will publish the attachments (
pub
) directory using a URL. However if it contains sensitive information, you will want to protect attachments using
TWikiAccessControls. In this case, you can use the
viewfile
script to give access to attachments while still checking access controls.
Command Line Scripts
Details on command line scripts located in the
twiki/tools
directory.
geturl.pl
This is a very simple script to get the content of a web site. It is marked as
deprecated and might be removed (or enhanced) in a future TWiki release. Its functions are covered by the standard
wget
and
curl
commands.
- Usage:
geturl <host> <path> [<port> [<header>]]
- Example:
geturl some.domain /some/dir/file.html 80
- Will get:
http://some.domain:80/some/dir/file.html
rewriteshebang.pl
Simple script to rewrite the
#!/usr/bin/perl
shebang lines specific to your local Perl installation. It will rewrite the first line of all your TWiki cgi scripts so they use a different shebang line. Use it if your perl is in a non-standard location, or you want to use a different interpreter (such as 'speedy').
tick_twiki.pl
This script executes a number of non-essential regular administration tasks that will help keep your TWiki healthy and happy, such as removing expired sessions and lease files.
It is intended to be run as a cron job or a scheduled task once a week. Example crontab entry:
0 0 * * 0 cd /usr/twiki/bin && perl ../tools/tick_twiki.pl
Note: The script has to be run by a user who can write files created by the webserver user.
Related Topics: AdminDocumentationCategory,
DeveloperDocumentationCategory
TWiki Site Tools
Utilities for searching, navigation, and monitoring site activity
TWiki Site Tools include utilities for navigating, searching and keeping up with site activity. Preferences can be configured by web or site-wide. You are currently in the
TWiki web. In particular, TWiki provides two highly configurable, automated site monitoring tools,
WebNotify, to e-mail alerts when topics are edited, and
WebStatistics, to generate detailed activity reports.
WebNotify - recent changes alert
Each TWiki web has an automatic e-mail alert service that sends a list of recent changes on a preset schedule, like once a day. Users can subscribe and unsubscribe using
WebNotify in each web. The Perl script
mailnotify
is called by a background process at regular intervals. The script sends an automated e-mail to subscribed users if topics were changed in a web since the script was last run.
Web Changes Notification Service
Each TWiki web has an automatic e-mail notification service that sends you an e-mail with links to all of the topics modified since the last alert.
Subscribers are listed in WebNotify following one of these bullet list formats:
three spaces * [
webname . ]
wikiName -
SMTP mail address
three spaces * [
webName . ]
wikiName
three spaces *
SMTP mail address
three spaces *
SMTP mail address :
topics
three spaces * [
webname . ]
wikiName :
topics
where
topics is a space-separated list of topic names.
- Specify topics without a Web. prefix
- Topics must exist in this web.
- Topics may be specified using * wildcards
- Each topic may optionally be followed by an integer in parentheses, indicating the depth of the tree of children below that topic. Changes in all these children will be detected and reported along with changes to the topic itself. Note This uses the TWiki "Topic parent" feature.
- Each topic may optionally be preceded by a '+' or '-' sign. The '+' sign means "subscribe to this topic" (the same as not putting anything). The '-' sign means "don't send notifications regarding this topic". This allows users to elect to filter out changes to certain topics (and their children, to an arbitrary depth). Topic filters ('-') take precedence over topic includes ('+').
For example:
* daisy@flowers.com
* daisy@flowers.com: Web*
* DaisyCutter: Petal* (1) WeedKillers (3) Red*Phlox
* StarTrekFan: * - *Wars - *sInTheirEyes - *shipTroopers
A user may be listed many times in the WebNotify topic. Where a user has several lines in WebNotify that all match the same topic, they will only be notified of changes to that topic
once.
If a
TWiki group is listed for notification, the group will be recursively expanded to the e-mail addresses of all members.
Tip: List names in alphabetical order to make it easier to find the names.
Note for System Administrators: Notification is supported by an add-on to the TWiki kernel called the MailerContrib. See the
MailerContrib topic for details of how to set up this service.
Note: If you prefer a news feed, point your reader to
WebRss (for RSS 1.0 feeds) or
WebAtom (for ATOM 1.0 feeds). Learn more at
WebRssBase and
WebAtomBase, respectively.
You can also use
%MAINWEB%
instead of
Main
, but this is not necessary even if you have renamed the main web by configuring
{MainWebName}
in
configure.
WebSearch - search TWiki site
WebSearch is an extremely fast and flexible search facility, part of the core TWiki feature set.
WebSearchAdvanced offers more options, including:
- topic title or full-text search
- regular expressions
- search within web or site-wide
- index-style A-Z alphabetical listing sorted topic title
- many more
See also:
SearchHelp for help;
TWikiVariables and
FormattedSearch for including hard-coded searches in text.
WebChanges - what's new
To check for the most recently edited topics while on-site, use the
WebChanges link, usually located in the toolbar. It lists the most recently modified topics, newest first, along with the first couple of lines of the page content.
This is simply a preset
SEARCH
. The number of topics listed by the
limit
parameter.:
%SEARCH{ ".*" web="TWiki" regex="on" nosearch="on" order="modified"
reverse="on" limit="50" }%
WebIndex - list of topics
WebIndex lists all web topics in alphabetical order, with the first couple of lines of text. This is simply a preset
SEARCH
:
%SEARCH{ "\.*" scope="topic" regex="on" nosearch="on" }%
WebStatistics - site statistics
You can generate a listing manually, or on an automated schedule, of visits to individual pages, on a per web basis. Compiled as a running total on a monthly basis. Includes totals for Topic Views, Topic Saves, Attachment Uploads, Most Popular Topics with number of views, and Top Contributors showing total of saves and attachment uploads. Previous months are saved.
Configuring for automatic operation
- You can automatically generate usage statistics for all webs. To enable this:
- Make sure variable {Log}{view}, {Log}{save} and *{Log}{upload} in are set in configure. This will generate log file entries (see below).
- The WebStatistics topic must be present in all webs where you want to have statistics. You can use the topic in the Main web as a template.
- Call the
twiki/bin/statistics
script from a cron job, once a day is recommended. This will update the WebStatistics topics in all webs.
- Attention: The script must run as the same user as the CGI scripts are running, which is user
nobody
on many systems. Example crontab entry:
0 0 * * * (cd /path/to/twiki/bin; ./statistics >/dev/null 2>&1)
- There is a workaround in case you can't run the script as user
nobody
: Run the utility twiki/bin/geturl
in your cron job and specify the URL of the twiki/bin/statistics
script as a parameter. Example:
0 0 * * * (cd /path/to/twiki/bin; ./geturl mydomain.com /urlpath/to/twiki/bin/statistics >/dev/null 2>&1)
When running from the command line or a cron job, you can pass parameters to the script like this:
./statistics -logdate 200605 -webs TWiki,Sandbox
Generating statistics manually by URL
- The
twiki/bin/statistics
script can also be executed as a CGI script, just enter the URL in your browser. Examples:
- Update current month for all webs you have access to:
/bin/statistics
- Update current month for Main web only:
/bin/statistics/Main
- Update Oct 2024 for Main web:
/bin/statistics/Main?logdate=202410
- Update Oct 2024 for the ProjectX, ProjectY and ProjectZ webs:
/bin/statistics?logdate=202410;webs=ProjectX,ProjectY,ProjectZ
Log Files
TWiki generates monthly log files which are used by the statistics script
- The log file is defined by the {LogFileName} setting in configure
- The file name is
log<year><month>.txt
- Example path name:
twiki/logs/log202410.txt
- Each access gets logged as:
| <time> | <wikiusername> | <action> | <web>.<topic> | <extra info> | <IP address> |
- Example log entry:
| 31 Oct 2024 - 23:45 | TWikiGuest | view | WebRss | | 66.124.232.02 |
- Actions are logged if enabled in configure by the {Log}{action} flags
- Logged actions:
Script | Action name | Extra info |
attach | attach | when viewing attach screen of previous uploaded attachment: filename |
changes | changes | |
edit | edit | when editing non-existing topic: (not exist) |
rdiff | rdiff | higher and lower revision numbers: 4 3 |
register | regstart | WikiUserName, e-Mail address, LoginName: user attempts to register |
register | register | E-mail address: user successfully registers |
register | bulkregister | WikiUserName of new, e-mail address, admin ID |
rename | rename | when moving topic: moved to Newweb.NewTopic |
rename | move | when moving attachment: Attachment filename moved to Newweb.NewTopic |
passwd | resetpasswd | LoginName, WikiName, E-mail address, success code from addUserPassword |
passwd | changepasswd | LoginName, WikiName |
save | save | when replacing existing revision: repRev 3 when user checks the minor changes box: dontNotify |
search | search | search string |
upload | upload | filename |
view | view | when viewing non-existing topic: (not exist) when viewing previous topic revision: r3 |
E-mail
Configuring outgoing mail
Outgoing mail is required for
TWikiRegistration and for
recent changes alert.
