Documentation of the TWiki Implementation

Related Topics: TWikiHistory, TWikiPlannedFeatures, TWikiEnhancementRequests.


(1) Login Username vs. Wiki Username

TWiki manages internally two usernames: Login username and Wiki username.

Note: When you write a WikiName of a user (your own or somebody else's) be sure to specify the Main web in front of the Wiki user name, e.g. write it as Main.wikiUsername. This assures that the name will be linked automatically to the TWiki.Main web, even if the text is written in a different Wiki web.

TWiki can map the Intranet username to the Wiki username automatically, provided that the Login username and Wiki username pair has been entered in the TWikiUsers topic.


(2) Wiki Variables

TWiki expands the following variables enclosed in % percent signs:

Variable: Expanded to:
%WIKIHOMEURL% The base script URL of TWiki, link of Home icon in upper left corner is http://starship.python.net/crew/scharf/TWiki
%SCRIPTURL% The base script URL of TWiki, is http://starship.python.net/crew/scharf/TWiki/bin
%PUBURL% The base public URL of TWiki, is http://starship.python.net/crew/scharf/TWiki/pub
%ATTACHURL% The attachment URL of the current topic, is http://starship.python.net/crew/scharf/TWiki/pub/Main/TWikiDocumentation
Example: If you attach a file you can refer to it as %ATTACHURL%/image.gif
%WIKIWEBMASTER% The email address of the Wiki webmaster, is yourname@your.domain.com
%WIKITOOLNAME% Name of wiki tool, is TWikibeta
%WIKIVERSION% Wiki tool version, is 07 Feb 2000
%USERNAME% Your login username, is guest
%WIKIUSERNAME% Your Wiki username, if defined in TWikiUsers. Same as %USERNAME% if not defined. Is Main.TWikiGuest
%WEB% The current web, is Main
%TOPIC% The current topic name, is TWikiDocumentation
%DATE% Todays date, is 07 Feb 2000
%INCLUDE{"file.ext"}% Server side include, includes the text of a file. The default directory is the current Wiki web. Example: %INCLUDE{"../Know/TopicName.txt"}%
%SEARCH{"str" ...}% Inline search, shows a search result embedded in a topic. Parameter is composed of the search string, followed by optional name="value" pairs:
Pair: Description: Default:
web="Name" Specify Wiki web to search Current web
scope="topic" Search topic name (title) Topic text (body)
regex="on" RegularExpression search Literal search
casesensitive="on" Case sensitive search Ignore case
nosummary="on" Show topic title only Show topic summary
nosearch="on" Suppress search string Show search string
nototal="on" Do not show number of topics found Show number
Example: %SEARCH{"wiki" web="Main" scope="topic"}%


(3) Notification of Changes by Email

Each TWiki web does an automatic email notification of recent changes. Users can subscribe / unsubscribe themselves in WebNotify of each TWiki web. The Perl script mailnotify is called by a deamon once every 60 minutes. For each Twiki web mailnotify is sending an automated email to subscribed users in case some topics changed within these 60 minutes.

Implementation note: Edit the cron table so that mailnotify is called every 60 minutes. Please consult man crontab of how to modify the table that schedules program execution at certain intervals. Example:

% crontab -e
15,45 * * * * (cd ~twiki/public_html/bin; ./mailnotify)
The above line will call mailnotify at 15 minutes and 45 minutes passed every hour.


(4) TWiki Category Table

It is possible to add a category table to a TWiki web. 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. The category table is shown at the end of a topic. The format of the category table can be defined per TWiki web.

If you want to use a Category Table in a TWiki web you need to have the following three files in the twiki/templates/{Yourweb} directory:

Format of category definition template twikicatitems.tmpl

Valid lines:

select|{name}|{selSize}|{val1}|{val2}|{val3}...
checkbox|{name}|{checkFlag}|{itemsPerLine}|{val1}|{val2}|{val3}...
radio|{name}|{itemsPerLine}|{val1}|{val2}|{val3}...
text|{name}|{charSize}
# comments start with a # character

Explanation:

  {name}             name of tag
  {selSize}          vertical size of SELECT tag
  {val1}|{val2}...   values
  {checkFlag}        set to true for [Set] [Clear] buttons, else set to false
  {itemsPerLine}     input items per line before wrap around, 0 if no wrap around
  {charSize}         number of characters for text fields

Remark: Line radio|UseCategory|0|Yes|No has a special meaning. If present, it is possible to choose in "edit" if the category table is included in the topic or not

Example file:

radio|UseCategory|0|Yes|No, delete this category table
select|TopicClassification|1|Select one...|NoDisclosure|PublicSupported|PublicFAQ
checkbox|OperatingSystem|true|5|OsSolaris|OsSunOS|OsHPUX|OsWin
text|OsVersion|16

Format of twikicatedit.tmpl and twikicatview.tmpl

Use the example below and customize if needed. twikicatedit.tmpl and twikicatview.tmpl can be identical, but they do not have to be.

