TWiki Reference Manual (01 Sep 2004 $Rev: 1742 $)

This page contains all documentation topics as one long, complete reference sheet.
Doubleclick anywhere to return to the top of the page.

Note - if you are reading this at twiki.org, then you are reading about the most recent code under development.
If you want to read about the features on your local TWiki, then you should read the documentation there!

Note: Read the most up to date version of this document at http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/TWiki/TWikiDocumentation

Related Topics: TWikiSite, TWikiHistory, TWikiPlannedFeatures, TWikiEnhancementRequests

TWiki System Requirements

Server and client requirements for TWiki 01-Sep-2004

Low client and server requirements are core features that keep TWiki widely deployable, particularly across a range of browser platforms and versions.

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.

* Current documentation mainly covers Linux and Apache installations. See WindowsInstallCookbook for a Windows installation guide. See TWiki:Codev.TWikiOn for help with installation on various platforms including Unix, MacOS X, Apache mod_perl, web hosts, etc.

Client Requirements

The TWiki standard installation has extremely low browser requirements:

• HTML 3.2 compliant
• generates XHTML 1.0 pages that are compatible with HTML 3.2
• minimal use of JavaScript in the user interface (degrades gracefully)
• no cookies
• no CSS (if the ClassicSkin is used)

You can easily add functionality, by customizing TWikiTemplates, for one, while tailoring the browser requirements to your situation.

Known Issues

• The TWikiPlugins feature currently does not have compatibility guidelines for developers. Plugins can require just about anything - browser-specific functions, stylesheets (CSS), Java applets, cookies, specific Perl modules,... - check the individual Plugin specs.
  • Plugins included in the TWiki distribution do not add requirements.

-- TWiki:Main.MikeMannix - 12 Jan 2002
-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny - 15 Aug 2004

TWiki Installation Guide

Installation instructions for the TWiki 01-Sep-2004 production release.

If you are reading this on your own TWiki installation, please get the latest installation guide (TWiki:TWiki.TWikiInstallationGuide), as this often has important updates to resolve installation issues.

These installation steps are based on the Apache web server on Linux. TWiki runs on other web servers and Unix systems, and should be fine with any web server and OS that meet the system requirements. Official documentation for platforms other than Linux is somewhat limited, so please check the topics listed below, they include some important tips for HP-UX, Solaris, OS/390, and many other platforms.

• For Unix or Linux, check TWiki:Codev/TWikiOnUnix (install your own RCS, diff and grep tools if in doubt!) and TWiki:Codev/TWikiOnLinux.
• For Windows, check the WindowsInstallCookbook.
• For MacOS X, check TWiki:Codev/TWikiOnMacOSX.
• To install TWiki on SourceForge, for use on a software development project, read TWiki:Codev/TWikiOnSourceForge
• For other platforms, see TWiki:Codev/TWikiOn, and search the TWiki:Codev and TWiki:Support webs for other installation notes.
• If you need help, ask a question in the TWiki:Support web

Standard Installation

Download the TWiki 01-Sep-2004 distribution in Unix ZIP format from http://TWiki.org/download.html. Please review the AdminSkillsAssumptions before you install TWiki.

Step 1: Create & Configure the Directories

NOTE: If you don't have access to your Web server configuration files - for example, if you're installing on an ISP-hosted account, or you don't have administrator privileges on your intranet server - use the alternative Step 1 instead.

• Create directory /home/httpd/twiki and unzip the TWiki distribution into this directory.
• The twiki/bin directory of TWiki must be set as a cgi-bin directory. Add /home/httpd/twiki/bin to file httpd.conf (typcially located in /etc/httpd/) with only ExecCGI option.
• The twiki/pub directory of TWiki must be set so that it is visible as a URL. Add /home/httpd/twiki to file httpd.conf with normal access options (copy from /home/httpd/html ).
• Now add ScriptAlias for /twiki/bin and Alias for /twiki to file httpd.conf .
  NOTE: The ScriptAlias must come before the Alias, otherwise, Apache will fail to correctly set up /twiki/bin/, by treating it as just another subdirectory of the /twiki/ alias.
• The twiki/data and twiki/templates directories should be set so that they are not visible as URLs. Add them to httpd.conf with deny from all.

Example httpd.conf entries:

 ScriptAlias /twiki/bin/ "/home/httpd/twiki/bin/"
 Alias /twiki/ "/home/httpd/twiki/"
 <Directory "/home/httpd/twiki/bin">
    Options +ExecCGI
    SetHandler cgi-script
    Allow from all
 </Directory>
 <Directory "/home/httpd/twiki/pub">
    Options FollowSymLinks +Includes
    AllowOverride None
    Allow from all
 </Directory>
 <Directory "/home/httpd/twiki/data">
    deny from all
 </Directory>
 <Directory "/home/httpd/twiki/templates">
    deny from all
 </Directory>

• Restart Apache by service httpd restart (or as appropriate to your flavor of UNIX or Linux).
• Test that the twiki/bin directory is CGI-enabled by trying visiting it in your browser:
  • Enter the URL for the bin directory, http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/
  • Your settings are OK if you get a message like "Forbidden. You don't have permission to access /twiki/bin/ on this server".
  • Settings are NOT correct if you get something like "Index of /twiki/bin" - recheck your httpd.conf file.

• Go directly to Step 2...

Aletrnative Step 1: Create & Configure the Directories for Non-Root Accounts

To install TWiki on a system where you don't have Unix/Linux root (administrator) privileges, for example, on a hosted Web account or an intranet server administered by someone else:

• Download and unzip TWiki on your local PC
• Using the table below, create a directory structure on your host server
• Upload the TWiki files by FTP (transfer as text except for the image files in pub)

TWiki dir:	What it is:	Where to copy:	Example:
twiki	start-up pages	root TWiki dir	/home/smith/twiki/
twiki/bin	CGI bin	CGI-enabled dir	/home/smith/twiki/bin
twiki/lib	library files	same level as twiki/bin	/home/smith/twiki/lib
twiki/pub	public files	htdoc enabled dir	/home/smith/twiki/pub
twiki/data	topic data	dir secure from public access	/home/smith/twiki/data
twiki/templates	web templates	dir secure from public access	/home/smith/twiki/templates

Note: Don't worry if you are not able to put the twiki/lib directory at the same level as the twiki/bin directory (e.g. because CGI bin directories can't be under your home directory and you don't have root access). You can create this directory elsewhere and configure the /twiki/bin/setlib.cfg file (done in Step 3)

Step 2: Set File Permissions

• 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 elsewhere, change the path to Perl in the first line of each script in the twiki/bin directory, or create a symbolic link from /usr/bin/perl.
  • IMPORTANT:
    • On ISP-hosted accounts (and some intranet servers), Perl CGI scripts may require a .cgi extension to run. Some systems need .pl, the regular Perl extension. Rename all twiki/bin scripts if necessary.
    • Alternatively, you might try creating a file twiki/bin/.htaccess that contains the single line SetHandler cgi-script, which tells Apache to treat all files in this directory as CGI scripts.
• Set the file permission of all Perl scripts in the twiki/bin directory as executable to -rwxr-xr-x (755).
• To be able to edit the Perl scripts and .tmpl files it is necessary to chown and chgrp -R twiki so all the files have the owner you want.
• This Guide assumes user nobody ownership for all files manipulated by the CGI scripts (executed by the Web server), and user twiki for all other files. You can:
  • replace nobody with another user if your server executes scripts under a different name (ex: default for Debian is www-data).
    • HINT: Run the testenv script from your browser: http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/testenv. It will show you the user name of the CGI scripts, a table listing all CGI environment variables, and a test of your twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg configuration file (you'll configure that in a minute).
  • replace user twiki with your own username
• Set permissions manually.
  • Set the permission of all files below twiki/data so that they are writable by user nobody. A simple way is to chmod them to -rw-rw-r-- (664) and to chown them to nobody.
  • Set the permission of the twiki/data directory and its subdirectories so that files in there are writable by user nobody. A simple way is to chmod them to drwxrwxr-x (775) and to chown them to nobody.
  • Set the permission of the twiki/pub directory and all its subdirectories so that files in there are writable by user nobody. A simple way is to chmod them to drwxrwxr-x (775) and to chown them to nobody.
  • The twiki/data/*/*.txt,v RCS repository files in the installation package are locked by user nobody. If your CGI scripts are not running as user nobody, it's not possible to check in files (you'll see that the revision number won't increase after saving a topic). In this case, you need to unlock all repository files (check the RCS man pages) and lock them with a different user, such as www-data, or delete them all - new files will be automatically created the first time each topic is edited. You have two options to change ownership of the RCS lock user:
    • Run the testenv script from your browser; in the Fix line you can relock all the rcs files (recommended)
    • Alternatively, run this in your shell:
      cd twiki/data
find . -name *,v -exec perl -pi~ -e '$. <= 10 && s/nobody:/www-data:/ ' {} \;
      This will create *,v~ backup files which you should remove after verification:
      find . -name *,v~ -exec rm -f {} \;

Step 3: Edit the Configuration Files

• Edit the file /twiki/bin/setlib.cfg
  • Set $twikiLibPath to the absolute file path of your /twiki/lib as seen by the web server.
  • Attention: Do not leave it as a relative "../lib" path or Plugins might fail to initialize properly
  • You can also edit $localPerlLibPath if you are not root and need to install additional CPAN modules, but can't update the main Perl installation files on the server. Just set this variable to the full pathname to your local lib directory, typically under your home directory.
  • Attention: If you are running TWiki on Apache 2.0 on Unix you might experience cgi scripts to hang forever. This is a known Apache 2.0 bug. See details and woraround in the setlib.cfg file.
• Edit the file twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg, setting the variables to your needs.
  • Set the file extension in the $scriptSuffix variable to cgi or pl if required.
  • RCS - revision control system to store revision of topics and attachments. You can use RCS executables or a version of RCS written in Perl, note that as the time of writing (Apr 2002) the Perl version has not been widely tested, so if you want to put up a live site the RCS executables are recommended.
    • Set $storeTopicImpl = "RcsWrap"; for the RCS executables and make sure RCS is installed. Set $rcsDir in twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg to match the location of your RCS binaries. You can check this by issuing the command rcs at the prompt, it should result in something like "rcs: no input file".
      • Check that you have GNU diff, by typing diff -v - an error indicates you have a non-GNU diff, so install the GNU diffutils package and make sure that diff is on the PATH used by TWiki (see $safeEnvPath in the TWiki.cfg file).
    • Set $storeTopicImpl = "RcsLite"; for the Perl based RCS
• Security issue: Directories twiki/data , twiki/templates and all their subdirectories should be set so that they are not visible through URLs. (Alternatively, move the directories to a place where they are not visible, and change the variables in twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg accordingly)
• Test your settings by running the testenv script from your browser: http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/testenv. Check if your twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg configuration file settings are correct.

Step 4: Internationalisation Setup (Optional)

By default, TWiki is configured to support US ASCII letters (no accents) in WikiWords, and ISO-8859-1 (Western European) characters in page contents. If that's OK for you, skip this step.

If your Wiki will be used by non-English speakers, TWiki can be configured for Internationalisation ('I' followed by 18 letters, then 'N', or I18N). Specifically, TWiki will support suitable accented characters in WikiWords (as well as languages such as Japanese or Chinese in which WikiWords do not apply), and will support virtually any character set in the contents of pages. NOTE: TWiki does not currently support UTF-8, so you are advised not to use this - however, improved UTF-8 support is under development, see TWiki:Codev/ProposedUTF8SupportForI18N.

To configure internationalisation suppport:

1. Edit the TWiki.cfg file's Internationalisation section to set the $useLocale parameter to 1. TWiki will now use the I18N parameters set in the rest of this section.
2. Type the Unix/Linux command locale -a to find a suitable 'locale' for your use of TWiki. A locale that includes a dot followed by a character set is recommended, e.g. pl_PL.ISO-8859-2 for Poland. Consult your system administrator if you are not sure which locale to use.
3. In TWiki.cfg, set the $siteLocale parameter to your chosen locale, e.g. pl_PL.ISO-8859-2 for Poland.
4. Check your setup using testenv (download the latest testenv from TWiki:Support/SupportGuidelines if possible) - this provides some diagnostics for I18N setup, and in particular checks that your locale can be used successfully.
5. (For upgrade of TWiki I18N sites only:) If you were using TWiki:Codev.TWikiRelease01Feb2003 support for I18N, and are using Internet Explorer or Opera, you should re-configure your browser so that it sends URLs encoded with UTF-8 (supported since TWiki:Codev.TWikiRelease01Sep2004). If you are doing a new installation of TWiki, you can ignore this step - no browser reconfiguration is needed for TWiki Release 01-Sep-2004).
   • Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher: in Tools | Options | Advanced, check 'always send URLs as UTF-8', then close all IE windows and restart IE.
   • Opera 6.x or higher: in Preferences | Network | International Web Addresses, check 'encode all addresses with UTF-8'.
   • NOTE: This does not mean that TWiki supports UTF-8 as a site character set.
6. Try out your TWiki by creating pages in the Sandbox web that use international characters in WikiWords and checking that searching, WebIndex, Ref-By and other features are working OK.

Trouble with I18N?

If international characters in WikiWords do not seem to work, and you are on Perl 5.6 or higher, you may need to set the TWiki.cfg parameter $localeRegexes to 0 - this disables some features but enables TWiki to work even if your system has locales that do not work. Then, set the $upperNational and $lowerNational parameters to the valid upper and lower case accented letters for your locale.