TWiki will use the
Net::SMTP
module if it is installed on your system. Set this with the
SMTPMAILHOST
variable in
TWikiPreferences.
The notify e-mail uses the default
changes.tmpl
template, or a skin if activated in the
TWikiPreferences.
mailnotify also relies on two hidden files in each
twiki/data/Web
directory:
.changes
and
.mailnotify.
Make sure both are writable by your web server process.
.changes
contains a list of changes; go ahead and make this empty.
.mailnotify
contains a timestamp of the last time notification was done.
You can use an external mail program, such as
sendmail
, if the
Net::SMTP
module is not installed. Set the program path in
{MailProgram}
in
configure.
- Net::SMTP can be easily disabled (if there is an installation error) by setting
SMTPMAILHOST
in TWikiPreferences to an empty value.
- You can set a separate
SMTPSENDERHOST
variable to define the mail sender host (some SMTP installations require this).
Setting the automatic e-mail schedule
For Unix platforms: Edit the
cron
table so that
mailnotify
is called in an interval of your choice. Please consult
man crontab
of how to modify the table that schedules program execution at certain intervals. Example:
% crontab -e
0 2 * * * (cd /path/to/twiki/bin; ./mailnotify -q)
The above line will run mailnotify nightly at 02:00. The
-q
switch suppresses all normal output.
For ISP installations: Many ISPs don't allow hosted accounts direct cron access, as it's often used for things that can heavily load the server. Workaround scripts are available.
On Windows: You can use a scheduled task if you have administrative privileges.
TWiki:Codev/CronTabWin is a free scheduler for Windows.
Site Permissions
- TWikiAccessControl describes how to restrict read and write access to topics and webs, by users and groups
- SitePermissions lists the permissions settings of the webs on this TWiki site
Related Topics: AdminDocumentationCategory,
AdminToolsCategory
Managing Topics
Browser-based rename, move, and delete for individual topics
Overview
You can use browser-based controls to change a topic's name, move it to another TWiki web, or delete it to a hidden
Trash
web.
How to Rename/Move/Delete a Topic
- Click on
[More]
(bottom right of page) on the topic to be changed, then, in the new screen, on [Rename/move]
. You can now rename and/or move/delete in one operation:
- Move/Delete: Select the target web if other than the current web - choose
Trash
to delete a topic.
- Rename: Enter the new topic name - default is current name
NOTE: You'll be warned if any of the topics to be affected are locked (being edited), or if there is a name conflict.
- Prevent updates by unchecking individual items on the list of referring links - these topics will NOT to be updated with the new name (by default, all referring links will be updated).
- Click on
[Rename/Move]
: the topic will be renamed and links to the topic updated as requested.
- If any of the referring pages are locked then they will be listed: you can correct these later by again pressing
[Rename/Move]
.
- There is a Put back feature that allows you to undo a
Rename/Move/Delete
- an instruction line and undo link will appear at the bottom of the modified topic. This allows you to revert from the last modification only.
Deleted Topics: How to Clear the Trash
Deleted topics are moved to a special
Trash
web - they are NOT physically erased from the server. All webs share
Trash
- in case of a name conflict with a topic already
Trash
, the user is alerted and asked to choose a new name.
The
Trash
web should be be cleared periodically, by archiving (saving) the text and RCS files if required (recommended), then deleting them from the
Trash
directory.
- This can only be done from on the server, not through the browser.
- Since simple FTP access to the
Trash
directory is all that's required for maintenance, it's possible to grant Trash
admin privileges to multiple users, while strictly limiting server access.
Redirecting from an Old Topic
You can use
TWikiMetaData to place a command in the
WebTopicViewTemplate and
WebTopicNonWikiTemplate that will indicate that a topic has been moved by searching for the tag %META:TOPICMOVED{...}%. Customize something like this:
%<nop>METASEARCH{type="topicmoved" web="%WEB%" topic="%TOPIC%"
title="This topic used to exist and was moved to: "}%
How Rename/Move Works
- %SEARCH%, with a special template, finds and displays all occurrences of the topic name in other topics, site-wide. These referring links are by default automatically changed to the new topic and/or web name. This includes relevant TWikiMetaData definitions.
- User can omit one or more topics from the update list by unchecking them.
-
<pre>
and <verbatim>
are honoured - no changes are made to text within these areas.
- The topic is moved (if locks allow).
- References are changed (locks and permissions permitting).
- Any referring topics that can't be changed due to locks are listed - user can take note and change them at another time.
How Referring Topics Are Found
First, matching topics in the current web are listed - matches are to
topic
. Next, all webs (including the current one) are listed that match
web.topic
.
All webs will be searched during rename, even if
NOSEARCHALL
is defined on a web, though access permissions will of course be honoured.
Changed references are kept are as short as possible, ex:
topic
is used in preference to
web.topic
.
Effect of User Access Settings
User permissions affect the Rename function in various ways. To rename a topic, you need both
ALLOWTOPICCHANGE
and
ALLOWTOPICRENAME
permission for that topic. To alter referring topics, you need change permission. See
TWikiAccessControl for information on setting up access permissions.
Special Considerations
Consider carefully whether to make browser-based
Rename/Move/Delete widely available, or to restrict it to an administrator/moderator group. Allowing all users to easily manipulate topics can be extremely useful in refactoring a busy web or site. However, there are at least two significant potential drawbacks to take into account:
- When referring links are updated, the modified topics appear in WebChanges, creating the impression that editorial changes were made. This can undermine the usefulness of WebChanges.
- Due to current limitations, fairly heavy use of Rename/Move/Delete functions can lead to an accumulation of minor technical problems (ex: broken links) and usability issues (ex: user confusion). If Rename... is used heavily, these negatives will obviously increase, in number and effect.
Ultimately, the size, objectives, and policies of your TWiki site, the real-world behavior of your user group, and most importantly, the initial TWiki site management leadership, will determine the most effective implementation of this feature, and the success of the site overall.
Known Issues
Rename/Move is fairly complicated due to the dynamic generation of links. Ideally, it would be possible to run the required part of rendering in a way that would allow identification of the text to be changed. Unfortunately, these hooks don't exist in TWiki at present. Instead, %SEARCH% is used with a special template to show the text to be changed, and the selected topics are then altered. One drawback is that
search
can show matches that will not be updated due to case differences. Other mismatches with actual rendered output are also possible as the approaches are so different.
The following shows some limitations of square bracket processing.
[[Old Topic]] => [[NewTopic][Old Topic]]
[[old topic]] => [[NewTopic][old topic]]
[[old t opic]] => not changed
[[OldTopic]] => [[NewTopic]]
Related Topics: UserDocumentationCategory,
AdminDocumentationCategory
Managing Webs
Adding, renaming and deleting webs are all web-based operations.
Overview
A
TWikiSite is divided into webs; each one represents one subject, one area of collaboration. Administrators (in the
TWikiAdminGroup) can add/rename/delete webs.
Choose Web Template
There are two methods used to create a new web. First you can use a specially designed
TemplateWeb. This is an invisible web that begins with an underscore "_" character (for example
_default
). All topics in the template web will be copied into your new web.
The second method is to use an existing web as a template web. This may be useful if you already have a web that you would like to use as a starting point. Only topics that have names beginning with
Web... (like "WebHome", "WebNotify", etc.) are copied.
In either case you will want to be sure to verify that your new web has all the custom modifications that you desire.
Adding a New Web
Notes:
- Attachments will NOT get copied over along with their topics
- While creating the new web, TWiki will update the following variables in the WebPreferences:
WEBBGCOLOR
, SITEMAPLIST
, SITEMAPWHAT
, SITEMAPUSETO
and NOSEARCHALL
. These variables are used to dynamically generate the SiteMap
- TWiki does not edit the TWiki.TWikiPreferences to update the
WIKIWEBLIST
. This must be done by hand
Renaming or Deleting a Web
Rename a web via the Tools section in each web's
WebPreferences topic. You may delete a web by moving it into a Trash web.