Attention: <!--TWikiCat--> is needed at the beginning and end as markers. Do not delete them!

Example:

<!--TWikiCat--> <h4> TWikiCategory </h4>
<table border="2" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="1">
%REPEAT%<tr>
<td valign="top" align="right"> %CATNAME%:  <br>%CATMODIFIER%</td><td>  %CATVALUE% </td>
</tr>%REPEAT%
</table><!--TWikiCat-->

Above template files will result in the following category table when viewing a topic:

TWikiCategory

TopicClassification:
PublicFAQ
OperatingSystem:
OsSolaris
OsVersion:
2.5 

Above template files will result in the following table when editing a topic:

TWikiCategory

UseCategory :
Yes    No, delete this category table   
TopicClassification :
OperatingSystem :
   
OsSolaris    OsSunOS    OsHPUX    OsWin   
OsVersion :

Note: It is possible to force the values of a category table when creating a new topic. This is useful to create new topics using a form for the topic name. The default values of the category table can be specified as hidden fields if needed, i.e. <input type="hidden" name="someCategory" value="someValue">

Example (edit this page to see the source) :


(5) Implementation Notes

Platform

TWiki is written in PERL 5, but it uses also many shell command. The current implementation runs only on a Unix machine. RCS for revision control must be installed on the system.

Directories

Directory: Used for:
twiki/bin TWiki PERL scripts
twiki/pub Public files (FileAttachments, images)
twiki/data source text
twiki/templates HTML templates, used by TWiki scripts

Files in twiki/bin

File: Used for:
.htaccess.txt Authentication. Rename to .htaccess and customize if used
attach Script that shows the attach file page (FileAttachment)
changes Script that shows recent changes
delete (not used yet)
edit Script to edit a topic
mailnotify Script called by cron job to notify users of changes
oops Script that shows a OK or oops dialog
preview Script to preview topic after edit
rdiff Script to see differences of topics
register Script to register new users
save Script that saves a topic, called by preview
search Script that displays search results
upload Script that does file upload (FileAttachment)
view Script to view a topic ( the script )
viewfile Script to view an file attachment
wiki.pm main TWiki library
wikicfg.pm for initialization and configuration, used by wiki.pm


(6) Installation Notes

These installation steps use Apache web server on Linux as an example. TWiki should run on other web servers and Unix systems as well.

Note: These installation notes assume user nobody for all files manupulated by the cgi scripts (executed by the web server), and user twiki for all other files. You need to replace user nobody with an other user in case the web server executes the script with a different user ( default for Debian is www-data ). Also, you can substitute user twiki with your own user name.

Here are contents of directories with file permissions. Please note that this is for debugging reasons only and does not exactly reflect the distribution:

directory twiki/bin :

drwxr-xr-x   5 twiki    t5            512 Nov 11 02:52 .
drwxr-xr-x   5 twiki    t5            512 Nov  6 02:57 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            430 Oct 21 18:51 .htaccess
-rw-r-xr-x   1 twiki    t5           3752 Mar 27 02:21 attach
-rw-r-xr-x   1 twiki    t5           2810 Oct 21 18:51 changes
-rw-r-xr-x   1 twiki    t5           1244 Mar 27 02:21 delete
-rw-r-xr-x   1 twiki    t5           2589 Nov  6 03:05 edit
-rwxr--r--   1 twiki    t5           1811 Feb  4 12:15 geturl
-rwxr-xr-x   1 twiki    t5           4614 Oct 21 18:52 mailnotify
-rw-r-xr-x   1 twiki    t5           1353 Oct 23 20:19 oops
-rw-r-xr-x   1 twiki    t5           2043 Nov  6 03:05 preview
-rw-r-xr-x   1 twiki    t5           6249 Aug  3 04:34 register
-rw-r-xr-x   1 twiki    t5           6890 Nov 11 03:06 rdiff
-rw-r-xr-x   1 twiki    t5           1819 Nov  6 03:06 save
-rw-r-xr-x   1 twiki    t5           3174 Oct 21 18:51 search
-rw-r-xr-x   1 twiki    t5           9774 Feb  4 12:26 statistics
-rwxr-xr-x   1 twiki    t5            509 Feb  7 18:55 testenv
-rw-r-xr-x   1 twiki    t5           6696 Mar 27 02:22 upload
-rw-r-xr-x   1 twiki    t5           3878 Nov 11 03:06 view
-rw-r-xr-x   1 twiki    t5           1538 Mar 27 02:22 viewfile
-rw-r-xr-x   1 twiki    t5          16169 Nov  7 01:43 wiki.pm
-rw-r-xr-x   1 twiki    t5           3945 Jun 23 01:24 wikicfg.pm
-rw-r-xr-x   1 twiki    t5           5127 Feb  4 11:37 wikisearch.pm