• NOTE: You will need to do the above workaround for Windows based servers (whether using Cygwin or ActiveState Perl), since Perl locales are not working on Windows as of Feb 2004.

If international characters in WikiWords aren't working, and you are on Perl 5.005 with working locales, keep $useLocale set to 1 and set $localeRegexes to 0, then set $upperNational and $lowerNational - if testenv generates the lists of characters for you, your locales are working so there is no need to set $localeRegexes to 0 in this case. See the comments in TWiki.cfg for more information.

Step 5: Configure Site-Wide Email Preferences

• Edit the TWikiPreferences topic in the TWiki web (by pointing your browser to http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/view/TWiki/TWikiPreferences) to set the WIKIWEBMASTER email address, and other email settings required for registration and WebChangesAlert to work:
  • WIKIWEBMASTER should be set to the email address of the TWiki administrator
  • SMTPMAILHOST is typically set on Windows or other non-Unix/Linux systems, where sendmail or similar is not available. When this is set and the Perl module Net::SMTP is installed, TWiki will connect to this SMTP server (e.g. mail.yourdomain.com) to send email for user registration and WebChangesAlerts. If you do have a sendmail-type program, leave SMTPMAILHOST unset so that the external sendmail program is used instead (defined by $mailProgram in TWiki.cfg).
  • SMTPSENDERHOST is optional, and set to the domain name sending the email (e.g. twiki.yourdomain.com). For use where the SMTP server requires that you identify the TWiki server sending mail. If not set, Net::SMTP will guess it for you.
• You may want to set up other TWikiPreferences later on.
• To enable the WebChangesAlerts (email notifications) you need to read about cron in the topic TWikiSiteTools.

Step 6: Finish Up from Your Browser

• Point your Web browser at http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/view and start TWiki-ing away!
  • Or, point to http://yourdomain.com/twiki/ to get the pre-TWiki index.html page, with a link to the view script. Customize this page if you want a public intro screen with a login link, instead of immediately calling up the .htaccess login dialog by going directly to view.
• Edit the WebPreferences topic in each web, if necessary: set individual WEBCOPYRIGHT messages, and other preferences.
• Enable email notification of topic changes - TWikiSiteTools has more.
• Edit the WebNotify topic in all webs and add the users you want to notify.
• Add the TWiki:Main/PoweredByTWikiLogo to your Main.WebHome topic.
• You can add new %VARIABLES%. Define site-level variables in the TWikiPreferences topic. See also: TWikiVariables.

That's it for the standard installation of TWiki. Read on for server-level customization options.

Additional Server-Level Options

With your new TWiki installation up and running, you can manage most aspects of your site from the browser interface. Only a few functions require access to the server file system, via Telnet or FTP. You can make these server-level changes during installation, and at any time afterwards.

Enabling Authentication of Users

• If TWiki is installed on a non-authenticated server - not using SSL - and you'd like to authenticate users:
  1. Rename file .htaccess.txt in the twiki/bin directory to .htaccess and change it to your needs. The comment at the top of the file explains what need to be done, basically replace !FILE_path_to_TWiki! and !URL_path_to_TWiki! with paths specific to your installation. For the details of how this file works, consult the HTTP server documentation (for Apache server: [1], [2]).
     • NOTE: If you had to add a .cgi or .pl file extension to the bin scripts, make sure to do the same for edit, view, preview, and all the other script names in .htaccess.
     • The browser should ask for login name and password when you click on the Edit link. In case .htaccess does not have the desired effect, you need to enable it: Add "AllowOverride All" to the Directory [3] section of access.conf for your twiki/bin directory.
       • This applies only if you have root access: on hosted accounts, you shouldn't have this problem - otherwise, email tech support.
     • NOTE: In the TWiki distribution package, the twiki/data/.htpasswd.txt file contains several TWiki core team user accounts and a guest user account. You probably want to remove those accounts by deleting the entries in .htpasswd. Do not remove the guest user if you want to allow guest logins.
  2. TWiki now supports several Password file format/encoding methods for Apache. Once you know what method is used by your Appache server, you can configure TWiki to create compatible .htpasswd entries by editing the $htpasswdFormatFamily, $htpasswdEncoding and $htpasswdFilename in the TWiki.cfg file. The supported options are htpasswd:plain, htpasswd:crypt, htpasswd:sha1, htdigest:md5
  3. Copy the TWikiRegistrationPub topic to TWikiRegistration, overwriting old version of Trash.TWikiRegistration. Do that by either editing the topics in theTWiki web, or by renaming the .txt and .txt,v files in the twiki/data/TWiki directory.
• Customization:
  • You can customize the registration 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
• Register yourself in the TWikiRegistration topic.
  • NOTE: When a user registers, a new line with the username and encrypted password is added to the data/.htpasswd file. The .htpasswd file that comes with the TWiki installation includes user accounts for TWiki core team members that are used for testing on TWiki.org. You can edit the file and delete those lines.
• Create a new topic to check if authentication works.
• Edit the TWikiAdminGroup topic in the TWiki:Main web to include users with system administrator status.
• Edit the TWikiPreferences topic in the TWiki:TWiki web to set access privileges.
• Edit the WebPreferences topic in each web, if necessary: set access priviliges.

WYSIWYG Editor

At this time, TWiki does not ship with an "what you see is what you get" editor. TWiki:Codev/IntegrateHtmlAreaEditor describes how to integrate an HTML editor.

NOTE: User home topics are located in the TWiki.Main web - don't try to move them or create them in other webs. From any other web, user signatures have to point to TWiki.Main web, using a Main.UserName or %MAINWEB%.UserName format. (The %MAINWEB% variable is an advantage if you ever change the Main web name, but the standard Main.UserName is easier for users to enter, which is the bottom line!)

TWiki File System Info

See Appendix A: TWiki File System for an installed system snapshot and descriptions of all files in the TWiki 01-Sep-2004 distribution.

-- TWiki:Main/PeterThoeny - 29 Aug 2004
-- TWiki:Main/MikeMannix - 16 May 2002

Windows Install Cookbook

Introduction

This cookbook is intended to get you up and running with TWiki on Windows quickly, with as few problems as possible. The 'cookbook' approach is simply to restrict the many choices that someone installing TWiki must make, so that a reasonably well-defined procedure can be followed - new users can simply follow the steps, while experts can use this as more of a guideline.

• NOTE: This cookbook is not 100% complete (e.g. it doesn't cover authentication setup described by existing documentation), but it has been used successfully for over a year now - it is quite accurate and should get you started if you follow the instructions. Please provide feedback in TWiki:Codev.WindowsInstallCookbookComments.
• NOTE: You will get the best results from following this cookbook exactly, using the same directories, etc - however, if you really do need to vary things, it should be fairly obvious what to do.

-- RichardDonkin^? - 24 Feb 2002

Summary

- See WindowsInstallSummary for a concise summary of the whole cookbook.

Recent updates

• 28 Jun 2004 - updated to reflect experiences installing beta20040507 on Windows NT
• 2 Jun 2003 - updated to include setting HOME since this is not always picked up by Cygwin
• 30 Apr 2003 - New issue with Perl 5.8 found, added warning not to use Perl 5.8
• 02 Mar 2003 - updated to restrict register script edits to Dec 2001 release
• 30 Nov 2002 - added binutils to list of Cygwin packages, and added warning not to use Apache 2.0
• 20 Nov 2002 - update to avoid TWiki:Support.InstallDigestSHA1Fails when installing Digest::SHA1 on Windows 2000
• 12 Nov 2002 - setting SMTPMAILHOST for user registration and notification
• Older changes are in TWiki:TWiki.WindowsInstallCookbookHistory

Scope

This document covers installation of the TWiki 01-Sep-2004 production release (TWiki:Codev/TWikiRelease01Sep2004) in the following environment - if you want to use a different environment, feel free to use this as a guideline only.

Why this choice of packages? Because I've tried them, and they work well, without requiring a complicated setup... In particular, Apache is the commonest choice for TWiki on Unix/Linux, Cygwin Perl is very close to Unix Perl, and the Cygwin RCS is regularly updated, with a recent TWiki-relevant bug fix in Feb 2002. Cygwin also lets you install the Unix tools, Perl and RCS in a single step, saving quite a lot of time.

More recent minor versions should be OK, but they can introduce bugs.

Major version upgrades, such as Apache 2.0 and Perl 5.8, are very likely to cause problems - for example, Apache 2.0 is unable to authenticate users created by the current TWiki user registration script (due to a feature being removed in 2.0, see TWiki:Support.FailedAuthenticationWithApache2OnWinNT). Similarly, Perl 5.8 may introduce issues due to its Unicode features and has caused problems due to a bug in CGI.pm. Even though the Apache group says that Apache 2.0 is the best version, that's not true for TWiki at present. For more information, see TWiki:Codev.IssuesWithApache2dot0 and TWiki:Codev.IssuesWithPerl5dot8.

Alternatives

• Windows NT, 98 and ME all work fine with minor tweaks
• Windows XP works in theory, but see the Apache site for details of XP-related bugs, and other packages' sites for any peculiarities of XP. Please report any XP installations on TWiki:Codev.TWikiOnWindowsKnownConfigurations, and comment at TWiki:Codev.WindowsInstallCookbookComments.

There are doubtless other combinations of components that may work - in particular:

• TWiki:Codev.ActiveState Perl involves only minor changes to TWiki.cfg, and is probably a simpler choice if you need an easy way to install mod_perl (see TWiki:Codev.ModPerl). TWiki:Codev.ActiveState Perl can be substituted without too much hassle, and in fact the same TWiki.cfg can be used for both TWiki:Codev.ActiveState and Cygwin Perl.
• Using a different web server is certainly possible, but the setup required for each webserver varies greatly (see TWiki:Codev.TWikiOnWindows for pages about specific web servers). You may find it easiest to get a working system with Apache and then switch over to another web server.

Covering the whole range of additional possibilities, particularly web servers, would make this cookbook too complex, and is best handled as a separate activity.

For improved performance on Windows through using mod_perl, you may want to try TWiki:Codev.WindowsModPerlInstallCookbook.

Checking versions

If you already have some of these add-ons installed, here's how to check the versions - this assumes you have TWiki:Codev.CygWin already installed:

   $ : Cygwin DLL version is the number in 1.3.x format
   $ uname -r
   $ less c:/your-apache-dir/Announcement
   $ perl -v
   $ rcs -V

If you have an older version of any component, do yourself a favour and upgrade it as part of the install process.

Pre-requisites and upgrades

This cookbook is intended for a clean install, i.e. none of these components are already installed. However, since Cygwin and Apache's installation process is fairly upgrade-friendly, upgrades should work as well - take backups of all your data and config files first, though!

Text editing

• nano, a very simple text editor, installed optionally during Cygwin installation. Always launch nano with the -w command-line option to turn off wrapping of long lines.
• vi, a more sophisticated editor that should be familiar to most UNIX users

Another good TWiki:Codev.OpenSource editor is SciTE (aka WSciTE), available at http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html.

The Unix/Windows Environment

It's a little known fact that you can use pathnames such as c:/apache almost everywhere in Windows - try it in a File Open dialogue box. The main exception is the Windows "DOS" command line shell - here, you must use double quotes around forward slashes, e.g. dir "c:/apache" will work fine.

The reason this matters is that '\' is a special character to Perl and other tools, so it's much easier to use '/' everywhere.

The Cygwin environment

TWiki:Codev.CygWin is a Unix-like environment for Windows - many of its tools support the c:/apache format, but it also provides a more Unixlike syntax, e.g. /usr/bin/rcs.exe, because some Unix tools ported onto Cygwin only support the Unix format.

When you launch a Cygwin shell, your existing PATH variable is translated from the Windows format to the Unix format, and the ';' separators in the Windows PATH are changed into ':' separators as required by Unix. A Cygwin tool (e.g. Cygwin Perl or Cygwin RCS) will always use the Unix PATH format, and will accept Unix format pathnames.

The Apache environment

Apache runs as a native Windows process and has nothing to do with Cygwin (at least the version used in this cookbook doesn't). Hence it supports c:/ pathnames in its config files and the first line of Perl CGI scripts.

If you need to use spaces in file names (not recommended), put double quotes around the file name in the httpd.conf file. There have been some security-related bugs in Apache with long pathnames, which are a bit more likely if you use spaces, so it's best to just avoid long names and using spaces.

The Perl environment

Once Perl has been launched by Apache, it is in Cygwin mode, and so is everything it launches, including ls, egrep, and the RCS tools that it (typically) launches with the bash shell.

If you need to use spaces in file names (not recommended), you may be able to put double quotes around the file name in the TWiki.cfg file - however, it's not clear whether all the TWiki code would work with this.

Installing Components

Enough background, let's get on with the installation.

TWiki (part 1)

Head to http://twiki.org, click the download link, and fill in the form to request a URL for download. You'll get an automated email, which should arrive by the time you need it.

Apache

1. Download Apache

• Check at http://httpd.apache.org/ for any security announcements
• Check the latest 1.3.x version number on this page
• Find a local mirror using http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi - choose httpd, then binaries, then win32
• The file to download is apache_1.3.X-win32-x86-no_src.msi where 'X' is 20 or higher
  • Note that this is a Microsoft Installer format file (.MSI)

• NOTE: If you are using Windows NT, download the .MSI installer (instmsi.exe) from the Apache Win32 download page - this enables you to install .MSI files. You may need to update the .MSI Installer if you have an old version under NT.
• NOTE: The Apache package itself requires a download of around 2 MB, and up to 10 MB of free disk space once installed

2. Install Apache

• Double-click the .MSI file to run the installer
• Specify c:\ as the installation directory - this actually installs Apache into c:\apache (if you specify c:\apache, it installs into c:\apache\Apache). Putting Apache into c:\Program Files is not recommended for easy editing of Apache config files from Cygwin.
• On Windows NT/2000 you can choose to run Apache as a service or as a normal program - see the Apache docs for details.
  • NOTE: Needs a bit more detail here... See the excellent documents about Installing Apache on Windows and Running Apache as a Windows NT/2000 service.