Permissions
You may only rename a web if you have permissions to rename all the topics within that web, including any topics in that web's subwebs. You will also need permissions to update any topics containing references to that web.
Edit Conflicts
If anyone is editing a topic which requires updating, or which lives in the web being renamed, a second confirmation screen will come up which will indicate which topics are still locked for edit. You may continue to hit the refresh button until an edit lease is obtained for each topic which requires updating (the "Refresh" button will change to "Submit"), or hit "Cancel", which will cancel your edit lease on all affected topics.
Renaming the webs in the distribution
If you plan to rename the Main web, remember that TWiki stores user and group topics in this web. That means that every
WikiName signature -
Main.SomeUserName
- points to it and would need updating (unless the variable,
%MAINWEB%.SomeUserName
, is used throughout). This potentially large change can be performed automatically if you rename the web from the Tools section of
WebPreferences, as described above.
If you want to rename the TWiki or Main webs, remember they are referred to in the TWiki configuration. You will need to change the relevant settings in the configuration using the
configure interface.
Hierarchical Webs
Hierarchical web support is enabled by turning on the
{EnableHierarchicalWebs}
setting in
configure
. Without this setting, TWiki will only allow a single level of hierarchy (webs). If you set this, you can use multiple levels, like a directory tree, i.e. webs within webs.
Note: You might not need hierarchical webs. TWiki topics already have a parent/child relationship within a web, which is shown in the breadcrumb. Try to keep the number of webs to a minimum in order to keep search and cross-referencing simple.
You can create hierarchical webs via the
Adding a New Web form above, by using a slash- or dot-separated path name which is based on an existing web name in the
Name of new web: field.
Example:
To create a subweb named
Bar
inside a web named
Foo
, use
Foo/Bar
or
Foo.Bar
as the new web name in the form above.
Subweb Preferences are Inherited
The preferences of a subweb are inherited from the parent web and overridden locally. Preferences are ultimately inherited from the
TWiki.TWikiPreferences topic.
Example Preference Inheritance for Sandbox/TestWeb/SubWeb.SubWebTopic
topic:
-
TWiki.TWikiPreferences
site-wide preferences
-
Sandbox.WebPreferences
inherits from and overrides settings in TWiki.TWikiPreferences
-
Sandbox/TestWeb.WebPreferences
inherits from and overrides settings in Sandbox.WebPreferences
-
Sandbox/TestWeb/SubWeb.WebPreferences
inherits from and overrides settings in Sandbox/TestWeb.WebPreferences
-
Sandbox/TestWeb/SubWeb.SubWebTopic
inherits from and overrides settings in Sandbox/TestWeb/SubWeb.WebPreferences
Navigation
The Pattern skin (default) indicates Subwebs by indenting them in the sidebar relative to their level in the hierarchy.
Related Topics: AdminDocumentationCategory,
AdminToolsCategory
Manage Users
Register users on your TWiki site; change/reset/install passwords; remove user accounts
Authentication and Access Control
Register User
It is not necessary to have user home pages in the TWiki system for Authentication to work - see
TWikiUserAuthentication for details.
- TWikiRegistration is for users to fill out a form
- NewUserTemplate can be changed to customize user home pages, it can optionally use the UserForm to define user fields as meta data
- BulkRegistration is for administrators to use to set up one or more accounts: either from a table or from an external file
Change, Reset and Install Passwords
- ChangePassword is for users who can remember their password and want to change it
- ResetPassword is for users who cannot remember their password; a system generated password is e-mailed to them
- BulkResetPassword if for administrators who want to reset many passwords at once
Removing User Accounts
To remove a user account (FredQuimby, who logs in as "fred"):
- If you are using a
.htpasswd
file, edit the .htpasswd
file to delete the line starting fred:
- Warning: Do not use the Apache
htpasswd
program with .htpasswd
files generated by TWiki! htpasswd
wipes out email addresses that TWiki plants in the info fields of this file.
- Remove the
FredQuimby - fred
line from the Main.TWikiUsers topic
- Remove
FredQuimby
from all groups and from all the ALLOWWEB/ALLOWTOPIC...
declarations, if any.
Note: If you fail to do this you risk creating a security hole, as the next user to register with the wikiname FredQuimby will inherit the old FredQuimby's permissions.
- [optional] Delete their user topic Main.FredQuimby.
Note: Consider leaving the user topic file in place so their past signatures and revision author entries don't end up looking like
AnUncreatedTopic?. If you want to make it clear the user is no longer with the organization or has been banished, replace the topic content with a note to that effect. The existance of the UserName topic should also prevent that user name from being re-used, sealing the potential security hole regarding inherited permissions..
Related Topics: AdminDocumentationCategory
Appendix A: TWiki Development Timeline
TWiki Release 4.0.0 (Dakar), 01 Feb 2006
Major New Features
- Much simpler install and configuration
- Integrated session support
- Webserver-independent login/logout
- Security sandbox blocking exploits for remote command execution on the server
- Edit conflict resolution with automatic merge
- Multilingual UI
- E-mail confirmations for registration
- WYSIWYG editor (beta)
- Hierarchical sub-webs (beta)
Many, many people worked on TWiki-4.0.0. The credits in the table below only list the people who worked on individual enhancements. If you find an omission please fix it at
TWiki:TWiki.TWikiHistory. There were many other contributors; for a full list, visit
TWikiContributor.
Most of the redesign, refactoring and new documentation work in Dakar release was done by
Crawford Currie.
Michael Sparks provided ideas and proof of concept for several improvements. Other people who gave
large amounts of their time and patience to less sexy aspects of the work, such as testing, infrastructure and documentation, are
AntonAylward,
KennethLavrsen,
LynnwoodBrown,
MichaelDaum,
Peter Thoeny,
SteffenPoulsen,
Sven Dowideit,
WillNorris.