directory twiki/templates/ :

drwxr-xr-x   6 twiki    t5            512 Nov  4 20:34 .
drwxr-xr-x   5 twiki    t5            512 Nov 11 02:52 ..
drwxr-xr-x   2 twiki    t5            512 Oct 23 20:57 Know
drwxr-xr-x   2 twiki    t5            512 Nov  4 20:35 Main
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5           2232 Mar 27 02:03 attach.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5           1200 Mar 27 02:03 attachtable.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5           1751 Nov 11 02:41 changes.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5           1711 Nov  6 03:01 edit.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            896 Oct 21 18:51 mailnotify.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5             25 Oct 21 18:51 notedited.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5             21 Oct 21 18:51 notext.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            157 Oct 23 21:05 notwiki.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            218 Oct 23 20:06 noweb.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            279 Oct 23 20:29 oops.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            833 Mar 27 02:03 oopsdel.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5           1331 Oct 23 20:29 oopslocked.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5           1026 Aug 03 08:21 oopsregexist.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            935 Aug 03 08:23 oopsregpasswd.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            924 Aug 03 08:26 oopsregrequ.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            931 Aug 03 08:29 oopsregwiki.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            868 Mar 27 02:03 oopsupload.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5           2010 Nov  6 03:01 preview.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5           1501 Nov 12 22:56 rdiff.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            263 Aug  3 02:44 register.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5           1548 Oct 23 21:10 search.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5           1541 Oct 26 21:07 view.tmpl

directory twiki/templates/Main :

drwxr-xr-x   2 twiki    t5            512 Nov  4 20:35 .
drwxr-xr-x   6 twiki    t5            512 Nov  4 20:34 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5           2328 Nov  6 03:03 edit.tmpl

directory twiki/templates/Know (has a TWiki Category Table) :

drwxr-xr-x   2 twiki    t5            512 Nov  4 20:35 .
drwxr-xr-x   6 twiki    t5            512 Nov  4 20:34 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            611 Dec  7 20:59 notedited.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            210 Dec 24 23:22 twikicatedit.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5           1887 Jan  6 20:54 twikicatitems.tmpl
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            245 Dec 24 23:27 twikicatview.tmpl

directory twiki/data/ :

drwxrwxrwx   6 twiki    t5            512 Nov 19 01:01 .
drwxr-xr-x   5 twiki    t5            512 Nov 11 02:52 ..
drwxrwxrwx   2 twiki    t5           9216 Nov 13 13:55 Know
drwxrwxrwx   2 twiki    t5           4608 Nov 15 21:42 Main
-rw-r--r--   1 nobody   65535          53 Aug 03 08:31 .htpasswd
-rw-rw-rw-   1 twiki    t5           1091 Nov  6 04:15 debug.txt
-rw-r--r--   1 nobody   65535        4153 Nov 19 01:01 log199810.txt
-rw-r--r--   1 nobody   65535        7189 Nov 19 01:01 log199811.txt
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5           2356 Oct 22 00:56 webcopyright.inc
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            276 Oct 22 00:28 wikiwebs.inc
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5           1484 Oct 22 01:11 wikiwebtable.inc

part of directory twiki/data/Main :