3. Test Apache

• If necessary, start apache, by selecting 'Start' from the 'Start->Programs->Apache...->Control Apache Server' menu.
• Point your browser at http://yourdomain.com/ to see the Apache intro page.

Congratulations, you now have a working web server!

To restart Apache after changing its config, type:

• apache -k restart for standalone Apache process running in another window
• apache -k restart -n apache for Apache running as a Win2000 service (-n gives name of service)

Another useful command is apache -k stop.

Cygwin, Unix tools, Perl and RCS

4. Install Cygwin

Head to http://cygwin.com, and click the Install or update now! link. Save the setup.exe in a directory, e.g. c:\download\cygwin-dist.

Now run the Cygwin setup.exe file - this will also install Perl and RCS in one fell swoop.

• Choose Internet install
• On first page, accept the defaults (be sure that the default text file type is Unix to avoid problems with attachment uploads, and specify 'install for all users')
• Select c:\download\cygwin-dist as the local package directory, and suitable proxy settings, then pick a local mirror site
• In the package list screen, hit the View button until you get an alphabetical list that says Full to the right of the button.
• Leave the radio button on Curr (Current)
  • The Current column shows what's installed on your system (if anything)
• For each package, make sure the New column in the installer has a version number under it. If it says 'Skip' or 'Keep' (meaning it's already installed), single-click that word until a version number is shown. Make sure you select the following packages - in recent Cygwin setups you will have to select Perl 5.6.1 explicitly:
  • bash
  • binutils
  • diffutils
  • gcc
  • grep
  • gzip
  • make
  • nano (or vim if you prefer the vi editor)
  • ncftp
  • pcre
  • perl (5.6.1-2 or higher, but not 5.8.0)
  • rcs (5.7-2 or higher)
  • tar
  • textutils
  • unzip
  • w32api
  • wget (optional, useful for Perl install and TWiki:Codev.ReadWriteOfflineWiki)
  • NOTE: Do not include lynx if you are upgrading from an older Cygwin installation (to avoid annoying DLL messages) - if you want Lynx, read the Cygwin FAQ entry and upgrade libncurses5.
• Hit Next to do the installation.
  • NOTE: The mandatory packages require a download of about 12 MB - about half of this is Perl, which would be necessary even without Cygwin, and most of the rest is gcc, which is required for simple installation of Perl modules that use the C language. Something like 20 to 30 MB of free disk space should be enough for Cygwin, but I didn't test this (try a du -k / after a new install and let me know the last figure).
  • NOTE: The installer keeps a local copy of downloaded files, so it's easy to re-install without re-downloading.
• Let the installer create the shortcuts suggested
• You can always come back and re-run the installer again later if you missed anything.

Environment setup:

• Set the HOME environment variable to c:\cygwin\home\YOURUSER, where YOURUSER is your userid, e.g. jsmith or administrator.
  • Windows NT, XP and 2000: Go into Control Panel, double-click the System icon, and select Advanced, then click Environment Variables. Under User Variables, click New.... Now type HOME (must be upper case) as the variable name, and c:\cygwin\home\YOURUSER as the value, and hit OK.
  • Windows 98 and ME - add to AUTOEXEC.BAT and reboot
• You can also set TEMP to c:\temp at this point, if you prefer this to editing the Cygwin ~/.profile file. (HOME can't be set in the ~/.profile file.)
• Create the c:\cygwin\home\YOURUSER directory

5. Test Cygwin

• Launch the desktop icon - this runs the bash shell, which has command line editing features
  • Use the cursor up key to recall previous commands - normal PC editing keys can then be used to edit a command
  • TIP: When typing a directory or file name, hit the TAB key after the first few letters of the name - bash will 'complete' the name. If bash beeps at you, hit TAB again to see the files/directories that match the name so far, and type a bit more before hitting TAB. This saves a lot of time!
• Type rcs -V - you should see the RCS version, 5.7
• Type perl -v - you should see cygwin mentioned in the first line, and the Perl version, 5.6.1
• Type grep home /etc/passwd - you should see some output.

The Cygwin User Guide is well worth reading for some background on how Cygwin works.

6. Configure Cygwin for binary mode

• This is very important - omitting this step leads to a partially working system that corrupts RCS files - without this, Cygwin tools (including Perl and RCS) will add unwanted carriage returns (Ctrl/M, '\r') to files in an attempt to translate between the Windows and Unix text file formats (Unix text files only use line feeds ('\n').
  • This has been a great time sink, causing numerous subtle problems - see TWiki:Codev.CookbookLineEndingProblems
• Stay in the Cygwin (bash) shell, and type the following (use only forward slashes, i.e. '/'):

   $ mkdir /twiki /c c:/twiki
   $ mount -b -s c:/twiki /twiki
   $ mount -b -s c:/ /c
   $ mount -b -c /cygdrive
   $ mount
   Device              Directory           Type         Flags
   C:\cygwin\bin       /usr/bin            system       binmode
   C:\cygwin\lib       /usr/lib            system       binmode
   C:\cygwin           /                   system       binmode
   c:\twiki            /twiki              system       binmode
   c:                  /c                  system       binmode

• This configures /twiki (known as a 'mount point') to map onto c:/twiki and for that directory tree to always be in binary mode, and does the same for /c, mapping it onto c:/. The last-but-one command sets binary as the default for any unmounted drives (e.g. z:/, aka /cygdrive/z).
• It is very important that all lines in the output of mount say 'binmode' under Flags
  • If the lines for C:\cygwin directories do not, you should uninstall and then re-install Cygwin to ensure that binary attachment uploads will work.
• You can now refer to files using Unix paths, e.g. /twiki/bin/view or /c/apache/Announcement - see the Cygwin documentation for more details on this.
• Now test this, still using the Cygwin shell:
  • Type cd /twiki
  • Type echo hi >t
  • Type cat -v t - you should see hi as the output
  • If you see filename errors, your mounts did not work for some reason - check your typing
  • If you see hi^M as output, your /twiki directory is not in binary mode
  • Clean up by doing rm t

This setup is written to the Windows registry, so there's no need to put these commands into a .profile file. For more information on binary vs text mode, see this User Guide section and this FAQ entry.

TWiki (part 2)

7. Download TWiki

Download the latest TWiki release from http://twiki.org/ and save it in the c:/twiki directory.

8. Install TWiki

Unzip the ZIP file under c:/twiki using WinZip, or by going into Cygwin and doing the following - you can hit the TAB key to complete filenames after you've typed the first part:

   $ cd /twiki
   $ unzip TWiki20011201.zip

Configuring components

Now that all the components are installed, you need to configure them.

Configuring Apache

The setup given here is fairly simple, in that it allows only TWiki to be served by the web server. For more complex setups, you can investigate the Alias and ScriptAlias commands that are left commented out in this configuration.

• NOTE: This needs reviewing for security holes and to ensure nothing is missed, though this config does work.

1. Configure Apache (part 1)

Using a suitable text editor (see #TextEditing, above) edit c:/apache/conf/httpd.conf as follows - this tells Apache where TWiki lives, and removes the need to tinker with the Windows environment settings.

• Note the trailing '/' characters in various places - they are important!

• Create the c:\temp directory, by typing mkdir c:\temp in a DOS command line window
• Edit the following lines, some of which already exist in the file:

# Change this to point to the Apache administrator (e.g. you)
ServerAdmin you@yourdomain.com

# Replaces DocumentRoot "C:/apache/htdocs"
DocumentRoot "C:/twiki"

# Replaces <Directory "C:/apache/htdocs">
<Directory "C:/twiki">

• Add the following lines - the Alias and ScriptAlias lines can be omitted in this setup

# Alias /twiki/ "C:/twiki/"
# ScriptAlias /twiki/bin/ "C:/twiki/bin/"
<Directory  "C:/twiki/bin/">
    # RD: Changed None to All in next line, to enable .htaccess
    AllowOverride All
    Allow From All
    Options  ExecCGI
    SetHandler cgi-script
</Directory>

# Environment setup required to run Apache as service or as a
# standalone process.
<IfModule mod_env.c>
   # Adjust TZ for your server timezone, e.g. EST5EDT - put the non-daylight-savings
   # timezone code first (e.g. EST or GMT), followed by the number of hours that it's behind GMT 
   # during non-daylight-savings time (use '-5' for timezones in advance of GMT).
   SetEnv TZ GMT0BST
   SetEnv RCSINIT -x,v/
   # Adjust TEMP and TMP for your server and create directories if necessary
   SetEnv TEMP c:/temp
   SetEnv TMP c:/temp
   SetEnv LOGNAME system
   SetEnv HOME c:/twiki
</IfModule>

2. Configure Apache (part 2)

Add an AddHandler line to the <IfModule mod_mime.c> section of httpd.conf - this removes the need to rename all the TWiki CGI scripts later in the installation.

• Note the trailing '.' on the AddHandler line.

#
# Document types
#
<IfModule mod_mime.c>
    # TWiki setup - avoid renaming scripts
    AddHandler cgi-script .
...

Configuring TWiki

3. Configure TWiki

Edit the TWiki config file, c:/twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg (or in Cygwin terms, /twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg) as follows:

• NOTE: It should be possible to use c:/twiki format pathnames for Cygwin, given the above binmode setup, but I have not tested this fully - a Cygwin Perl test script does generate binary mode files in this configuration, so it should work with RCS as well (really need a small RCS file corruption test case). Watch out for RCS file corruption carefully if you do try c:/twiki pathnames with Cygwin, and do report your experiences...
• NOTE: Some recent versions of Cygwin (e.g. 1.3.10) seem to create 'symbolic links' from fgrep and egrep to grep, requiring the settings for these commands to point directly to grep (with suitable flags to provide fgrep and egrep behaviour).

# variables that need to be changed when installing on a new server:
# ==================================================================
#                   http://your.domain.com/twiki : link of TWiki icon in upper left corner :
$wikiHomeUrl      = "http://yourdomain.com/bin/view";
#                   Host of TWiki URL :    (Example "http://myhost.com:123")
$defaultUrlHost   = "http://yourdomain.com";
#                   /cgi-bin : cgi-bin path of TWiki URL:
$scriptUrlPath    = "/bin";
#                   /twiki/pub : Public data path of TWiki URL (root of attachments) :
$pubUrlPath       = "/pub";

# NOTE: Next three settings should be valid absolute pathnames using Cygwin; if using
# TWiki:Codev.ActiveState Perl, use z:/twiki format pathnames if your TWiki directory is not on C:.

#                   Public data directory, must match $pubUrlPath :
$pubDir           = "/twiki/pub";
#                   Template directory :
$templateDir      = "/twiki/templates";
#                   Data (topic files) root directory :
$dataDir          = "/twiki/data";

....

#                   Set ENV{'PATH'} explicitly for taint checks ( #!perl -T option ) :
#                   (Note: PATH environment variable is not changed if set to "")

# On Windows, $safeEnvPath needs only one component, the directory where RCS is installed
# - used by 'rcsdiff' to run 'co' program, so PATH must be correct.

# Unix/Linux setting:
# $safeEnvPath      = "/bin:/usr/bin";

# Using Cygwin perl, so can use Unix-like paths, with ':' as separator.
# Note that /usr/bin and /bin are identical due to default /usr/bin mount
# in Cygwin.  Must NOT use 'c:/foo' type paths, as ':' is taken as separator
# meaning that 'c' is interpreted as a pathname, giving Perl taint error.
$safeEnvPath      = "/bin";

# If using ActiveState perl, use Windows paths instead
# $safeEnvPath      = "c:/cygwin/bin";

...

#                   RCS directory (find out by 'which rcs') :
$rcsDir           = "c:/cygwin/bin";

...

#                   Unix egrep command :
$egrepCmd         = "/bin/grep -E";
#                   Unix fgrep command :
$fgrepCmd         = "/bin/grep -F";

For the cookbook install using Cygwin Perl, there's no more TWiki.cfg editing to be done, so you can get onto the next section.

• For TWiki:Codev.ActiveState Perl, you need to make these additional edits further down the file - this is the only place where backslashes are needed. (See TWiki:Codev.CookbookActivePerlSetup for some extra Perl setup that should remove the need for these edits.)

#                   NOTE: When using ActiveState Perl, you must specify
#                   a full Windows-style pathname, using '\\' for backslashes,
#                   for the ls, egrep and fgrep commands, because Cygwin's shell
#                   is not used - forward slashes are OK in Windows everywhere
#                   except in the cmd.exe shell. Drive letters are OK - e.g.
#                   'c:\\foo\\ls' will work.  When using Cygwin perl, just
#                   use the default '/bin/ls' type settings.
#
#                   Unix ls command :
$lsCmd            = "c:\\cygwin\\bin\\ls";
#                   Unix egrep command :
$egrepCmd         = "c:\\cygwin\\bin\\grep";
#                   Unix fgrep command :
$fgrepCmd         = "c:\\cygwin\\bin\\grep";

Editing the CGI scripts

4. Editing the Shebang lines

Now to edit the curiously named 'shebang lines' at the top of the TWiki CGI scripts. This is required so the Apache server knows what interpreter (perl) to use with the scripts.