Installation & configuration | Contributor |
Much simpler install and configuration | Crawford Currie, LynnwoodBrown, ArthurClemens |
mod_perl safe code for better performance | Crawford Currie |
Security |
Security sandbox blocking exploits for remote command execution on the server | Florian Weimer, Crawford Currie, Sven Dowideit |
Reworked access permission model | Crawford Currie |
Internationalization & localization |
User Interface Internationalisation | AntonioTerceiro |
Chinese translation | CheDong |
Danish translation | SteffenPoulsen |
Dutch translation | ArthurClemens |
French translation | BenVoui |
German translation | AndreUlrich |
Italian translation | MassimoMancini |
Polish translation | ZbigniewKulesza |
Portuguese translation | AntonioTerceiro, CarlinhosCecconi |
Spanish translation | WillNorris, MiguelABayona |
Swedish translation | Erik Åman |
New features for users |
Edit conflict resolution with automatic merge | Crawford Currie |
Fine grained change notification on page level and parent/child relationship | Crawford Currie |
WYSIWYG editor | Crawford Currie, ColasNahaboo, DamienMandrioli, RomainRaugi |
Integrated session support | GregAbbas, Crawford Currie |
Webserver-independent login/logout | Crawford Currie |
Registration process with e-mail confirmation | MartinCleaver |
Tip of the Day box in TWiki Home | PaulineCheung, Peter Thoeny, AntonAylward |
ATOM feeds | Peter Thoeny |
"Force New Revision" check box for topic save | WillNorris |
New features for TWiki administrators and wiki application developers |
Improved preferences handling | ThomasWeigert, Crawford Currie |
Named include sections | RafaelAlvarez |
Create topic names with consecutive numbers | Sven Dowideit |
Parameterized includes | Crawford Currie |
Dynamic form option definitions of TWikiForms with FormattedSearch | MartinCleaver |
SEARCH enhancements with new parameters excludeweb , newline , noempty , nofinalnewline , nonoise , recurse , zeroresults | Crawford Currie, ArthurClemens, Peter Thoeny, ThomasWeigert |
FormattedSearch enhancements with $changes , $count , $formfield(name, 30, ...) , $summary(expandvar) , $summary(noheaders) , $summary(showvarnames) | ColasNahaboo, Crawford Currie, Peter Thoeny, Sven Dowideit |
New TWikiVariables ACTIVATEDPLUGINS, ALLVARIABLES, AUTHREALM, EMAILS, FAILEDPLUGINS, HTTP, HTTPS, ICONURL, ICONURLPATH, IF, LANGUAGES, LOCALSITEPREFS, LOGIN, LOGOUT, MAKETEXT, META, PLUGINDESCRIPTIONS, QUERYSTRING, STARTSECTION/ENDSECTION, SESSION_VARIABLE, SESSIONID, SESSIONVAR, SPACEOUT, USERLANGUAGE, WIKIHOMEURL | ArthurClemens, AntonioTerceiro, Crawford Currie, GregAbbas, Peter Thoeny, Sven Dowideit, WillNorris and many more |
TWiki form with hidden type and other form enhancements | LynnwoodBrown, ThomasWeigert |
Support topic-specific templates for TWiki applications | ThomasWeigert |
Direct save feature for one-click template-based topic creation | LynnwoodBrown, Crawford Currie, ThomasWeigert |
Automatic Attachments showing all files in the attachment directory | MartinCleaver |
Rename, move or delete webs | PeterNixon |
Hierarchical subwebs (beta) | PeterNixon |
New features for Plugin developers |
REST (representational state transfer) interface for Plugins | RafaelAlvarez, TWiki:Main.MartinCleaver, Sven Dowideit |
New and improved Plugins APIs | Crawford Currie, ThomasWeigert |
Improvements in the TWiki engine room |
Major OO redesign and refactoring of codebase | Crawford Currie |
Automatic build system | Crawford Currie |
Extensive test suite, unit tests and testcases | Crawford Currie |
TWiki:Codev.DevelopBranch , DEVELOP branch Bugs system | Sven Dowideit |
Documentation, logo artwork, skins: |
Documentation | Crawford Currie, LynnwoodBrown, Peter Thoeny, Sven Dowideit and others |
Design of TWikiLogos with big "T" in a speech bubble | ArthurClemens, Peter Thoeny |
Improved templates and PatternSkin | ArthurClemens |
See more details at
TWikiReleaseNotes04x00
01-Sep-2004 Release (Cairo)
Major New Features
- Automatic upgrade script, and easier first-time installation
- Attractive new skins, using a standard set of CSS classes, and a skin browser to help you choose
- New easier-to-use save options
- Many improvements to SEARCH
- Improved support for internationalisation
- Better topic management screens
- More pre-installed Plugins: CommentPlugin, EditTablePlugin, RenderListPlugin, SlideShowPlugin, SmiliesPlugin, SpreadSheetPlugin, TablePlugin
- Improved Plugins API and more Plugin callbacks
- Better support for different authentication methods
- Many user interface and usability improvements
- And many, many more enhancements
Details of New Features and Enhancements of 01-Sep-2004 Release | Developer, Sponsor |
Install: Ship with an automatic upgrade script to facilitate TWiki upgrades. Details | TWiki:Main.MartinGregory TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Install: New testenv function to change the locks in the TWiki database to the web server user id (automates installation step). Details | TWiki:Main.MattWilkie TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Install: The shipped .htaccess.txt now needs to be edited before it is valid, to help reduce chances of error. Details | TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Install: Configurable password file handling for different types of encryption. Details | TWiki:Main.PavelGoran TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Install: Remove office locations from registration. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Install: Changes to support shorter URLs with Apache Rewrite rules. Details | TWiki:Main.AntonioBellezza TWiki:Main.WalterMundt |
Install: Remove the Know web from the distribution. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Internationalization: Support use of UTF-8 URLs for I18N characters in TWiki page and attachment names. Details | TWiki:Main.RichardDonkin |
Authentication: Authenticate users when creating new topic in view restricted web. Details | TWiki:Main.JonathanGraehl TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Preferences: TWiki Preferences need to be secured properly. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Preferences: Use TWiki Forms to set user preferences. Details | TWiki:Main.JohnTalintyre |
Skins: New pre-installed skins PatternSkin and DragonSkin. Details | TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Skins: New skin browser to choose from installed skins. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Skins: Documented set of CSS classes that are used in standard skins. Details | TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Skins: Added CSS class names to Diff output. Details | TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Skins: Templates can now be read from user topics, as well as from files in the templates diretcory. Details | TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie TWiki:Main.WalterMundt |
Skins: Ensure that the default template gets overridden by a template passed in. Details | TWiki:Main.MartinCleaver TWiki:Main.WalterMundt |
Skin: Convey an important broadcast message to all users, e.g. scheduled server downtime. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Skin: Balanced pastel colors for TWiki webs. Details | TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens |
Rendering: Use exclamation point prefix to escape TWiki markup rendering. Details | TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens |
Rendering: Ordered lists with uppercase & lowercase letters, uppercase & lowercase Roman numerals. Details | TWiki:Main.DanBoitnott TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Rendering: Allow custom styles for the "?" of uncreated topics. Details | TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Rendering: Render IRC and NNTP as a URL. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Rendering: Make acronym linking more strict by requiring a trailing boundary, e.g. excluding TLAfoobar. Details | TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Rendering: TWiki Form with Label type. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Rendering: Web names can now be WikiWords. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Rendering: New syntax for definition list with dollar sign and colon. Details | TWiki:Main.AdamTheo TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Rendering: Table with multi-span rows, functionality provided by Table Plugin. Details | TWiki:Main.WalterMundt |
Variables: New title parameter for TOC variable. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens |
Variables: New REVINFO variable in templates supports flexible display of revision information. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Variables: Set times to be displayed as gmtime or servertime. Details | TWiki:Main.SueBlake TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Variables: Properly encode parameters for form fields with ENCODE variable. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Variables: Expand USERNAME and WIKINAME in Template Topics. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Variables: Expand same variables in new user template as in template topics. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Variables: Optionally warn when included topic does not exist; with the option to create the included topic. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Variables: In topic text show file-types of attached files as icons. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Variables: New variable FORMFIELD returns the value of a field in the form attached to a topic.. Details | TWiki:Main.DavidSachitano TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Variables: Meta data rendering for form fields with META{"formfield"}. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Variables: New PLUGINVERSION variable. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Variables: URLPARAM now has a default="..." argument, for when no value has been given. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Variables: URLPARAM variable with newline parameter. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Variables: URLPARAM variable with new multiple=on parameter. Details | TWiki:Main.PaulineCheung TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Search: New switch for search to perform an AND NOT search. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Search: Keyword search to search with implicit AND. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Search: Multiple searches in same topic with new multiple="on" paramter. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Search: Remove limitation on number of topics to search in a web. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Search: Exclude topics from search with an excludetopic parameter. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Search: Expand Variables on Formatted Search with expandvariables Flag. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Search: Formatted Search with Web Form variable to retrieve the name of the form attached to a topic. Details | TWiki:Main.FrankSmith TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Search: Formatted Search with Conditional Output. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Search: Formatted Search with $parent token to get the parent topic. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Search: New separator parameter to SEARCH supports better SEARCH embedding. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Search: Improved search performance when sorting result by topic name. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Search: New scope=all search parameter to search in topic name and topic text at the same time. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Search: New topic parameter for AND search on topic text and topic name. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Search modules uses Perl-style keyword parameters (code cleanup). Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Search: New $wikiname variable in format parameter of formatted search. Details | TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens |
Search: Sort search by topic creation date. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Search: Topic creation date and user in Formatted Search. Details | TWiki:Main.CoreyFruitman TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Search: Increase levels of nested search from 2 to 16. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Plugins: New pre-installed Plugins CommentPlugin, EditTablePlugin, RenderListPlugin, SlideShowPlugin, SmiliesPlugin, SpreadSheetPlugin, TablePlugin. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Plugins: New callback afterSaveHandler , called after a topic is saved. Details | TWiki:Main.WalterMundt |
Plugins: New callbacks beforeAttachmentSaveHandler and afterAttachmentSaveHandler , used to intervene on attachment save event. Details | TWiki:Main.MartinCleaver TWiki:Main.WalterMundt |
Plugins: New callbacks beforeCommonTagsHandler and afterCommonTagsHandler . Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Plugins: New callback renderFormFieldForEditHandler to render form field for edit. Details | TWiki:Main.JohnTalintyre |
Plugins: New callback renderWikiWordHandler to custom render links. Details | TWiki:Main.MartinCleaver TWiki:Main.WalterMundt |
Plugins: New function TWiki::Func::formatTime to format time into a string. Details | TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Plugins: New function TWiki::Func::getRegularExpression to get predefined regular expressions. Details | TWiki:Main.RichardDonkin |
Plugins: New functions TWiki::Func::getPluginPreferences* to get Plugin preferences. Details | TWiki:Main.WalterMundt |
Plugins: New function TWiki::Func::extractParameters to extract all parameters from a variable string. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Plugins: New function TWiki::Func::checkDependencies to check for module dependency. Details | TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Plugins: A recommendation for where a Plugin can store its data. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
UI: Show tool-tip topic info on WikiWord links. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
UI: Save topic and continue edit feature. Details | TWiki:Main.ColasNahaboo |
UI: Change topic with direct save (without edit/preview/save cycle) and checkpoint save. Details | TWiki:Main.MattWilkie TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
UI: In attachment table, change 'action' to 'manage'. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens |
UI: Smaller usability enhancements on the file attachment table. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens |
UI: Removes anchor links from header content and places them before the text to fix 'header becomes link'. Details | TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens |
UI: Improved functionality of the More screen. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens |
UI: Quick reference chart of most used markup is now listed on the edit screen. Details | TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens |
UI: Flag for edit script to avoid overwrite of existing topic text and form data. Details | TWiki:Main.NielsKoldso TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
UI: Disable Escape key in IE textarea to prevent it cancelling work. Details | TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
UI: Improved warning message on unsaved topic. Details | TWiki:Main.MartinGregory TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
UI: Reverse order of words in page title for better multi-window/tab navigation. Details | TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens |
UI: Provides a framework to create and modify a topic without going through edit->preview->save sequence. Details | TWiki:Main.AndreUlrich TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
UI: Set the topic parent to none in More screen, e.g. remove the current topic parent. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
UI: Use templates to define how file attachments are displayed. Was previously hard-coded. Details | TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
UI: Topic diff shows unified diff with unchanged context. Details | TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
UI: Diff feature shows TWiki form changes in nice tables. Details | TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Code refactoring: The log entry for a save now has a dontNotify flag in the extra field if the user checked the minor changes flag. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Code refactoring: Server-side include of attachments accelerates INCLUDE. Details | TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Code refactoring: Move functionality out of bin scripts and into included modules. Details | TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Code refactoring: Move bin script functionality into TWiki::UI modules. Details | TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Code refactoring: Optimize preferences handling for better performance. Details | TWiki:Main.PavelGoran TWiki:Main.WalterMundt |
Code refactoring: Refactor variable expansion for edit and register. Details | TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Code refactoring: Move savemulti script into TWiki::UI::Save. Details | TWiki:Main.MattWilkie TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit |
Code refactoring: Topic search is done natively in Perl, it does not depend anymore on system calls with pipes. Details | TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
Code refactoring: Fix logical error in upload script which prevented MIME filename from being used. Details | TWiki:Main.WalterMundt |
01-Feb-2003 Release (Beijing)
- 18 Jan 2003 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- 31 Dec 2002 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Enhanced Plugin API to manipulate topic data with new functions in Func.pm:
readTopicText
, saveTopicText
, setTopicEditLock
, checkTopicEditLock
- 31 Dec 2002 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- 29 Dec 2002 - TWiki:Main.AndreaSterbini, TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny, TWiki:Main.RichardDonkin, TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit
- New Plugin hooks
registrationHandler
, beforeEditHandler
, afterEditHandler
, beforeSaveHandler
, writeHeaderHandler
, redirectCgiQueryHandler
, getSessionValueHandler
, setSessionValueHandler
- 30 Nov 2002 - TWiki:Main.RichardDonkin
- Internationalization ('I18N') support for international characters in WikiWords, such as ISO-8859-15, KOI8-R - also supports Chinese, Japanese, etc.
- 25 Nov 2002 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Include previous topic revision with
%INCLUDE{ "OtherTopic" rev="1.2" }%
- 15 Nov 2002 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- The Go box understands also URLs, useful for special TWikiSkins handling
- 08 Nov 2002 - TWiki:Main.ColasNahaboo, TWiki:Main.RichardDonkin
- In WebNotify, if only the WikiName is specified, the e-mail is taken from the user's home page; if the WikiName is a group name, a notification is sent to all members of the group
- 30 Oct 2002 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New
%NOP{}%
variable in TWikiTemplates topic gets removed at topic creation time; useful to write protect template topics
- 28 Sep 2002 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- The
%URLPARAM{}%
variable in TWikiTemplates topic gets expanded at topic creation time; useful for dynamic content creation
- 28 Sep 2002 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New
$logDir
introduced in TWiki.cfg to set the log directory
- 13 Sep 2002 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Renamed the Test web to Sandbox
- 03 Aug 2002 - TWiki:Main.RichardDonkin
- New
setlib.cfg
file in the bin directory to set the TWiki library path
- 02 Aug 2002 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny, TWiki:Main.RyanFreebern
- Support for outbound HTTP proxy when including URLs based on new
%PROXYHOST
and %PROXYPORT%
settings in the TWikiPreferences
- 12 Jul 2002 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- The page logo is configurable with new
%WIKILOGOIMG%
, %TWIKILOGOURL%
and %WIKILOGOALT%
variables in TWikiPreferences; replacing $wikiHomeUrl
in TWiki.cfg
- 12 Jun 2002 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New
%WIKITOOLNAME%
variable in TWikiPreferences; replacing $wikiToolName
in TWiki.cfg
- 31 May 2002 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New
%EDITBOXSTYLE%
preferences variable which sets the edit box width automatically to the window width
- 17 May 2002 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New
%URLENCODE{}%
variable to encodes a string for using in a URL parameter, e.g. %URLENCODE{"spaced name"}%
returns spaced%20name
- 17 May 2002 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- 05 May 2002 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New user home pages are now based on the NewUserTemplate, replacing the
/twiki/templates/register.tmpl
template file
- 26 Apr 2002 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New markup to exclude heading from a
%TOC%
table of content, e.g. ---+!! This heading
is not shown in a TOC
- 13 Apr 2002 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- 01 Apr 2002 - TWiki:Main.JohnTalintyre
- New data storage framework that lets you use external RCS commands for revision control, or a new native Perl implementation that does not depend on the external RCS commands
- 28 Mar 2002 - TWiki:Main.RichardDonkin
- Fixed IE5/IE6-specific problem whereby going back from preview sometimes removes all edit changes
- 23 Mar 2002 - TWiki:Main.JohnTalintyre
- New AND search; with regular expression enabled, use the semicolon ";" as the AND operator in
%SEARCH{}%
variable, FormattedSearch and WebSearch
- 21 Mar 2002 - TWiki:Main.ColasNahaboo, TWiki:Main.RichardDonkin
- Fixed cache issue where the edit page showed outdated content
- 06 Mar 2002 - TWiki:Main.RichardDonkin
- Improved statistics script which uses less memory to process large log files
- 09 Jan 2002 - TWiki:Main.JohnTalintyre
- Variables inside
<verbatim>
tags are no longer expanded
01-Dec-2001 Release (Athens)
01-Sep-2001 Release
- 30 Aug 2001 - TWiki:Main.JohnTalintyre
- Easier install for Windows, including auto detection in
TWiki.cfg
- 30 Aug 2001 - TWiki:Main.JohnTalintyre
- 21 Aug 2001 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Convert to XHTML 1.0 function: first step to XHTML-ifying TWiki
- 26 Jun 2001 - TWiki:Main.JohnTalintyre
- 07 Jun 2001 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New topic templates as topics instead of templates. Customize by editing the topic. Retired
notedited.tmpl
, notext.tmpl
and notwiki.tmpl
templates. More in TWikiTemplates.
- 07 Jun 2001 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New
%TOPICLIST{"format"}%
and %WEBLIST{"format"}%
variables to get a formatted topic index and web index, respectively. More in TWikiVariables.
- 01 Jun 2001 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New
%URLPARAM{"name"}%
variable to query URL parameters. More in TWikiVariables.
- 01 Jun 2001 - TWiki:Main.AndreaSterbini
- 01 Jun 2001 - TWiki:Main.KlausWriessnegger, TWiki:Main.AndreaSterbini
- 01 May 2001 - TWiki:Main.AndreaSterbini
- 01 May 2001 - TWiki:Main.JohnTalintyre
- 01 May 2001 - TWiki:Main.JohnTalintyre
- 01 May 2001 - TWiki:Main.JohnTalintyre
- 27 Mar 2001 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- The table syntax has been enhanced to (i) render
| *bold* |
cells as table headers, (ii) render space padded cells | center aligned |
and | right aligned |
, (iii) span multiple columns using | empty cells |||
. More in TextFormattingRules.
