Browser-based rename, move, and delete for individual topics
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.
[More topic actions]
(bottom right of page) on the topic to be changed, then, in the new screen, on [Delete topic]
or [Rename/move topic]
. You can now rename and/or move/delete in one operation:
[Rename/Move]
: the topic will be renamed and links to the topic updated as requested. [Rename/Move]
.
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 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.
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.
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 %META:TOPICMOVED{...}%
. Customize something like this:
%METASEARCH{type="topicmoved" web="%WEB%" topic="%TOPIC%" title="This topic used to exist and was moved to: "}%
%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. <pre>
and <verbatim>
are honored - no changes are made to text within these areas.
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 honored.
Changed references are kept are as short as possible, ex: topic
is used in preference to web.topic
.
User permissions affect the 'rename' functions in various ways. To rename a topic, you need all of VIEW
, CHANGE
and RENAME
access to that topic. To alter referring topics, you need CHANGE
access. See TWikiAccessControl for information on setting up access permissions.
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:
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.
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