• You must use the Cygwin shell to do this (unless you are a Perl expert) - don't use the Windows command shell, cmd.exe (aka DOS Prompt)
• Then do the following, which quickly edits the 19 or so files, using Perl - the important lines are in bold.
• Type the Perl line very carefully
  • If you do mis-type the perl line, you can restore from the .backup directory and re-run the command, as it will only edit the original files, not the backups with '~' suffixes.

$ cd /twiki/bin

$ ls
attach   geturl         oops     rdiff     save        testenv  viewfile
changes  installpasswd  passwd   register  search      upload
edit     mailnotify     preview  rename    statistics  view

$ mkdir .backup 
$ cp * .backup

$ head -1 view
#!/usr/bin/perl -wT

$ perl -pi~ -e 's;#!/usr/bin/perl;#!c:/cygwin/bin/perl;' *[a-z]

$ head -1 view
#!c:/cygwin/bin/perl -wT

$ ls
attach    geturl          oops      rdiff      save         testenv   viewfile~
attach~   geturl~         oops~     rdiff~     save~        testenv~  view~
changes   installpasswd   passwd    register   search       upload
changes~  installpasswd~  passwd~   register~  search~      upload~
edit      mailnotify      preview   rename     statistics   view
edit~     mailnotify~     preview~  rename~    statistics~  viewfile

If for some reason the edit goes wrong, just type cp .backup/* . (while within the bin directory) to restore the original distribution files. Use ls -a to see the .backup directory, and ls -a .backup to view its contents.

Optional step: you can do 'rm *~' to clean out the backups made by Perl, but that's not essential as all the original files cannot be executed. If you do this, type the command very carefully, as a space after the '*' will wipe out all files in this directory!

5. Minor changes to TWiki scripts

TWiki Dec 2001 release only - fixed in Feb 2003 release

If using the Dec 2001 release, you now need to make some minor edits to files in the c:/twiki/bin directory, using a suitable editor (remember to use nano -w filename if you prefer nano to vi - or just use the Windows PFE editor).

• Edit the register script in /twiki/bin - change line 200 to read as follows (insert the MIME::Base64:: part):

         return $user . ':{SHA}' . MIME::Base64::encode_base64(Digest::SHA1::sha1($passwd));

• If you are using TWiki:Codev.ActiveState Perl, you also need to update testenv, see TWiki:Codev.CookbookActivePerlTestenv

Perl module installation

6. Installing required Perl modules

Some additional Perl modules are needed, above and beyond the standard modules installed with Cygwin. Fortunately, there is an automated tool that makes it easy to do this - it's called cpan, and goes to the Perl module archive site, http://www.cpan.org/, to download all required modules, and then build and install them.

Note: if you are unable to get cpan working in your environment, don't panic; you can still install the modules manually. In this case, follow the instructions in CPAN: The Hard Way.

First of all, you need to get the cpan tool configured and working - this is only necessary once. From the Cygwin shell, type the following (putting the export command in ~/.profile is recommended to make this setting persistent). Without the TEMP variable, some modules may fail to install on Windows 2000 and higher.

$ export TEMP=/c/temp
$ cpan

NOTE: If you are behind a non-proxy-based firewall that requires the use of passive FTP, the initial downloads of files using Net::FTP may appear to hang - just wait 5 or more minutes, however, and the CPAN tool should eventually hit on ncftpget, which is part of Cygwin and does work OK. If this doesn't work and you are behind a typical NAT-based firewall, try doing the following at the Cygwin shell before running cpan - this forces Net::FTP to use passive FTP, letting it get through such firewalls:

$ export FTP_PASSIVE=1

Once some initial files are downloaded, you are asked to select your continent and country, and then mirror sites - just type the number of the mirror sites you want to use (pick a few in case one is down):

...
(28) Turkey
(29) Ukraine
(30) United Kingdom

Select your country (or several nearby countries) [] 30

(1) ftp://cpan.teleglobe.net/pub/CPAN
(2) ftp://ftp.clockerz.net/pub/CPAN/
(3) ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/CPAN/
(4) ftp://ftp.flirble.org/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/
(5) ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/
(6) ftp://ftp.plig.org/pub/CPAN/
(7) ftp://mirror.uklinux.net/pub/CPAN/
(8) ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/CPAN/
(9) ftp://usit.shef.ac.uk/pub/packages/CPAN/
Select as many URLs as you like,
put them on one line, separated by blanks [] 4 7 8

Enter another URL or RETURN to quit: []
New set of picks:
  ftp://ftp.flirble.org/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/
  ftp://mirror.uklinux.net/pub/CPAN/
  ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/CPAN/

Eventually, you'll get to the cpan installer's shell prompt, where you need to install a few modules - the tool will do all the work for you.

• NOTE: You will need to have previously installed the Cygwin make and gcc packages, which are required by the CPAN installer (gcc is required for modules that include C language code) - you can install them now by launching Cygwin's setup.exe from c:/download/cygwin-dist (no need to exit the CPAN installer).

cpan shell -- CPAN exploration and modules installation (v1.59_54)
cpan> install Net::SMTP
May already be installed - if it is, try 'force install', since it's useful to be able to set
firewall and passive FTP configuration when using Net::FTP.  Make sure you answer 'Y' to the question 
about whether you want to configure this package.
cpan> install Digest::SHA1
Lots of output about how CPAN finds, builds and installs the module - watch for 
any errors, though it should work fine if you have installed the Cygwin packages listed above (particularly 'gcc' and 'make').
cpan> install MIME::Base64
May already be installed.

CPAN: The Hard Way

$ perl Makefile.PL
$ make
$ make test
$ make install

Re-locking RCS files

7. Re-locking files

First, some testing: in your browser, go to http://yourdomain.com/bin/testenv - this provides a lot of detail, including warnings. Write down the Apache server's userid that is given by this script - typically either 'system' or 'administrator' - I'll assume 'system' from now on.

• If the testenv script doesn't work, go back and check the configuration of the Apache httpd.conf file, and TWiki.cfg. Have a look at the Apache error log, c:/apache/logs/error_log, and the TWiki error log, /twiki/data/log*.txt.

This 'system' user must own the locks on the RCS files, which are shipped with the lock held by 'nobody'. The reason this matters is that no revisions will be tracked by RCS unless the Apache userid matches that of the RCS file locks.

You can re-lock files using rcs -u and rcs -l, but it's a painfully manual process. Instead, just use Perl again to mass-edit all the RCS files, as follows:

• NOTE: The 'NR <= 10' part of the Perl command ensures that it only operates on the first 10 lines, to avoid editing the body of RCS files for topics that happen to include the text 'nobody:' (like this one...)

$ cd /twiki/data

$ : Make a backup of all files
$ tar czvf all-files.tar.gz */*

$ : Test edit a single file to check your typing
$ perl -pi~~~ -e 'NR <= 10 && s/nobody:/system:/ ' Main/WebIndex.txt,v

$ diff Main/WebIndex.txt,v Main/WebIndex.txt,v~~~
5c5
<       system:1.2; strict;
---
>       nobody:1.2; strict;

$ : Now edit all the RCS files at once - use cursor-up to recall previous command
$ perl -pi~~~ -e 'NR <= 10 && s/nobody:/system:/ ' */*,v

$ : Check for any remaining files not edited
$ grep 'strict;$' */*,v | grep -v system

$ : Clean up - type this very carefully 
$ rm */*~~~

• If something goes wrong: to restore your existing files from the backup, just type tar xzvf all-files.tar.gz and all your files, both .txt and .txt,v, will be back as they were before the edits.

You have now re-locked all the RCS files and are almost ready to start using TWiki!

Email setup

8. Email setup for notification and registration

You need to set the SMTPMAILHOST in TWikiPreferences to an SMTP email host that is reachable and currently working. Otherwise you may get a confusing message from TWiki (fixed in TWiki:Codev.TWikiRelease01Feb2003) when registering new users or running mailnotify (for WebNotify), along the lines of:

   Software Error: Can't call method "mail" on an undefined value at ../lib/TWiki/Net.pm line 187.

There are other settings to be made in TWikiPreferences, e.g. the WIKIWEBMASTER and (probably) the SMTPSENDERHOST (normally your mail server or TWiki server). See the TWikiInstallationGuide for more details, what's listed here is just enough to let you run the basic tests.

Testing your TWiki installation

It is important to test your TWiki installation before you release it to other users or put any significant data into it.

Here are the main things to test:

• testenv - use http://yourdomain.com/bin/testenv and check for warnings
  • If you are having installation trouble, download the latest testenv from TWiki:Codev/TWikiAlphaRelease and install it in c:/twiki/bin. (From TWiki.org, just click CVSget:bin/testenv to get this script)
• Page viewing (view script) - click around a few pages and make sure the links are OK
• RCS diffs (rdiff script) - click on the Diffs link and on the '>' links at bottom of page
• Edit a page, and register as a new user - tests page creation, use of register script to create a new user entry in /twiki/data/.htpasswd (the Apache password file), ability to send email via Net::SMTP, and whether SMTPMAILHOST was set correctly in TWikiPreferences (if it is unset it will not use Net::SMTP and will almost inevitably fail silently).
  • If you get a failure to register or send email, check the Apache error log, and that all CPAN modules were installed correctly in Step 6, Installing required Perl modules.
  • Try typing tail -30 /c/apache/logs/error_log to see last 30 errors from Apache
• Edit a page - check revision increased and set to current date/time
• Edit the same page using another browser or PC, logging in as a different user - check there's a lock message (which you can override) and no double lines
• Check the Apache error_log file to see if there are any RCS errors so far
• Index - tests whether ls and grep are working
• Search - more tests for whether ls and grep are working
• Attachments - tests access to /twiki/pub directory.
  • Try a binary attachment upload and check the number of bytes in the file has not changed - if it has, see the Install Cygwin section's note on the default text file type.
• Check the Apache error_log file again

Troubleshooting

If anything doesn't work, go back and check the configuration of the Apache httpd.conf file, and TWiki.cfg. Have a look at the Apache error log, c:/apache/logs/error_log, and the TWiki error log, /twiki/data/log*.txt, and if necessary enable debugging on selected scripts (the commands are right at the top of each script) - the results go into /twiki/data/debug.txt. There is also a /twiki/data/warning.txt file that contains less serious messages.

See TWiki:Codev.TWikiPatches in case there are patches (i.e. specific code changes) for particular problems that may affect you (e.g. TWiki:Codev.ChangePasswordOnWin2K).

If you find that the Index feature doesn't work, or topic name searches fail, you should check you have set $egrepCmd and $fgrepCmd correctly, as mentioned above.

Permissions

TWiki:Codev.CygWin has several models for how it does security:

• By default, it only implements the Unix 'write' and 'execute' permissions bits - the former is controlled by the Windows Read-Only attribute, while the latter is automatically assigned to files named *.exe or *.com, and to files whose first line is a shebang (i.e. #!/bin/something). This is what has been used for this cookbook.
• You can enable the 'ntea' or 'ntsec' models, which will increase security but are also likely to introduce permission problems.

I have not had any problems with TWiki permissions on Windows, unlike Linux/Unix, which is probably because I'm using the default security model for Cygwin. If you use the other models, you may still be OK if you have local admin rights, and Apache is running as the SYSTEM user (which it uses if started as a service). If you do have trouble in this area, see the TWikiInstallationGuide's advice, some of which will apply to TWiki:Codev.CygWin, and log any issues in TWiki:Codev.WindowsInstallCookbookComments.

Next Steps

See the TWikiInstallationGuide for other setup. In particular, you'll probably want to refer to the section on basic authentication - remember to use c:/twiki type filenames (i.e. Windows format) since you are using Apache for Windows.

Improved authentication

You may want to investigate TWiki:Codev.WindowsInstallModNTLM, which describes how to add an Apache module so that TWiki:Codev.InternetExplorer users are automatically authenticated based on their Windows domain login - this avoids TWiki:Codev.GettingTheUsernameWrong and TWiki:Codev.ForgettingPasswords, which are usually very common among TWiki users.

As of the TWiki:Codev.TWikiRelease01Sep2004, there is built in support for several apache based authentication modes. The TWikiInstallationGuide has step-by-step instructions.

Improved performance

See TWiki:Codev.WindowsModPerlInstallCookbook and TWiki:Codev.ModPerl for information on installing TWiki under Apache's mod_perl - this is somewhat more complex and follows a different model, so it's best to get some experience with TWiki, Apache and Perl first.

Format of filenames

In your TWiki on Windows installation, it's worth remembering that:

• Apache configuration files (e.g. the .htaccess file and c:/apache/conf/httpd.conf) always use Windows format paths, with forward slashes, e.g. c:/twiki
• The same is true for the first line of the TWiki Perl scripts (since this line is interpreted by Apache), e.g. c:/cygwin/bin/perl
• All other lines in the Perl scripts use Unix format paths, e.g. /twiki (using Cygwin Perl as per this cookbook)
  • If you are using TWiki:Codev.ActivePerl, that will use Windows format paths, e.g. c:/twiki
• Depending on the Perl version used (Cygwin or TWiki:Codev.ActivePerl), the TWiki.cfg file uses a mixture of Unix and Cygwin format paths - stick to the format used in the installation step for TWiki.cfg
• RCS always uses Unix format paths, e.g. /twiki

Credits

Material in this cookbook is heavily based on the enormous number of contributions in TWiki:Codev.TWikiOnWindowsArchive and related topics - too many people to thank, but have a look at the contributor list to TWiki:Codev.TWikiOnWindowsArchive to get an idea!