- 25 Mar 2001 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- 28 Feb 2001 - TWiki:Main.AndreaSterbini, TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New Wiki rule for headings, i.e.
---++ My Title
; and new %TOC%
variable to build a table of content from headings in a topic. More in TWikiVariables.
- 28 Feb 2001 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New Wiki rule to specify arbitrary text for external links (i.e.
[[http://TWki.org][TWiki]]
) and internal links (i.e [[WikiSyntax][syntax]]
). More in TWikiVariables.
- 28 Feb 2001 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New Wiki rule for named anchors, e.g. links within a topic. Define a named anchor with
#MyAnchor
at the beginning of a line, and link to it with [[#MyAnchor]]
. More in TWikiVariables.
- 25 Feb 2001 - TWiki:Main.NicholasLee, TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Use
Net::SMTP
module instead of sendmail
if installed.
- 01 Feb 2001 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Added
<verbatim>
... </verbatim>
tags to show source code "as is". Unlike the <pre>
... </pre>
tags, it also shows <
, >
, &
characters "as is".
- 01 Feb 2001 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- 21 Jan 2001 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Added a "Minor change, don't notify" checkbox in preview. More in DontNotify.
- 21 Jan 2001 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Added Bold Fixed formatting using double-equal signs, e.g. write
==Bold Fixed==
to get Bold Fixed
.
- 20 Jan 2001 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Format changed of
%GMTIME{"..."}%
and %SERVERTIME{"..."}%
variables. Format is now "$hour:$min"
instead of "hour:min"
. More in TWikiVariables. Attention: Check your existing topics when you upgrade TWiki!
- 18 Jan 2001 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- WebChanges, WebSearch and e-mail notification indicate also the revision number of a topic (i.e. 18 Jan 2001 16:43 r1.5), or NEW for a new topic (i.e. i.e. 18 Jan 2001 16:43 NEW).
- 16 Jan 2001 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New variable
%STARTINCLUDE%
and %STOPINCLUDE%
variables to control what gets included of a topic. More in TWikiVariables.
- 16 Jan 2001 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- TWiki skins Define a different page layout with a customized header and footer layout, i.e. a
print
skin for a printable view of a topic. More in TWikiSkins and TWiki:Codev/TWikiSkins.
- 07 Jan 2001 - TWiki:Main.StanleyKnutson
- Better error handling when saving a topic.
- 05 Jan 2001 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- 05 Dec 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- 03 Dec 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New
noheader="on"
switch in %SEARCH{...}%
to suppress table header. More in TWikiVariables.
01-Dec-2000 Release
- 03 Nov 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Flag
$doHidePasswdInRegistration
in wikicfg.pm
to hide plain text password in registration e-mail.
- 01 Nov 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New variable
%VAR{"NAME" web="Web"}%
to get web-specific preferences. More in TWikiVariables.
- 01 Nov 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Added a "Cancel" link in edit that releases the edit lock.
- 23 Oct 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- 05 Oct 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Remember user by IP address so that
view
"knows" the user once authenticated in edit
. More in TWikiUserAuthentication.
- 26 Sep 2000 - TWiki:Main.AlWilliams, TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- 26 Sep 2000 - TWiki:Main.HaroldGottschalk, TWiki:Main.AndreaSterbini, TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- 20 Sep 2000 - TWiki:Main.ManpreetSingh
- New -q switch in
mailnotify
to suppress all normal output.
- 19 Sep 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- 18 Sep 2000 - TWiki:Main.ManpreetSingh, TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- 19 Aug 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Ref-By link searches all webs (not just the current web.)
- 16 Aug 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New TWikiPreferences variables
%HTTP_EQUIV_ON_VIEW%
, %HTTP_EQUIV_ON_EDIT%
and %HTTP_EQUIV_ON_PREVIEW%
that define the <meta http-equiv="...">
meta tags for the TWiki templates. This can be used for example to set a document expiration time.
- 29 Jul 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New variables
%GMTIME{"..."}%
and %SERVERTIME{"..."}%
. More in TWikiVariables.
- 23 Jul 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Changed include syntax from
%INCLUDE{"Web/TopicName.txt"}%
to %INCLUDE{"Web.TopicName"}%
. Legacy syntax still supported.
- 23 Jul 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- BookView search allows you show a set of topics for easy printing.
- 22 Jul 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- More forgiving syntax for
*bold*, italic, __bold italic__
and fixed
, where it is not necessary anymore to have a trailing space before .,;:?!
characters.
- 22 Jul 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Split the TWiki.Main web into TWiki.Main (users, company data) and TWiki.TWiki (TWiki related documentation, registration)
- 07 Jul 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Added an "Release edit lock" checkbox in preview to let other people edit the topic immediately without the one hour lock.
- 07 Jul 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Fixed problem of losing carriage returns when editing topics with KDE KFM browser or W3M browser.
- 21 Jun 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Fixed problem that a page redirect on some server environments is not working (host name is needed in URL).
- 21 Jun 2000 - TWiki:Main.CrisBailiff, TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Fixed security issue to prevent a server side
%INCLUDE%
of arbitrary files.
- 29 May 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New
%GMTIME%
variable that shows the current GM time.
- 28 May 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Lock warning shows remaining lock time in minutes.
- 15 May 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterFokkinga
- 02 May 2000 - TWiki:Main.KevinKinnell, TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Advanced search features like search multiple webs; sort by topic name / modified time / author; limit the number of results returned. More in TWikiVariables.
01-May-2000 Release
- 21 Apr 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New TWikiVariables
%HTTP_HOST%
, %REMOTE_ADDR%
, %REMOTE_PORT%
and %REMOTE_USER%
.
- 21 Apr 2000 - TWiki:Main.JohnAltstadt, TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- TWikiRegistration is done separately for Intranet use (depends on remote_user) or Internet use (depends on .htpasswd file).
- 20 Mar 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Uploading a file (topic file attachment) will optionally create a link to the uploaded file at the end of the topic. The preference variable
%ATTACHLINKBOX%
controls the default state of the link check box in the attach file page.
- 11 Mar 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Better security with taint checking (
Perl -T
option )
- 25 Feb 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New preference variables
%EDITBOXWIDTH%
and %EDITBOXHEIGHT%
to specify the edit box size.
- 25 Feb 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Edit preferences topics to set TWiki variables. There are three level of preferences Site-level (TWikiPreferences), web-level (WebPreferences in each web) and user-level preferences (for each of the TWikiUsers). With this, discontinue use of server side include of
wikiwebs.inc
, wikiwebtable.inc
, weblist.inc
, webcopyright.inc
and webcolors.inc
files.
- 11 Feb 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New variable
%SCRIPTSUFFIX%
/ $scriptSuffix containing an optional file extension of the TWiki Perl script. Templates have been changed to use this variable. This allows you to rename the Perl script files to have a file extension like for example ".cgi".
- 11 Feb 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New variable
%SCRIPTURLPATH%
/ $scriptUrlPath containing the script URL without the domain name. Templates have been changed to use this variable instead of %SCRIPTURL%
. This is for performance reasons.
- 07 Feb 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Changed the syntax for server side include variable from
%INCLUDE:"filename.ext"%
to %INCLUDE{"filename.ext"}%
. (Previous syntax still supported. Change was done because of inline search syntax)
- 07 Feb 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Inline search. New variable
%SEARCH{"str" ...}%
to show a search result embedded in a topic text. TWikiVariables has more on the syntax. Inline search combined with the category table feature can be used for example to create a simple bug tracking system.
- 04 Feb 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Access statistics. Each web has a WebStatistics topic that shows monthy statistics with number of topic views and changes, most popular topics, and top contributors. (It needs to be enabled, TWikiDocumentation has more.)
- 29 Jan 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Fixed bug where TWiki would not initialize correctly under certain circumstances, i.e. when running it under mod_perl. Sub
initialize
in wiki.pm
did not handle $thePathInfo
correctly.
- 24 Jan 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- 10 Jan 2000 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- No more escaping for '%' percent characters. (Number of consecutive '%' entered and displayed is identical.)