drwxrwxrwx   2 twiki    t5           4608 Nov 19 00:56 .
drwxrwxrwx   6 twiki    t5            512 Nov 19 01:01 ..
-rw-rw-rw-   1 twiki    t5           5974 Nov 15 21:42 .changes
-rw-rw-rw-   1 twiki    t5              9 Nov 15 23:00 .mailnotify
-rw-r--r--   1 nobody   65535        3991 Jul 22 04:33 FileAttachment.txt
-r--r--r--   1 nobody   65535        4173 Jul 22 04:33 FileAttachment.txt,v
-rw-r--r--   1 nobody   65535        6773 Aug  5 16:18 TWikiRegistration.txt
-r--r--r--   1 nobody   65535        6960 Aug  5 16:18 TWikiRegistration.txt,v
-rw-r--r--   1 nobody   65535        1990 Nov  6 18:25 TWikiUsers.txt
-r--r--r--   1 nobody   65535        3045 Nov  6 18:25 TWikiUsers.txt,v
-rw-r--r--   1 nobody   65535        1181 Oct 29 20:54 WebHome.txt
-r--r--r--   1 nobody   65535        1537 Oct 29 20:54 WebHome.txt,v
-rw-r--r--   1 nobody   65535         454 Oct 21 18:52 WebNotify.txt
-r--r--r--   1 nobody   65535         638 Oct 27 02:45 WebNotify.txt,v
-rw-r--r--   1 nobody   65535        3653 Oct 21 18:52 WebSearch.txt
-r--r--r--   1 nobody   65535        3835 Oct 27 02:45 WebSearch.txt,v
-rw-r--r--   1 nobody   65535        4282 Feb  4 15:08 WebStatistics.txt
-r--r--r--   1 nobody   65535        4471 Feb  4 15:08 WebStatistics.txt,v
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5              7 Oct 21 18:52 webcolor.inc
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            278 May 20 17:42 webcopyright.inc
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            402 Oct 26 07:45 weblist.inc

directory twiki/pub/ :

drwxrwxrwx   4 twiki    t5           1024 Mar 27 02:58 .
drwxr-xr-x   4 twiki    t5           1024 Mar 27 02:08 ..
drwxrwxrwx   4 nobody   nobody       1024 Mar 27 03:54 Main
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5           2877 Mar 27 02:27 wikiHome.gif
drwxr-xr-x   2 twiki    t5           1024 Mar 27 03:17 icn

directory twiki/pub/icn/ :

drwxr-xr-x   2 twiki    t5           1024 Mar 27 03:17 .
drwxrwxrwx   4 twiki    t5           1024 Mar 27 02:58 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            801 Mar 27 03:02 _filetypes.txt
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            143 Mar 27 03:16 bat.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            926 Mar 27 03:16 bmp.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            141 Mar 27 03:16 c.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            144 Mar 27 03:16 dll.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            152 Mar 27 03:16 doc.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            130 Mar 27 03:16 else.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            876 Mar 27 03:16 exe.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            147 Mar 27 03:16 fon.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            142 Mar 27 03:16 h.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            156 Mar 27 03:16 hlp.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            186 Mar 27 03:16 html.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            144 Mar 27 03:16 java.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            148 Mar 27 03:16 mov.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            150 Mar 27 03:16 pdf.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            146 Mar 27 03:16 pl.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            150 Mar 27 03:16 ppt.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            148 Mar 27 03:16 ps.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            148 Mar 27 03:16 py.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            130 Mar 27 03:17 ram.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            154 Mar 27 03:17 reg.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            147 Mar 27 03:17 sh.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            155 Mar 27 03:17 sniff.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            149 Mar 27 03:17 ttf.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            134 Mar 27 03:17 txt.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            154 Mar 27 03:17 wav.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            152 Mar 27 03:17 wri.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            152 Mar 27 03:17 xls.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 twiki    t5            144 Mar 27 03:17 zip.gif

-- PeterThoeny - 22 Oct 1998
-- PeterThoeny - 18 Nov 1998
-- PeterThoeny - 11 Jan 1999
-- PeterThoeny - 20 Jan 1999
-- PeterThoeny - 06 Mar 1999
-- PeterThoeny - 27 Mar 1999
-- PeterThoeny - 02 Jun 1999
-- PeterThoeny - 14 Jun 1999
-- PeterThoeny - 23 Jun 1999
-- PeterThoeny - 01 Sep 1999
-- PeterThoeny - 29 Sep 1999
-- PeterThoeny - 14 Jan 2000
-- PeterThoeny - 02 Feb 2000
-- PeterThoeny - 04 Feb 2000