People who've tested or reviewed this document and provided valuable feedback include:

-- TWiki:Main.BernardFarrell
-- TWiki:Main.BerndSchiffer
-- TWiki:Main.ChrisKeith
-- TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie
-- TWiki:Main.DavideBaroncelli
-- TWiki:Main.DavidLeBlanc
-- TWiki:Main.JerryWard
-- TWiki:Main.MartinWittmann
-- TWiki:Main.MaryDeMarco
-- TWiki:Main.MattWilkie
-- TWiki:Main.MikeBytnar
-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
-- TWiki:Main.RossC
-- TWiki:Main.TorbenGB
-- TWiki:Main.VictorGoh
-- TWiki:Main.WolframJahn

TWiki Upgrade Guide

Upgrade from the previous TWiki 01-Feb-2003 production release to TWiki 01-Sep-2004

Overview

This guide describes how to upgrade from TWiki 01-Feb-2003 to TWiki 01-Sep-2004. This 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
• To upgrade from a 01-Feb-2003 standard installation to the latest 01-Sep-2004 TWiki Production Release, follow the instructions below
• NOTE: To upgrade from a pre-01-Feb-2003 TWiki, start with TWikiUpgradeTo01Feb2003
• To upgrade from a Beta of the new release, or if you made custom modifications to the application, read through all new reference documentation, then use the procedure below as a guideline

Major Changes Compared to TWiki 01-Feb-2003

• Automatic upgrade script, and easier first-time installation
• Attractive new skins, using a standard set of CSS classes, and a TWikiSkinBrowser 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 more enhancements, see the complete change log at TWikiHistory

Automated Upgrade Procedure from 01-Feb-2003 to 01-Sep-2004 Release

With the 01-Sep-2004 Release, for the first time, comes a helper script for upgrading from a previous version. This feature is currently at beta stage, it has only been sanity tested under Unix. It should be worth giving it a try, it won't mess up your existing TWiki installation because it leaves that untouched.

If you would prefer to do things manually than trust a beta script, skip to the manual upgrade procedure below.

The upgrade script is called "UpgradeTwiki", and is found in the root of the distribution.

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 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 new_twiki>

Assuming all goes well, UpgradeTwiki will give you the final instructions.

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 have done tricky stuff with $OS in your existing TWiki.cfg file, then you will need to manually examine the new TWiki.cfg file and possibly put your tricky changes in there manually

If you use it, and would be kind enough to add your experiences to TWiki:Codev.UpgradeTwiki, it would be much appreciated. The report of your experience will help to make UpgradeTwiki more robust.

Manual Upgrade Procedure from 01-Feb-2003 to 01-Sep-2004 Release

The following steps describe the upgrade assuming that $TWIKIROOT is the root of your current 01-Feb-2003 release. As written this will require some downtime. A process for switching over without downtime is described at the end of this section.

1. Back up and prepare:
   • Back up all existing TWiki directories $TWIKIROOT/bin, $TWIKIROOT/pub, $TWIKIROOT/data, $TWIKIROOT/templates, $TWIKIROOT/lib
   • Create a temporary directory and unpack the ZIP file there
2. Update files in TWiki root:
   • Overwrite all *.html and *.txt files in $TWIKIROOT with the new ones
3. Update template files:
   • Overwrite all template files in $TWIKIROOT/templates with the new ones
     • If you have customized your templates, make sure to merge those changes back to the new files
   • If you have customized skins or loaded new skins, make sure to merge or apply those changes to the new files
   • Change to view templates and skins:
     • Add %BROADCASTMESSAGE% somewhere on the top of the rendered HTML page (see the new view.tmpl for reference)
   • Changes to edit templates and skins:
     • Change the form action from preview to save:
       <form name="main" action="%SCRIPTURLPATH%/save%SCRIPTSUFFIX%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%" method="post">
     • Change the topic action to the following:
       %TMPL:DEF{"topicaction"}%
<input type="submit" class="twikiSubmit" name="action" value="Cancel" id="cancel" />
<input type="submit" class="twikiSubmit" name="action" value="Preview" id="preview" />
<input type="submit" class="twikiSubmit" name="action" value="Checkpoint" id="checkpoint" />
<input type="submit" class="twikiSubmit" name="action" value="QuietSave" id="quietsave" />
<input type="submit" class="twikiSubmit" name="action" value="Save" id="save" />%TMPL:END%
4. Update script files:
   • Overwrite all script files in $TWIKIROOT/bin with the new ones.
     • If necessary, rename the scrips to include the required extension, e.g. .cgi
   • Edit $TWIKIROOT/bin/setlib.cfg and point $twikiLibPath to the absolute file path of $TWIKIROOT/lib
   • Edit your existing $TWIKIROOT/bin/.htaccess file to include a directive for the new rdiffauth script:
     <Files "rdiffauth">
    require valid-user
</Files>
   • Pay attention to the file and directory permissions, the scripts need to be executable, e.g. chmod 775 $TWIKIROOT/bin/*
     • Certain hosted environments require a 755 (do so if you get a "Premature end of script headers" messages in the Apache error log)
   • For Windows hosts, make sure the correct path to the perl interpreter is changed in the first line of every script file. See also WindowsInstallCookbook
5. Update library files:
   • Overwrite the TWiki.cfg configuration file in $TWIKIROOT/lib with the new one
   • Restore the configuration values from the backup. You typically need to configure just the ones in the section "variables that need to be changed when installing on a new server"
   • Overwrite the TWiki.pm library in $TWIKIROOT/lib with the new one
   • Copy and overwrite all subdirectories below $TWIKIROOT/lib with the new ones. Make sure to preserve any extra Plugins you might have in $TWIKIROOT/lib/TWiki/Plugins
   • Pay attention to the file and directory permissions, the library files should not be executable but the directory files should be, e.g. chmod 664 `find -type f $TWIKIROOT/lib` (for files) and chmod 775 `find -type d $TWIKIROOT/lib` (for directories)
6. Update data files:
   • Run the bin/testenv script from the browser (e.g. http://localhost/bin/testenv) to verify if the cgi-scripts are running as user nobody. In case not:
     • The *,v RCS repository files delivered with the installation package are locked by user nobody and need to be changed to the user of your cgi-scripts, for example www-data
     • Run the testenv script from your browser; in the Fix line you can relock all the rcs files (recommended)
     • Alternatively, execute the shell script commands described in TWikiInstallationGuide#StepTwo
   • In the temporary twiki/data/TWiki directory where you unzipped the installation package:
     • Remove the files you do not want to upgrade: InterWikis.*, Trash.TWikiRegistration.*, TWikiRegistrationPub.*, WebPreferences.*, WebStatistics.* and all WebTopic* files
   • Rename in the temporary directory the file $TWIKIROOT/data/TWiki/TWikiPreferences.* to TWikiPreferencesSave.*.
   • Move all remaining *.txt and *.txt,v files from the temporary data/TWiki directory to your $TWIKIROOT/data/TWiki directory, overwriting the existing ones
   • Merge your original TWikiPreferencesSave.txt settings into $TWIKIROOT/data/TWiki/TWikiPreferences.txt. Notable changes are:
     • New WIKIWEBMASTERNAME setting to avoid notifications being trapped by spam filters
     • New ATTACHFILESIZELIMIT setting for maximum size of FileAttachments in KB, 0 for no limit
     • New READTOPICPREFS and TOPICOVERRIDESUSER settings to allow override Preference settings in topics
     • Changed FINALPREFERENCES:
       • Set FINALPREFERENCES = PREVIEWBGIMAGE, WIKITOOLNAME, WIKIWEBMASTER, SMTPMAILHOST, SMTPSENDERHOST, ALLOWWEBMANAGE, READTOPICPREFS, TOPICOVERRIDESUSER
   • Move the data/_default directory from the temporary location to your $TWIKIROOT/data directory
   • Make sure that the directories and files below $TWIKIROOT/data are writable by your cgi-script user
7. Adapt the other webs (all other than TWiki and _default):
   • Add WebLeftBar topic. See WebLeftBarExample for a clean example, and WebLeftBarCookbook for more information. (WebLeftBar is used by the PatternSkin skin)
   • Add WebSearchAdvanced topic, which has this one line:
     %INCLUDE{"%TWIKIWEB%.WebSearchAdvanced"}%
   • Consider changing WebPreferences settings:
     • New NOAUTOLINK setting to prevent automatic linking of WikiWords and acronyms
     • Changed FINALPREFERENCES:
       • Set FINALPREFERENCES = NOSEARCHALL, ATTACHFILESIZELIMIT, WIKIWEBMASTER, WEBCOPYRIGHT, WEBTOPICLIST, DENYWEBVIEW, ALLOWWEBVIEW, DENYWEBCHANGE, ALLOWWEBCHANGE, DENYWEBRENAME, ALLOWWEBRENAME
8. Update pub files:
   • Move all subdirectories below pub/TWiki from your temporary directory into your $TWIKIROOT/pub/TWiki directory
   • Make sure that the directories and files below $TWIKIROOT/pub/TWiki are writable by your cgi-script user
   • Move all files in pub/icn directory from the temporary location to your $TWIKIROOT/pub/icn directory
9. Verify installation:
   • Execute the $TWIKIROOT/bin/testenv script from your browser (e.g. http://localhost/bin/testenv) to see if it reports any issues; address any potential problems
   • Test your updated TWiki installation to see if you can view, create, edit and rename topics; upload and move attachments; register users
   • Test if the installed Plugins work as expected. You should see the list of installed Plugins in TWiki.WebHome

Note: These steps assume a downtime during the time of upgrade. You could install the new version in parallel to the existing one and switch over in an instant without affecting the users. As a guideline, install the new version into $TWIKIROOT/bin1, $TWIKIROOT/lib1, $TWIKIROOT/templates1, $TWIKIROOT/data/TWiki1 (from data/TWiki), $TWIKIROOT/pub/TWiki1 (from pub/TWiki), and configure TWiki.cfg to point to the same data and pub directory like the existing installation. Once tested and ready to go, reconfigure $TWIKIROOT/bin1/setlib.cfg and $TWIKIROOT/lib1/TWiki.cfg, then rename $TWIKIROOT/bin to $TWIKIROOT/bin2, $TWIKIROOT/bin1 to $TWIKIROOT/bin. Do the same with the lib, templates and data/TWiki directories.

Known Issues

• Check TWiki:Codev/KnownIssuesOfTWiki01Sep2004 for known issues of TWiki 01-Sep-2004 production release

-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny - 29 Aug 2004

TWiki User Authentication

TWiki site access control and user activity tracking options

TWiki does not authenticate users internally, it depends on the REMOTE_USER environment variable. This variable is set when you enable Basic Authentication (.htaccess) or SSL "secure server" authentication (https protocol).

TWiki uses visitor identification to keep track of who made changes to topics at what time and to manage a wide range of personal site settings. This gives a complete audit trail of changes and activity.

Authentication Options

No special installation steps are required if the server is already authenticated. If it isn't, you have these options for controlling user access:

1. No login at all: Forget about authentication to make your site completely public - anyone can browse and edit freely, in classic Wiki mode. All visitors are assigned the TWikiGuest default identity, so you can't track individual user activity.
   • How: Default, no web server configuration necessary
2. No login to view; require login to edit: Keeping track of who changed what and when, while keeping view access unrestricted is desirable in most TWiki deployments. This option is not suitable if you need TWikiAccessControl for view restricted content since TWiki does not know who a user is when looking at content.
   • How: Use Basic Authentication to control access by protecting key scripts: attach, edit, installpasswd, manage, preview, rename, save, upload. The TWikiInstallationGuide has step-by-step instructions.
3. No login to view unless necessary; require login to edit: You prefer not to bother the user with login for unrestricted content, but you need TWikiAccessControl for view restricted content. There are two ways to accomplish this:
   • How 1: Use Basic Authentication with Partial Authentication (described below)
   • How 2: Use one of the Session TWiki:Plugins where you give the user the option to login and logout.
4. Require login to view and edit: Most restrictive, but TWiki knows who the user is at all times. There are two ways to accomplish this:
   • How 1: Use Basic Authentication to authenticate the whole twiki/bin directory. Consult your web server documentation.
   • How 1: Use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer; HTTPS) to authenticate and secure the whole server. Consult your web server documentation.

Partial Authentication

Tracking by IP address is an experimental feature, enabled in lib/TWiki.cfg. It lets you combine open access to some functions, with authentication on others, with full user activity tracking:

• Normally, the REMOTE_USER environment variable is set for the scripts that are under authentication. If, for example, the edit, save and preview scripts are authenticated, but not view, you would get your WikiName in preview for the %WIKIUSERNAME% variable, but view will show TWikiGuest instead of your WikiName.
• TWiki can be configured to remember the IP address/username pair whenever an authentication happens (edit topic, attach file). Once remembered, the non-authenticated scripts, like view, will show the correct username instead of TWikiGuest.
• Enable this feature by setting the $doRememberRemoteUser flag in TWiki.cfg. TWiki then persistently stores the IP address/username pairs in the file, $remoteUserFilename, which is "$dataDir/remoteusers.txt" by default.
• Copy the view script to viewauth (or better, create a symbolic link)
• Add viewauth to the list of authenticated scripts in the twiki/bin/.htaccess file. The view script should not be listed in the .htaccess file.
• This approach can fail if the IP address changes due to dynamically assigned IP addresses or proxy servers.

Quick Authentication Test - Use the %WIKIUSERNAME% variable to return your current identity:

• You are TWikiGuest

TWiki Username vs. Login Username

This section applies only if your TWiki site is installed on a server that is both authenticated and on an intranet.