- 03 Oct 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Limit the number of revisions shown at the bottom of the topic. Example
Topic TWikiHistory . { ..... Diffs r1.10 > r1.9 > r1.8 > r1.7 >... }
Additional revisions can be selected by pressing the >...
link.
01-Sep-1999 Release
- 31 Aug 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Fixed Y2K bug. (Date in year 2000 had wrong format.)
- 08 Aug 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New text formatting rule for creating tables. Text gets rendered as a table if enclosed in " " vertical bars. Example line as it is written and how it shows up
- 03 Aug 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Online registration of new user using web form in TWikiRegistration. Authentication of users.
- 22 Jul 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Flags
$doLogTopic*
in wikicfg.pm to selectively log topic view, edit, save, rdiff, attach, search and changes to monthly log file.
- 21 Jul 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Flag
$doRemovePortNumber
in wikicfg.pm to optionally remove the port number from the TWiki URL. Example www.some.domain:1234/twiki
gets www.some.domain/twiki
.
- 15 Jul 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Search path for include files in
%INCLUDE:"file.inc"%
variable. Search first in the current web, then in parent data directory. Useful to overload default include text in the data directory by web-specific text, like for example webcopyright.inc
text.
- 07 Jul 1999 - TWiki:Main.ChristopheVermeulen
- Link a plural topic to a singular topic in case the plural topic does not exist. Example
TestVersion
/ TestVersions
, TestPolicy
/ TestPolicies
, TestAddress
/ TestAddresses
, TestBox
/ TestBoxes
.
01-Jul-1999 Release
- 23 Jun 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New TextFormattingRules to write bold italic text by enclosing words with double underline characters.
- 23 Jun 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Separate wiki.pm into configuration (wikicfg.pm) and TWiki core (wiki.pm) . This is to ease the upgrade of TWiki installations, it also allows customized extensions to TWiki without affecting the TWiki core.
- 21 May 1999 - TWiki:Main.DavidWarman
- Externalize copyright text at the bottom of every page into a web-specific
webcopyright.inc
file. This is to easily customize the copyright text.
- 20 May 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Added meta tag so that robots index only /view/ of topics, not /edit/, /attach/ e.t.c. Tag <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX">
- 20 May 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New variables
%WIKIHOMEURL%
(link when pressing the icon on the upper left corner) and %WIKITOOLNAME%
(the name of the wiki tool TWiki
).
- 15 Apr 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Topic locking Warn user if a topic has been edited by an other person within one hour. This is to prevent contention, e.g. simultaneous topic updates.
- 26 Mar 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- File attachments Upload and download any file as a topic attachment by using the browser. FileAttachment has more.
- 26 Mar 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New variables
%PUBURL%
(Public directory URL) and %ATTACHURL%
(URL of topic file attachment).
- 09 Feb 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- New text formatting rule for creating
fixed font text
. Words get showns in fixed font
by enclosing them in "=" equal signs. Example Writing =fixed font= will show up as fixed font
.
- 09 Feb 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- No new topic revision is created if the same person saves a topic again within one hour.
- 03 Feb 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Possible to view complete revision history of a topic on one page. Access at the linked date in the Changes page, or the
Diffs
link at the bottom of each topic, e.g.
Topic TWikiHistory . { Edit Ref-By Diffs r1.3 > r1.2 > r1.1 }
Revision r1.3 1998/11/10 01:34 by PeterThoeny
- 04 Jan 1999 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Fixed bug when viewing differences between topic revisions that include HTML table tags like <table>, <tr>, <td>.
1998 Releases
- 08 Dec 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Signature is shown below the text area when editing a topic. Use this to easily copy & paste your signature into the text.
- 07 Dec 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Possible to add a category table to a TWiki topic. This permits storing and searching for more structured information. Editing a topic shows a HTML form with the usual text area and a table with selectors, checkboxes, radio buttons and text fields. TWikiDocumentation has more on setup. The TWiki.Know web uses this category table to set classification, platform and OS version.
- 18 Nov 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Internal log of topic save actions to the file
data/logYYYYMM.txt
, where YYYYMM
the year and month in numeric format is. Intended for auditing only, not accessible from the web.
- 10 Nov 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- The e-mail notification and the Changes topic have now a topic date that is linked. Clicking on the link will show the difference between the two most recent topic revisions.
- 10 Nov 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- View differences between topic revisions. Each topic has a list of revisions (e.g.
r1.3
) and differences thereof (e.g. >
) at the bottom
Topic TWikiHistory . { Edit Ref-By r1.3 > r1.2 > r1.1 }
Revision r1.3 1998/11/10 01:34 by TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- 26 Oct 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Added preview of topic changes before saving the topic. This was necessary to prevent unneeded revisions.
- 26 Oct 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Added revision control using RCS. Each topic has now a list of revisions at the bottom and a revision info, e.g.
Topic TWikiHistory . { Edit Ref-By r1.3 r1.2 r1.1 }
Revision r1.3 1998/10/26 01:34:00 by TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- 14 Oct 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Refered-By Find out which topics have a link to the current topic. Each topic has a Ref-By link for that. Note Only references from the current web are shown, not references from other webs.
- 13 Oct 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- 24 Sep 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Corrected templates for automatic e-mail notification so that MS Outlook can display attachment as an HTML file.
- 13 Aug 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- WikiNotation allows also numbers after the
AaA
sequence, e.g. AaA1
is a valid WikiTopic name, but not Aa1
.
- 07 Aug 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Automatic e-mail notification when something has changed in a TWiki web. Each web has a topic WebNotify where one can subscribe and unsubscribe.
- 06 Aug 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Added server side include of files. Syntax is
%INCLUDE:"filename.ext"%
- 05 Aug 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Signature and date is inserted automatically when creating a new topic.
- 04 Aug 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Separate templates for text of non existing topic and default text of new topic. (template file templates/Web/notedited.tmpl)
- 04 Aug 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Warn user if new topic name is not a valid Wiki name. (template file templates/Web/notwiki.tmpl)
- 31 Jul 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Support for quoted text with a '>' at the beginning of the line.
- 28 Jul 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Added TWiki variables, enclosed in % signs
%TOPIC%
(Topic name), %WEB%
(web name), %SCRIPTURL%
(script URL), %DATE%
(current date), %WIKIWEBMASTER%
(Wiki webmaster address), %WIKIVERSION%
(Wiki version), %USERNAME%
(user name), %WIKIUSERNAME%
(Wiki user name).
- 28 Jul 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Topic WebChanges shows Wiki username instead of Intranet username, e.g.
PeterThoeny
instead of thoeny
in case the Wiki username exists. Implementation Automatic lookup of Wiki username in topic TWikiUsers.
- 28 Jul 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Topic index. (Technically speaking a simple '.*' search on topic names.)
- 28 Jul 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Topic WebSearch allows full text search and and topic search with/without regular expressions.
- 27 Jul 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Added automatic links to topics in other TWiki webs by specifying <web name>.<topic name>, e.g.
Know.WebSeach
.
- 23 Jul 1998 - TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
- Installed initial version, based on the JOS Wiki. See WikiWikiClones for details.
Dev Flow
The typical TWiki development flow...
Related Topics: DeveloperDocumentationCategory
Appendix B: Encode URLs With UTF8
Use internationalised characters within WikiWords and attachment names
This topic addresses implemented UTF-8 support for URLs only. The overall plan for UTF-8 support for TWiki is described in
TWiki:Codev.ProposedUTF8SupportForI18N.
Current Status
To simplify use of internationalised characters within
WikiWords and attachment names, TWiki now supports UTF-8 URLs, converting on-the-fly to virtually any character set, including ISO-8859-*, KOI8-R, EUC-JP, and so on.
Support for UTF-8 URL encoding avoids having to configure the browser to turn off this encoding in URLs (the default in Internet Explorer, Opera Browser and some Mozilla Browser URLs) and enables support of browsers where only this mode is supported (e.g. Opera Browser for Symbian smartphones). A non-UTF-8 site character set (e.g. ISO-8859-*) is still used within TWiki, and in fact pages are stored and viewed entirely in the site character set - the browser dynamically converts URLs from the site character set into UTF-8, and TWiki converts them back again.
System requirements are updated as follows:
- ASCII or ISO-8859-1-only sites do not require any additional CPAN modules to be installed.
- Perl 5.8 sites using any character set do not require additional modules, since CPAN:Encode is installed as part of Perl.
