Re: [Phpwiki-talk] wikinames, layout, db, and more

[Arno H. <aho...@in...>]

Hey :o)

 > * Using the scheme you mention above as the default
 > * Leaving the code for [] links in, but anyone installing PhpWiki will
 > have to manually enable it?

I would suggest that we keep '[]' and don't add my own convention '__'.
Instead we add a regexp to wiki_config.php3 which limits characters
inside '[]' - thereby creating the same effect as my '__' proposal.
If someone doesn't like the restrictions then they can be removed by
changing the regexp - all the code remains in place. How about that?

 > Yes, definitely. Someone told me recently (was it you?) that they got rid
 > of the page "Thanks for your edits" and instead take you directly back to 
 > the page you edited. I think that's a reasonable thing to do; I understand
 > that page is there to solve a caching problem with browsers of 4-5 years
 > ago.

Well, if it's only the cache that is the problem, then we can just add 
various http headers like "Last-Modified:", "Expires:",
"Cache-Control:", ...
I don't mind the page being there. It can be a useful place to provide 
some additional information to authors. Or to print errors while
inserting the page. But it's not a hot topic for me.

 > At first it should be easy to isolate the top and bottom, which are already
 > in functions:

I was thinking about creating one file which contains the layout with
some placeholders like ##TITLE##, ##PAGE##, etc. which get replaced
by the page content. This keeps the actual wiki content isolated from
the HTML layout.

 > Yes, to get to the point I mentioned above, there's database work to do.

Your proposed schema looked ok. I assume that we are not bound by
backwards-compatibility? In that case I'll have a look at that schema
again and prepare a more detailed comment on it.

 > For example, you also talked about better navigation in the Wiki, and 
 > * MostActivePages
 > * MostViewedPages
 > * MostLinkedToPages
 > * OrderOfCreation

Nice one :o) I like this one.


 > Also if we add user authentication ...

This is a chapter on its own. I mean right now there is no such thing.
We can add some simple user authentication, only to rewrite it
with a real authentication in a year. Creating a complete
authentication system is not easy and requires some work. I guess we
should keep this option open right now.

If we need some kind of authentication I would suggest that we
basically just have two users: anonymous and admin. This allows
e.g. to have "frozen" pages which only admin people can edit or unfreeze.
(Might be useful for system documentation or other sensitive stuff.)

 > I will take responsibility for DBM support;

Ok - I will take care of mySQL. Once we have agreed on a schema and
interfacing functions it should be quite easy to do.

 > [DBM support]
 > I know it's slow and has other problems, but I want to retain the goal 
 > of "just untar and use it!" so people can try it out easily.

I like this feature as well. I guess this plus the clear design made
phpwiki the php wiki of my choice.

 > a few more functions, plus the rewrite for the normalized schema. I want
 > to add Postgresql and mSQL support too since 

PHP already has some kind of db abstraction layer. I will look into it. 
Maybe we can combine PGSQL, mSQL, mySQL all in one file.

 > > [rant about references]
 > I know you don't like them, but I am going to be stubborn about this :-)

Seesh! ;o)
Maybe we can make them optional and enable them by default?

 > [...] a mechanism to embed any image in a page 
 > Something like 
 > [http://www.someurl.com/graphics/image.png]
 > would suffice.

My words :o)

 > Also, the NBTS Wiki changed the code to make references actual footnotes:
 > http://www.nbtsc.org:80/wiki/index.php3?FootNotes

I don't like footnotes all that much. I don't have strong objections
though. Is it used much?


 > It seems they've overcome the problem with using tabs for lists by 
 > * first level
 > ** second level
 > *** third level etc.

Interesting. I guess we have to find a better solution for the 'tab'
issue anyway, because 95% of all users are on Windows machines
which don't support tab in text fields. Although I don't like Windows
at all I guess it would be arrogant to burden 95% of users with that issue.

 > In fact there are a lot of nice things about the markup there. 
 > http://www.nbtsc.org:80/wiki/index.php3?TextFormattingRules

The only other thing I can see (apart from *,**,*** lists and
footnotes) is allowing some HTML tags. I think including
HTML tags inside wiki is like opening Pandora's box.
Sure, they can be useful and people might recognize them, but where
are you going to stop? People will keep nagging - wiki administrators
will have to have a very thick skin.

 > [dbmlib interface]
 > For that matter, should it be rewritten 
 > as a class instead of a function library?

Good question. I don't know. In a way, a function library is almost
a class anyways.
What would be the benefit of a class?

/Arno