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, provided that the username pair exists in the TWikiUsers topic. This is also handled automatically when you register.

• In the original TWiki distribution, in twiki/data, there are two registration form topics, TWikiRegistration and TWikiRegistrationPub. The original form includes an intranet Login Username field. For Basic Authentication, the original form is replaced by the Pub version. If you started using TWiki on Basic Authentication and want to change, you have to switch back forms for future use, and manually correct the existing entries, by editing TWikiUsers, adding the Login Username for each member - PeterThoeny - pthoeny - 01 Jan 1999 - and also in the .htpasswd file, where you can either replace the WikiNames or duplicate the entries and have both, so both usernames will work.

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. Ex:

Main.WikiUsername or %MAINWEB%.WikiUsername

This points WikiUser to the TWiki.Main web, where user registration pages are stored, 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

Change and reset passwords using forms on regular pages. Use TWikiAccessControl to restrict use as required.

• The ChangePassword form ( TWiki/ChangePassword ):

Forgot your old password? Then use ResetPassword instead. Please only use ResetPassword in case you really forgot your password. Thank you.

Your WikiName:	**
Old password:	**
New password:	**
Retype new password:	**
	(Fields marked ** are required)

After submitting this form your password will be changed.

If you have questions please contact the TWiki webmaster twikiadmin@clausbrodWeAreNotAmusedAboutSpam.de.

• The ResetPassword form ( TWiki/ResetPassword ):

Please only use this ResetPassword form in case you really forgot your password. Otherwise just change it using ChangePassword. Thank you.

Your WikiName:	**
New password:	**
Retype new password:	**
	(Fields marked ** are required)

After submitting this form you will see a page with your new password appearing encrypted.

You will have to e-mail this information to the Wiki webmaster, twikiadmin@clausbrodWeAreNotAmusedAboutSpam.de, who will set your account to use the new password.

-- TWiki:Main.MikeMannix - 19 May 2002
-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny - 25 Apr 2004

TWiki Access Control

Restricting read and write access to topics and webs, by Users and groups

TWikiAccessControl allows you restrict access to single topics and entire webs, by individual user and by user Groups, in three areas: view; edit & attach; and rename/move/delete. Access control, combined with TWikiUserAuthentication, lets you easily create and manage an extremely flexible, fine-grained privilege system.

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 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 focussed.

• 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).

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 in .htpasswd 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.

Users can be authenticated using Basic Authentication (htaccess) or SSL (secure server). In either case, TWikiUserAuthentication is required in order to track user identities, and use User and Group access control.

The default visitor name is TWikiGuest. This is the non-authenticated user.

Managing Groups

Groups are defined by group topics created in the Main web, like the TWikiAdminGroup. To create a new group:

1. Edit TWikiGroups by entering a new topic with a name that ends in Group. Example:
   • SomeGroup
2. Set Preferences for two Variables in the new group topic:
   • Set GROUP = < list of Users and/or Groups >
   • Set ALLOWTOPICCHANGE = < list of Users and/or Groups >
   • The GROUP variable is a comma-separated list of Users and/or other Groups. Example:
     • Set GROUP = Main.SomeUser, Main.OtherUser, Main.SomeGroup
   • ALLOWTOPICCHANGE 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

Restricting Write Access

You can define who is allowed to make changes to a web or a topic.

Deny Editing by Topic

Denying editing of a topic also restricts file attachment; both privileges are assigned together.

• Define one or both of these variables in a topic, preferably at the end of the page:
  • Set DENYTOPICCHANGE = < list of Users and Groups >
  • Set ALLOWTOPICCHANGE = < list of Users and Groups >

• DENYTOPICCHANGE defines Users or Groups that are not allowed to make changes to the topic, with a comma-delimited list. Example:
  • Set DENYTOPICCHANGE = Main.SomeBadBoy, Main.SomeBadGirl, Main.SomeHackerGroup

• ALLOWTOPICCHANGE defines Users or Groups that are allowed to make changes to the topic. It is a comma delimited list of Users and Groups. Example:
  • Set ALLOWTOPICCHANGE = Main.SomeGoodGuy, Main.SomeGoodGirl, Main.TWikiAdminGroup

• DENYTOPICCHANGE is evaluated before ALLOWTOPICCHANGE. Access is denied if the authenticated person is in the DENYTOPICCHANGE list, or not in the ALLOWTOPICCHANGE list. Access is granted in case DENYTOPICCHANGE and ALLOWTOPICCHANGE is not defined.

Deny Editing by Web

Restricting web-level editing blocks creating new topics, changing topics or attaching files.

• Define one or both of these variable in the WebPreferences topic:
  • Set DENYWEBCHANGE = < list of Users and Groups >
  • Set ALLOWWEBCHANGE = < list of Users and Groups >

The same rules apply as for restricting topics, with these additions:

• DENYTOPICCHANGE (in topic) overrides DENYWEBCHANGE (in WebPreferences)
• ALLOWTOPICCHANGE (in topic) overrides ALLOWWEBCHANGE (in WebPreferences)

Restricting Rename Access

You can define who is allowed to rename, move or delete a topic, or rename a web.

Deny Renaming by Topic

To allow a user to rename, move or delete a topic, they also need write (editing) permission. They also need write access to change references in referring topics.

• Define one or both of these variables in a topic, preferably at the end of the topic:
  • Set DENYTOPICRENAME = < list of Users and Groups >
  • Set ALLOWTOPICRENAME = < list of Users and Groups >

• DENYTOPICCRENAME defines Users or Groups that are not allowed to rename the topic. It is a comma delimited list of Users and Groups. Example:
  • Set DENYTOPICRENAME = Main.SomeBadBoy, Main.SomeBadGirl, Main.SomeHackerGroup

• ALLOWTOPICRENAME defines Users or Groups that are allowed to rename the topic. It is a comma delimited list of Users and Groups. Example:
  • Set ALLOWTOPICRENAME = Main.SomeGoodGuy, Main.SomeGoodGirl, Main.TWikiAdminGroup

• DENYTOPICRENAME is evaluated before ALLOWTOPICRENAME. Access is denied if the authenticated person is in the DENYTOPICRENAME list, or not in the ALLOWTOPICRENAME list. Access is granted in case DENYTOPICRENAME and ALLOWTOPICRENAME is not defined.

Deny Renaming by Web

You can define restrictions of who is allowed to rename a TWiki web.

• Define one or both of these variable in the WebPreferences topic:
  • Set DENYWEBRENAME = < list of Users and Groups >
  • Set ALLOWWEBRENAME = < list of Users and Groups >

The same rules apply as for topics, with these additions:

• DENYTOPICRENAME (in topic) overrides DENYWEBRENAME (in WebPreferences)
• ALLOWTOPICRENAME (in topic) overrides ALLOWWEBRENAME (in WebPreferences)

Restricting Read Access

You can define who is allowed to see a web.

Deny Viewing by Topic

Technically it is possible to restrict read access to an individual topic based on DENYTOPICVIEW / ALLOWTOPICVIEW preferences variables, provided that the view script is authenticated. However this setup is not recommended since all content is searchable within a web - a search will turn up view restricted topics.

Deny Viewing by 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:

• obfuscating webs: Insecure but handy method to hide new webs until content is ready for deployment.
• 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.

Obfuscate Webs

The idea is to keep a web hidden by not publishing its URL and by preventing the all webs search option from accessing obfuscated webs. Do so by enabling the NOSEARCHALL variable in WebPreferences:

• Set NOSEARCHALL = on

This setup can be useful to hide a new web until content its ready for deployment.

Obfuscating webs is 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:

1. 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.
2. Hide the web from an "all webs" search. Enable this restriction with the NOSEARCHALL variable in its WebPreferences topic:
   • Set NOSEARCHALL = on
3. Add view to the list of authenticated scripts in the .htaccess file.

This method only works if the view script is authenticated, which means that all Users have to login, even for read-only access. (An open guest account, like TWikiGuest, can get around this, allowing anyone to login to a common account with, for example, view-only access for public webs.) TWikiInstallationGuide has more on Basic Authentication, using the .htaccess file.

Authenticate and Restricting Selected Webs Only

Use the following setup to provide unrestricted viewing access to open webs, with authentication only on selected webs:

1. 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.
2. Hide the web from an "all webs" search. Enable this restriction with the NOSEARCHALL variable in its WebPreferences topic:
   • Set NOSEARCHALL = on
3. Enable the $doRememberRemoteUser flag in lib/TWiki.cfg as described in TWikiUserAuthentication. TWiki will now remember the IP address of an authenticated user.
4. Copy the view script to viewauth (or better, create a symbolic link)
5. Add viewauth to the list of authenticated scripts in the .htaccess file. The view script should not be listed in the .htaccess file.

When a user accesses a web where you enabled view restriction, TWiki will redirect from the view script to the viewauth script once (this happens only if the user has never edited a topic). Doing so will ask for authentication. The viewauth script shows the requested topic if the user could log on and if the user is authorized to see that web.

Authenticating webs is not very secure, as there is a way to circumvent the read access restriction. It can be useful in certain situations - for example, to simplify site organization and clutter, by hiding low traffic webs - but is not recommended for securing sensitive content.

Hiding Control Settings

To hide access control settings from normal browser viewing, place them in comment markers.

<!--
   * Set DENYTOPICCHANGE = Main.SomeGroup
-->

The SuperAdminGroup

By mistyping a user or group name in the ALLOWTOPICCHANGE setting, it's possible to lock a topic so that no-one can edit it from a browser. To avoid this, you can create Web-based superusers:

• Set the $superAdminGroup variable in lib/TWiki.cfg to the name of a group of Users who are always allowed to edit/view topics.

$superAdminGroup = "TWikiAdminGroup";

• The default setting is not to have superusers.

-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny - 04 May 2002
-- TWiki:Main.MikeMannix - 12 May 2002

TWiki Text Formatting

Working in TWiki is as easy as typing in text - exactly like email. 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 - refer back to this page in a pop-up window from the Edit screen.

TWiki Editing Shorthand

1st paragraph

2nd paragraph

---++ Sushi

---+++ Maguro

*Bold*

_Italic_

__Bold italic__

=Fixed font=

==Bold fixed==

_This works_,
_this not _

<verbatim>
class CatAnimal {
  void purr() {
    <code here>
  }
}
</verbatim>

class CatAnimal {
  void purr() {
    <code here>
  }
}

-------

   * bullet item

   * level 1
      * level 2

   1. Sushi
   1. Dim Sum

   A. Sushi
   A. Dim Sum

   i. Sushi
   i. Dim Sum

   $ Sushi: Japan
   $ Dim Sum: S.F.

| *L* | *C* | *R* |
| A2 |  2  |  2 |
| A3 |  3  |  3 |
| multi span |||
| A4-6 | four | four |
|^| five | five |



|^| six | six |

WebNotify

Main.TWikiUsers

[[wiki syntax]]

[[Main.TWiki users]]

escaped:
![[wiki syntax]]

[[WikiSyntax][syntax]]

[[http://gnu.org][GNU]]

[[http://xml.org XML]]

[[WikiWord#NotThere]]

[[#MyAnchor][Jump]]

#MyAnchor To here

!SunOS

 <noautolink>
 RedHat &
 SuSE
 </noautolink>

[[mailto:a@z.com Mail]]

[[mailto:?subject=Hi Hi]]

Using HTML

You can use just about any HTML tag without a problem - however, there are a few usability and technical considerations to keep in mind.

HTML and TWiki Usability

• TIP: On collaboration pages, it's preferable NOT to use HTML, and to use TWiki shorthand instead - this keeps the text uncluttered and easy to edit.
• NOTE: TWiki is designed to work with a wide range of browsers and computer platforms, holding to HTML 4.0 and XHTML 1.0 compatibility in the standard installation - adding raw HTML, particularly browser-specific tags (or any other mark-up that doesn't degrade well) will reduce compatibility.
• Recommondations when using HTML:
  • Use XHTML 1.0 Transitional syntax
  • Do not span a tag over more then one line
  • Remove all empty lines. TWiki inserts <p /> paragraph tags on empty lines, which causes problems if done between tags that do not allow paragraph tags, like for example between table tags.

TWiki HTML Rendering

• TWiki converts shorthand notation to XHTML 1.0 for display. To copy a fully marked-up page, simply view source in your browser and save the contents.
  • If you need to save HTML frequently, you may want to check out TWiki:Plugins/GenHTMLAddon - it will "generate a directory containing rendered versions of a set of TWiki pages together with any attached files."
• NOTE: The opening and closing angle brackets - <...> - of an HTML tag must be on the same line, or the tag will be broken.
  • This feature allows you to enter an unclosed angle bracket - as a greater than or less than symbol - and have it automatically rendered as if you had entered its HTML character, <, ex: a < b
  • If you're pasting in preformatted HTML text and notice problems, check the file in a text processor with no text wrap. Also, save without hard line breaks on text wrap, in your HTML editing program.

TWiki and JavaScript

You can use JavaScript for your TWiki applications. Since TWiki rendering might interfere with JavaScript code you need to escape it with HTML comments and <pre> tags:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!-- Hide JavaScript and <pre> escape TWiki rendering
... put your JavaScript code here...
// Stop hiding and stop </pre> escaping TWiki rendering -->
</script>

Hyperlinks

Being able to create links without any formatting required is a core TWiki feature, made possible with WikiWords. New TWiki linking rules are a simple extension of the syntax that provide a new set of flexible options.

Internal Links

• GoodStyle is a WikiWord that links to the GoodStyle topic located in the current TWiki 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.