- This feature still works on Perl 5.005_03 as per TWikiSystemRequirements, or Perl 5.6, as long as CPAN:Unicode::MapUTF8 is installed.
The following 'non-ASCII-safe' character encodings are now excluded from use as the site character set, since they interfere with TWiki markup: ISO-2022-*, HZ-*, Shift-JIS, MS-Kanji, GB2312, GBK, GB18030, Johab and UHC. However, many multi-byte character sets work fine, e.g. EUC-JP, EUC-KR, EUC-TW, and EUC-CN. In addition, UTF-8 can already be used, with some limitations, for East Asian languages where EUC character encodings are not acceptable - see
TWiki:Codev.ProposedUTF8SupportForI18N.
It's now possible to override the site character set defined in the
{SiteLocale}
setting in
configure - this enables you to have a slightly different spelling of the character set in the server locale (e.g. 'eucjp') and the HTTP header sent to the browser (e.g. 'euc-jp').
This feature should also support use of Mozilla Browser with
TWiki:Codev.TWikiOnMainframe (as long as mainframe web server can convert or pass through UTF-8 URLs) - however, this specific combination is not tested. Other browser-server combinations should not have any problems.
Please note that use of UTF-8 as the site character set is not yet supported - see Phase 2 of
TWiki:Codev.ProposedUTF8SupportForI18N for plans and work to date in this area.
This feature is complete in TWiki releases newer than February 2004.
Note for skin developers: is no longer required (
TWiki:Plugins.InternationalisingYourSkin).
Details of Implementation
URLs are not allowed to contain non-ASCII (8th bit set) characters:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/appendix/notes.html#non-ascii-chars
The overall plan for UTF-8 support for TWiki is described in two phases in
TWiki:/Codev.ProposedUTF8SupportForI18N - this page addresses the first phase, in which UTF-8 is supported for URLs only.
UTF-8 URL translation to virtually any character set is supported as of TWiki Release 01 Sep 2004, but full UTF-8 support (e.g. pages in UTF-8) is not supported yet - this will be phase 2.
The code automatically detects whether a URL is UTF-8 or not, taking care to avoid over-long and illegal UTF-8 encodings that could introduce
TWiki:Codev.MajorSecurityProblemWithIncludeFileProcessing (tested against a comprehensive
UTF-8 test file, which IE 5.5 fails quite dangerously, and Opera Browser passes). Any non-ASCII URLs that are
not valid UTF-8 are then assumed to be directly URL-encoded as a single-byte or multi-byte character set (as now), e.g. EUC-JP.
The main point is that you can use TWiki with international characters in
WikiWords without changing your browser setup from the default, and you can also still use TWiki using non-UTF-8 URLs. This works on any Perl version from 5.005_03 onwards and corresponds to Phase 1 of
TWiki:Codev.ProposedUTF8SupportForI18N. You can have different users using different URL formats transparently on the same server.
UTF-8 URLs are automatically converted to the current
{Site}{Charset}, using modules such as
CPAN:Encode if needed.
TWiki generates the whole page in the site charset, e.g. ISO-8859-1 or EUC-JP, but the browser dynamically UTF-8 encodes the attachment's URL when it's used. Since Apache serves attachment downloads without TWiki being involved, TWiki's code can't do its UTF-8 decoding trick, so TWiki URL-encodes such URLs in ISO-8859-1 or whatever when generating the page, to bypass this URL encoding, ensuring that the URLs and filenames seen by Apache remain in the site charset.
TWiki:Codev.TWikiOnMainframe uses EBCDIC web servers that typically translate their output to ASCII, UTF-8 or ISO-8859-1 (and URLs in the other direction) since there are so few EBCDIC web browsers. Such web servers don't work with even ISO-8859-1 URLs if they are URL encoded, since the automated translation is bypassed for URL-encoded characters. For TWiki on Mainframe, TWiki assumes that the web server will automatically translate UTF-8 URLs into EBCDIC URLs, as long as URL encoding is turned off in TWiki pages.
Testing and Limitation
It should work with
TWiki:Codev.TWikiOnMainframe. Tested with IE 5.5, Opera 7.11 and Mozilla (Firebird 0.7).
Opera Browser on the P800 smartphone is working for page viewing but leads to corrupt page names when editing pages.
For up to date information see
TWiki:Codev.EncodeURLsWithUTF8
Appendix C: TWiki CSS
Listing of CSS class names emitted from TWiki core code and standard plugins, for the Dakar release.
Who should read this document?
Most html elements generated by TWiki core code now have Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) tags.
Skin builders and others who want to change the appearance of the default TWiki installation or any of the skins can use this document to see what styles can be created for these html elements.
Naming conventions
- All TWiki class names have the prefix
twiki
. So: twikiAlert, twikiToc, etcetera. Remember that CSS class names are case sensitive - TWiki CSS uses lowercase tw
.
- TWiki uses class names only (.twikiDiffTable) and no id names (#twikiDiffTable), to allow multiple class names. Class names are written using the dot prefix.
- If you define your own CSS classes, it is preferable that you do not use the
twiki
prefix to prevent undesired overriding effects.
A wide range of standard styles are used in the TWiki core code and topics, and more are used in plugins. The following is an exhaustive list of all styles defined by the Pattern skin. For the most part, the names are the only documentation of the purpose of the style. For more information on how these styles are used, read the code (sorry!)
TWiki styles in core code
.twikiAlert | Client.pm, Form.pm, Statistics.pm |
.twikiFirstCol | Render.pm |
.twikiForm | Render.pm |
.twikiNew | Changes.pm, Search.pm |
.twikiHelp | Changes.pm |
.twikiTopRow | Manage.pm |
.twikiSummary | Manage.pm |
.twikiGrayText | Manage.pm |
.twikiCheckBox | Manage.pm |
.twikiLink | Render.pm |
.twikiNewLink | Render.pm |
.twikiAnchorLink | Render.pm |
.twikiEmulatedLink | Preview.pm |
.twikiWebIndent | TWiki.pm |
.twikiEditFormTextField | Form.pm |
.twikiEditFormLabelField | Form.pm |
.twikiEditFormTextAreaField | Form.pm |
.twikiEditFormCheckboxButton | Form.pm |
.twikiEditFormCheckboxField | Form.pm |
.twikiRadioButton | Form.pm |
.twikiEditFormRadioField | Form.pm |
.twikiEditFormError | Form.pm |
.twikiDiffTable | RDiff.pm |
.twikiDiffDeletedHeader | RDiff.pm |
.twikiDiffDeletedMarker | RDiff.pm |
.twikiDiffDeletedText | RDiff.pm |
.twikiDiffAddedHeader | RDiff.pm |
.twikiDiffAddedMarker | RDiff.pm |
.twikiDiffAddedText | RDiff.pm |
.twikiDiffChangedHeader | RDiff.pm |
.twikiDiffChangedText | RDiff.pm |
.twikiDiffUnchangedText | RDiff.pm |
.twikiDiffUnchangedTextContents | RDiff.pm |
.twikiDiffLineNumberHeader | RDiff.pm |
.twikiToc | TWiki.pm |
.twikiTocTitle | TWiki.pm |
TWiki Styles in Plugins
TWiki Styles in Templates
.twikiFormTable | formtables.tmpl, form.tmpl |
.twikiFormTableHRow | formtables.tmpl, form.tmpl |
.twikiFormTableRow | formtables.tmpl |
.twikiAttachments | attachtables.tmpl |
.twikiEditForm | form.tmpl |
.twikiSubmit | |
.twikiSubmitDisabled | |
.twikiInputField | |
.twikiInputFieldDisabled | |
.twikiButton | |
.twikiLeft | |
.twikiRight | |
.twikiClear | |
.twikiHidden | |
.twikiSmall | |
.twikiBottomRow | |
.twikiSRAuthor | |
.twikiSRRev | |
.twikiPageForm | |
.twikiSeparator | |
.twikiAccessKey | |
.twikiLinkLabel | |
.twikiFormSteps | container around a form, such as the attach form: attach.tmpl |
.twikiFormStep | form row |
TWiki Styles in topics
Tips
PatternSkin makes extensive use of CSS in its templates. Read the
PatternSkin topic and
PatternSkinCss to learn more about creating your own CSS-based skin.
Practical introduction to CSS:
http://www.w3.org/Style/LieBos2e/enter/
Related Topics: TWikiSkins,
PatternSkin,
DeveloperDocumentationCategory,
AdminDocumentationCategory