• Email 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

Variables are names that are enclosed in percent signs % that are expanded on the fly.

• %TOC% : Automatically generates a table of contents based on headings in a topic - see the top of this page for an example.

• %WEB% : The current web, is TWiki.

• %TOPIC% : The current topic name, is TextFormattingRules.

• %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.

• %INCLUDE{"SomeTopic"}% : Server side include, includes another topic. The current TWiki web is the default web. Example: %INCLUDE{"TWiki.SiteMap"}%

• %SEARCH{"sushi"}% : Inline search showing the search result embedded in a topic. FormattedSearch gives you control over formatting, used to create web-based applications.

• TWikiPreferences defines site-wide variables. Among others:
  • 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.
  • Documentation Graphics: Write: %H% Help, %T% Tip, %X% Alert to get: Help, Tip, Alert. For more info see TWikiDocGraphics.

• There are many more variables, see TWikiVariables.

• To "escape" a variable, prefix it with an exclamation point. Write: !%SOMEVARIABLE% to get: %SOMEVARIABLE%.

TWikiPlugin Formatting Extensions

Plugins provide additional text formatting capabilities and can extend the functionality of TWiki into many other areas. For example, the optional SpreadSheetPlugin lets you create a spreadsheet with the same basic notation used in TWiki tables.

Available Plugins are located in the Plugins web on TWiki.org. Currently enabled plugins on this TWiki installation, as listed by %PLUGINDESCRIPTIONS%:

• DefaultPlugin: This plugin can be used to specify some simple custom rendering rules. It also renders depreciated *_text_* as bold italic text.
• SpreadSheetPlugin: Add spreadsheet calculation like "$SUM( $ABOVE() )" to tables located in TWiki topics.
• CommentPlugin: Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
• EditTablePlugin: Edit TWiki tables using edit fields, date pickers and drop down boxes
• InterwikiPlugin: Link ExternalSite:Page text to external sites based on aliases defined in the InterWikis topic
• RedirectPlugin: This plugin allows one to produce TWiki topics that automatically redirect to other TWiki topics or URLs.
• RenderListPlugin: Render bullet lists in a variety of formats
• SlideShowPlugin: Create web based presentations based on topics with headings.
• SmiliesPlugin: Render smilies as icons, like  :-) for or  :cool: for
• TablePlugin: Control attributes of tables and sorting of table columns

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:Main.MikeMannix - 02 Dec 2001
-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny - 01 Aug 2004

TWiki Variables

Special text strings expand on the fly to display user data or system info

TWikiVariables are text strings - %VARIABLE% - that expand into content whenever a page is rendered for viewing. VARIABLES are replaced by data, either user-entered or automatically generated by TWiki (like the date, or the current username). There are predefined variables, and Preference variables that you can configure. You can also define custom variables, with new names and values.

Notes:

• 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.

Predefined Variables

Most predefined variables return values that were either set in the lib/twiki.cfg file, when TWiki was installed, or taken from server info (like current username, or date and time). Many of the variables let you format the appearance of the display results.

• 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 - 01 Sep 2004 $Rev: 1742 $ - expands the following variables (enclosed in % percent signs):

ATTACHURL -- full URL for attachments in the current topic

• Syntax: %ATTACHURL%
• Expands to: http://www.clausbrod.de/twiki/pub/TWiki/TWikiVariablesAtoM
• Example: If you attach a file you can refer to it as %ATTACHURL%/image.gif
• Related: ATTACHURLPATH, PUBURLPATH, SCRIPTURL, FileAttachments

ATTACHURLPATH -- path of the attachment URL of the current topic

• Syntax: %ATTACHURLPATH%
• Expands to: /twiki/pub/TWiki/TWikiVariablesAtoM
• Related: ATTACHURL, PUBURL, FileAttachments

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

DISPLAYTIME -- display time

• Syntax: %DISPLAYTIME%
• Expands to: 22 Dec 2024 - 16:35
• Related: DISPLAYTIME{"format"}, GMTIME, SERVERTIME

DISPLAYTIME{"format"} -- formatted display time

• Formatted time - either GMT or Local server time, depending on setting in TWiki.cfg. Same format qualifiers as %GMTIME%
• Syntax: %DISPLAYTIME{"format"}%
• Example: %DISPLAYTIME{"$hou:$min"}% expands to 16:35
• Related: DISPLAYTIME, GMTIME, SERVERTIME

ENCODE{"string"} -- encodes a string

• 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
• Related: URLPARAM

FORMFIELD{"format"} -- 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. $value expands to the field value	"$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

• Syntax: %GMTIME%
• Expands to: 22 Dec 2024 - 16:35
• Related: DISPLAYTIME, GMTIME{"format"}, SERVERTIME

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
  $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	2024-12-22T16:35Z
  $rcs	RCS format timestamp	2024/12/22 16:35:35
  $http	E-mail & http format timestamp	Sun, 22 Dec 2024 16:35:35 GMT

• Variables can be shortened to 3 characters
• Example: %GMTIME{"$day $month, $year - $hour:$min:$sec"}% expands to 22 Dec, 2024 - 16:35:35
• Related: DISPLAYTIME, GMTIME, SERVERTIME

HOMETOPIC -- home topic in each web

• Syntax: %HOMETOPIC%
• Expands to: WebHome, renders as WebHome
• Related: NOTIFYTOPIC, STATISTICSTOPIC, TOPIC

HTTP_HOST -- environment variable

• Syntax: %HTTP_HOST%
• Expands to: www.clausbrod.de
• Related: REMOTE_ADDR, REMOTE_PORT, REMOTE_USER

ICON{"type"} -- small icon of common attachment types

• Small 16x16 pixel icon of common attachment types. Specify file type only, file name, or full path name
• Syntax: %ICON{"type"}%
• Samples: bmp, doc, gif, hlp, html, mp3, pdf, ppt, txt, xls, xml, zip
• Example: %ICON{"pdf"}% expands to
• Related: TWikiPreferences, FileAttachments, TWikiDocGraphics

INCLUDE{"page"} -- include other topics or web pages

• 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/"}% Note 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="1.2"	Include a previous topic revision; N/A for URLs	top revision
  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)	%INCLUDE- WARNING% preferences setting

• Related: BASETOPIC, BASEWEB, INCLUDINGTOPIC, INCLUDINGWEB, IncludeTopicsAndWebPages, STARTINCLUDE, STOPINCLUDE,

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

MAINWEB -- name of Main web

• The web containing TWikiUsers, OfficeLocations and TWikiGroups
• Syntax: %MAINWEB%
• Expands to: Main
• Related: TWIKIWEB

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	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	current topic
  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: "}%
• Related: SEARCH

NOTIFYTOPIC -- name of the notify topic

• Syntax: %NOTIFYTOPIC%
• Expands to: WebNotify, renders as WebNotify
• Related: HOMETOPIC, STATISTICSTOPIC, TOPIC

PLUGINVERSION -- the version of the TWiki Plugin API

• This is the $TWiki::Plugins::VERSION number, also indicating the version of the TWikiFuncModule
• Syntax: %PLUGINVERSION{}%
• Expands to: 1.025
• Related: PLUGINVERSION{"name"}, WIKIVERSION

PLUGINVERSION{"name"} -- the version of an installed Plugin

• Syntax: %PLUGINVERSION{"name"}%
• Example: %PLUGINVERSION{"DefaultPlugin"}% expands to 1.021
• Related: PLUGINVERSION, WIKIVERSION

PUBURL -- the base URL of attachments

• Syntax: %PUBURL%
• Expands to: http://www.clausbrod.de/twiki/pub
• Example: You can refer to a file attached to another topic with %PUBURL%/%WEB%/OtherTopic/image.gif
• Related: ATTACHURL, PUBURLPATH, SCRIPTURL, FileAttachments

PUBURLPATH -- the base URL path of attachments

• Syntax: %PUBURLPATH%
• Expands to: /twiki/pub
• Related: ATTACHURL, PUBURL, FileAttachments

REMOTE_ADDR -- environment variable

• Syntax: %REMOTE_ADDR%
• Expands to: 3.149.238.67
• Related: HTTP_HOST, REMOTE_PORT, REMOTE_USER

REMOTE_PORT -- environment variable

• Syntax: %REMOTE_PORT%
• Expands to: 30728
• Related: HTTP_HOST, REMOTE_ADDR, REMOTE_USER

REMOTE_USER -- environment variable

• Syntax: %REMOTE_USER%
• Expands to:
• Related: HTTP_HOST, REMOTE_ADDR, REMOTE_PORT, USERNAME, WIKINAME, WIKIUSERNAME

REVINFO -- revision information of current topic

• Syntax: %REVINFO%
• Expands to: r1.2 - 04 Dec 2008 - 11:58 - ClausBrod
• Related: REVINFO{"format"}

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
  $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

SCRIPTURL -- script URL of TWiki

• Syntax: %SCRIPTURL%
• Expands to: http://www.clausbrod.de/cgi-bin
• Example: To get the authenticated version of current topic write %SCRIPTURL%/viewauth%SCRIPTSUFFIX%/%WEB%/%TOPIC% which expands to http://www.clausbrod.de/cgi-bin/viewauth.pl/TWiki/TWikiVariablesNtoZ
• Related: PUBURL, SCRIPTSUFFIX, SCRIPTURLPATH

SCRIPTURLPATH -- script URL path of TWiki

• Syntax: %SCRIPTURLPATH%
• Expands to: /cgi-bin
• Related: PUBURLPATH, SCRIPTURL

SCRIPTSUFFIX -- script suffix

• Some TWiki installations require a file extension for CGI scripts like .pl or .cgi
• Syntax: %SCRIPTSUFFIX%
• Expands to: .pl
• Related: SCRIPTURL

SEARCH{"text"} -- search content

• Inline search, shows a search result embedded in a topic
• Syntax: %SEARCH{"text" ...}%
• Supported parameters: [1]

  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"	Wiki web to search: A web, a list of webs separated by comma, or all webs. [2]	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
  reverse="on"	Reverse the direction of the search	Ascending search
  casesensitive="on"	Case sensitive search	Ignore case
  nosummary="on"	Show topic title only	Show topic summary
  bookview="on"	BookView search, e.g. show complete topic text	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
  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
  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)
• 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

• [1] Note: The search form uses identical names for input fields.
• [2] Note: A web can be excluded from a web="all" search if you define a NOSEARCHALL=on variable in its WebPreferences

SERVERTIME -- server time

• Syntax: %SERVERTIME%
• Expands to: 22 Dec 2024 - 17:35
• Related: DISPLAYTIME, GMTIME, SERVERTIME{"format"}

SERVERTIME{"format"} -- formatted server time

• Same format qualifiers as %GMTIME%
• Syntax: %SERVERTIME{"format"}%
• Example: %SERVERTIME{"$hou:$min"}% expands to 17:35
• Related: DISPLAYTIME, GMTIME, SERVERTIME

SPACEDTOPIC -- topic name, spaced and encoded

• The current topic name with added spaces, for regular expression search of Ref-By
• Syntax: %SPACEDTOPIC%
• Expands to: TWiki%20*Variables%20*Nto%20*Z
• Related: TOPIC

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 everyting exept the %STARTINCLUDE% variable itself.
• Syntax: %STARTINCLUDE%
• Related: INCLUDE, STOPINCLUDE

STATISTICSTOPIC -- name of statistics topic

• Syntax: %STATISTICSTOPIC%
• Expands to: WebStatistics, renders as WebStatistics
• Related: HOMETOPIC, NOTIFYTOPIC, 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

• Syntax: %TOC%
• Related: TOC{"SomeTopic"}

TOC{"Topic"} -- table of contents

• Syntax: %TOC{"SomeTopic" ...}%
• 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
• 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
• Related: TOC

TOPIC -- name of current topic

• Syntax: %TOPIC%
• Expands to: TWikiVariablesNtoZ, renders as TWikiVariablesNtoZ
• Related: BASETOPIC, INCLUDINGTOPIC, TOPICLIST, WEB

TOPICLIST{"format"} -- topic index of a web

• The "format" defines the format of one topic item. It may include variables: The $name variable gets expanded to the topic name; the $web variable gets expanded to the name of the web.
• Syntax: %TOPICLIST{"format" ...}%
• Supported parameters:

  Parameter:	Description:	Default:
  "format"	Format of one line, may include $name and $web variables	"$name"
  format="format"	(Alternative to above)	"$name"
  separator=", "	line separator	"\n" (new line)
  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)
• 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. Note that there is a risk that this variable could be misused for cross-scripting
• 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, like a double quote into &#034;. This is needed if text is put into an HTML form field	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/TWikiVariablesNtoZ?skin=print URL. Test this:
• Related: SEARCH, FormattedSearch

USERNAME -- your login username

• TWiki makes names available in three formats: USERNAME like jsmith, WIKINAME like JohnSmith and WIKIUSERNAME like Main.JohnSmith. A user is a TWikiGuest in case the topic is not authenticated
• Syntax: %USERNAME%
• Expands to: guest
• Related: REMOTE_USER, WIKINAME, WIKIUSERNAME, TWikiUserAuthentication

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 #FFEFA6
• Related: WEBPREFSTOPIC

WEB -- name of current web

• Syntax: %WEB%
• Expands to: TWiki
• Related: BASEWEB, INCLUDINGWEB, TOPIC

WEBLIST{"format"} -- index of all webs

• List of all webs. Hidden 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 $name variable	"$name"
  format="format"	(Alternative to above)	"$name"
  separator=", "	line separator	"\n" (new line)
  webs="public"	comma sep list of Web, public expands to all non-hidden	"public"
  marker="selected"	Text for $marker where item matches selection, otherwise equals ""	"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=" "}% Dropdown of all public Webs + Trash Web, current Web highlighted.
• Related: TOPICLIST, SEARCH

WEBPREFSTOPIC -- name of web preferences topic

• Syntax: %WEBPREFSTOPIC%
• Expands to: WebPreferences, renders as WebPreferences
• Related: HOMETOPIC, WIKIPREFSTOPIC, VAR

WIKIHOMEURL -- site home URL

• The base URL of TWiki, is the link of the Home icon in the upper left corner, defined in TWiki.cfg
• Syntax: %WIKIHOMEURL%
• Expands to: http://your.domain.com/twiki
• Related: WIKITOOLNAME

WIKINAME -- your Wiki username

• The WikiName is the same as %USERNAME% if not defined in the TWikiUsers topic
• Syntax: %WIKINAME%
• Expands to: TWikiGuest
• Related: REMOTE_USER, USERNAME, WIKIUSERNAME, WIKIUSERSTOPIC

WIKIPREFSTOPIC -- name of site-wide preferences topic

• Syntax: %WIKIPREFSTOPIC%
• Expands to: TWikiPreferences, renders as TWikiPreferences
• Related: HOMETOPIC, WEBPREFSTOPIC

WIKITOOLNAME -- name of your TWiki site

• Syntax: %WIKITOOLNAME%
• Expands to: TWiki
• Related: WIKIHOMEURL, WIKIVERSION

WIKIUSERNAME -- your Wiki username with web prefix

• Your %WIKINAME% with Main web prefix, useful to point to your TWiki home page
• Syntax: %WIKIUSERNAME%
• Expands to: Main.TWikiGuest, renders as TWikiGuest
• Related: REMOTE_USER, USERNAME, WIKINAME

WIKIUSERSTOPIC -- name of topic listing all registers users

• Syntax: %WIKIUSERSTOPIC%
• Expands to: TWikiUsers, with Main prefix renders as TWikiUsers
• Related: WIKIUSERNAME

WIKIVERSION -- the version of the installed TWiki engine

• Syntax: %WIKIVERSION%
• Expands to: 01 Sep 2004 $Rev: 1742 $
• Related: PLUGINVERSION, WIKITOOLNAME

Note: Above text is included from TWikiVariablesAtoM and TWikiVariablesNtoZ

Preferences Variables

Additional variables are defined in the preferences topics:

• site-level ( SL ) in TWikiPreferences
• web-level ( WL ) in WebPreferences of each web
• user level ( UL ) in individual user topics

Note: There are some more useful variables defined in the TWikiPreferences like %BR% for line break, colors like %RED% for colored text and small icons like %H% for a Help icon.

Setting Preferences

• The syntax for Preferences 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] = [value]
  Examples:
• Set VARIABLENAME = value
  • Set VARIABLENAME = value

Creating Custom Variables

• You can add your own Preference Variables for us across an entire site or a single web, using the standard Preferences syntax. Whatever you include in your Variable will be expanded on display, exactly as if it had been entered directly. You can place formatted text, page links, image paths.

Example: Create a custom logo variable the TWiki web

• To place a logo anywhere in a web by typing %MYLOGO%, define the Variable on the web's WebPreferences page, 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, ex: LogoTopic:
  • Set MYLOGO = %PUBURL%/TWiki/LogoTopic/mylogo.gif

-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny - 14 Aug 2004
-- TWiki:Main.MikeMannix - 12 May 2002

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 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 10000 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.

Downloading Files

• Click on the file in the File Attachment table.

• 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:
  1. Attach file: Sample.txt
  2. Edit topic and enter: %ATTACHURL%/Sample.txt
  3. Preview: %ATTACHURL%/Sample.txt text appears as: http://www.clausbrod.de/twiki/pub/TWiki/FileAttachment/Sample.txt, a link to the text file.

• To reference an attachment located in another topic, enter:
  • %PUBURL%/%WEB%/OtherTopic/Sample.txt (if it's within the same web)
  • %PUBURL%/Otherweb/OtherTopic/Sample.txt (if it's in a different web)

• Attached HTML files and text files can be inlined in a topic. Example:
  1. Attach file: Sample.txt
  2. Edit topic and write text: %INCLUDE{"%ATTACHURL%/Sample.txt"}%
     • Content of attached file is shown inlined.
     • Read more in IncludeTopicsAndWebPages.

• GIF, JPG and PNG images can be attached and shown embedded in a topic. Example:
  1. Attach file: Smile.gif
  2. Edit topic and write text: %ATTACHURL%/Smile.gif
  3. Preview: text appears as , 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.

Attachment Action Size Date Who Comment Sample.txt manage 0.1 K 22 Jul 2000 - 19:37 PeterThoeny Just a sample Smile.gif manage 0.1 K 22 Jul 2000 - 19:38 PeterThoeny Smiley face

File Attachment Controls

Clicking on a Manage link takes you to a new page that looks like this:

Attachment Action Size Date Who Comment Attribute Sample.txt manage 0.1 K 22 Jul 2000 - 19:37 PeterThoeny Just a sample   Smile.gif manage 0.1 K 22 Jul 2000 - 19:38 PeterThoeny Smiley face   Update attachment Sample.txt Version Action Date Who Comment 1.1 view 2001.08.30.09.28.56 PeterThoeny   Previous upload: C:\DATA\Sample.txt (PeterThoeny) Local file: Comment: Link: Create a link to the attached file at the end of the topic. Hide file: Hide attachment in normal topic view. Help text ... Topic FileAttachment . { | | Move attachment | Cancel }

• 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.

TWiki Forms

Form-based input in topics, with name/value pairs stored as Meta Data variables; choose one of multiple forms per web & topic

Overview

By adding form-based input to freeform content, you can structure topics with unlimited, easily searchable categories. When forms are enabled for a web and selected in a topic, a single form appears in edit mode, and the contents are rendered as a table when viewed on the display page. You can define unlimited forms per web. For each topic, you can select a template if more than one is defined, or remove forms entirely. Form input values are stored as TWikiMetaData; all data is saved.

Form Templates replace TWikiCategoryTables from the 01-Dec-2000 version of TWiki. - see #FormsVsCategoryTables

Defining a Form Template

A Form Template is simply a page containing your form, defined as a table where each row is one form field.

Form Template Elements

• form template - a set of fields defining a form (replaces category table definition)
  • A web can use one or more form templates
• form - a topic containing additional meta data (besides the freeform TEXTAREA) that categorizes the content (replaces category table)
  • Within a form-enabled web, individual topics can have a form or no form
• form field - a named item in a form (replaces category item name)
• field type - selects the INPUT type:

  Input type	Type field	Size field	Value field
  One or more checkboxes	checkbox	number of checkboxes per line	comma list of checkbox labels
  One or more checkboxes, plus Set and Clear buttons	checkbox+buttons	(same)	(same)
  Read-only label text	label	1	(unused)
  One or more radio buttons	radio	number of radio buttons per line	comma list of checkbox labels
  Drop-down menu or scrollable box	select	1 for drop down, 2 and up for scrollable box	comma list of options
  A one-line text field	text	text box width in number of characters	(unused)
  A text box; size is 40x10 (columns x rows)	textarea	columns x rows, e.g. 40x6	(unused)

• field value - one or more values from a fixed set (select, checkbox, radio type) or free-form (text). (replaces category item value)

Defining a Form in One Topic

1. Create a new topic with your form name: YourForm, ExpenseReport, InfoCategory, RecordReview, whatever you need.
2. Create a TWiki table, with each column head representing one element of an entry field: Name, Type, Size, Values, and Tooltip message (see sample below).
3. For each field, fill in a new line; for the type of field, select from the list.
4. Save the topic (you can later choose to enable/disable individual forms).

Example: WebForm
| *Name* | *Type* | *Size* | *Values* | *Tooltip message* |
| TopicClassification | select | 1 | NoDisclosure, PublicSupported, PublicFAQ | blah blah... |
| OperatingSystem | checkbox | 3 | OsHPUX, OsLinux, OsSolaris, OsWin | blah blah... |
| OsVersion | text | 16 | | blah blah... |

Name	Type	Size	Values	Tooltip message
TopicClassification	select	1	NoDisclosure, PublicSupported, PublicFAQ	blah blah...
OperatingSystem	checkbox	3	OsHPUX, OsLinux, OsSolaris, OsWin	blah blah...
OsVersion	text	16		blah blah...

Defining a Form with Multiple Topics

Forms can also be defined by using form templates that retrieve field values from one or more separate topics:

• A FormTemplate topic defines the Form, ex: YourFormTemplate.
• For each field that has a value list - select, radio, checkbox - can use separate topic to define the available values.

Example: WebFormTemplate

• WebFormTemplate main definition:
   

  Name	Type	Size	Values	Tooltip message
  TopicClassification	select	1		blah blah...
  OperatingSystem	checkbox	3		blah blah...
  OsVersion	text	16		blah blah...

  
  Leave the Values field blank.

• TopicClassification field value definition:
   

  Name	Type	Tooltip message
  NoDisclosure	option	blah blah...
  PublicSupported	option	blah blah...
  PublicFAQ	option	blah blah...

• Implementation Notes: This format allows you to define field items with or without WikiNames, depending on your needs.
  • Topics can be protected in the usual manner, using TWikiAccessControl, to limit who can change the form template and/or individual value lists.
  • [[...]] links can be used to force a link (at present, the [[...][...]] format is not supported).
  • 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.
  • The first item in the list is the default item. Alternative initial values can be set in a topic template, like WebTopicEditTemplate, with field=value, or, for checkboxes, field=1.
  • The topic definition is not read when a topic is viewed.

Enabling Forms by Web

Forms are enabled on a per web basis. The WEBFORMS variable in WebPreferences is optional and defines a list of possible form templates. Example:

• Set WEBFORMS = BugForm, FeatureForm, 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.

Including Forms in New Topics

• A default Form Template (new topics get this default form) can be provided by creating the WebTopicEditTemplate topic in a web and adding a form to it. Initial Form values can be set there.

• Additionally a new topic can be given a Form using the formtemplate parameter in the URL. Initial values can then be provided in the URLs or as form values:
  • other than checkboxes: name, ex: ?BugPriority=1
  • checkbox: namevalue=1, ex: ?ColorRed=1.
    Boxes with a tick must be specified.

Setting Up Multiple Form Options

• The optional WEBFORMS variable defines alternative forms that can be selected by pressing Change in edit mode.

• A topic template can use any form.

• 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.

Form Data Storage

The form topic name, fields and values are stored as TWikiMetaData - the order of the field/value pairs is the same as in the template.

Using Form Data

Main Changes from Category Tables

The Form Template system is a more powerful, flexible replacement for the original TWikiCategoryTable. Data from existing category tables can be imported directly.

Importing Category Table 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.

NOTE: If things aren't working correctly, there may be useful entries in data/warning.txt.

Using Forms For Settings

1. create WebPrefencesForm topic
2. fill it with a table like this:
   | *Name*|*Type*|*Size*|*Value*|*Tooltip message*|*Attributes*|
| WEBTOPICLIST |textarea| |     | List of topics of the %WEB% web |S|
| SITEMAPLIST  |select  |3| on, | list this web in the Site Map  |S|
| SITEMAPWHAT  |textarea| |     | short web summary             |S|
| WEBBGCOLOR   |text    |8|     | Web specific background color |S|
   etc...
3. Edit WebPreferences and:
   • Add or Change the form to WebPrefencesForm
   • add WebPrefencesForm to the Set WEBFORMS line
   • Save
4. Edit WebPreferences, jump straight down to the form ignoring all the textarea stuff, and set as you like
5. if everything works as you like it, you can delete the Set statements (the form overrides set if they are both used).

Notes:

If it isn't working, double check that the S attribute has been specified (S for Setting). If you change the form, the changes will not take affect until you edit and save the preferences' topics again.

Using the TWiki:Plugins.EditTablePlugin on WebPreferencesForm makes adding new prefedrences a breeze.

A possibly unwanted side effect for using forms for the SKINS setting in their personal user topic: because the User Preferences are final you can't have different skins for different webs as the user's setting always wins. A workaround is to simply omit SKIN in the form.

Another example, this one using EditTablePlugin, source:

%EDITTABLE{ header="|*Name*|*Type*|*Size*|*Values*|*Tooltip message*|*Attributes*|" format="|text,20|text,20|text,20|text,20|text,20|text,1|" }%

Result (after some editing):

-- TWiki:Main.JohnTalintyre - 16 Aug 2001
-- TWiki:Main.MikeMannix - 05 Jan 2002
-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny - 25 Apr 2004
-- TWiki:Main.MattWilkie - 27 Jul 2004

TWiki Templates

Definition of the templates used to render all HTML pages displayed in TWiki

Overview

The new modular template system offers flexible, easy control over the layout of all TWiki pages. The master template approach groups parts that are shared by several templates - like headers and footers - in a common file. Special variables allow individual layouts to include parts from a master template - variables are mixed with regular HTML markup for template-specific content. Templates are used to define page layout, and also to supply default content for new pages.

Major changes from the previous template system

Where the old templates were each complete HTML documents, the new templates are defined using variables to include template parts from a master file. You can now change one instance of a common element to update all occurrences; previously, every affected template had to be updated. This simplifies the conversion of templates into XHTML format, and provides a more versatile solution for templates and for TWikiSkins. The new system:

• separates a set of common template parts into a base template that is included by all of the related templates;
• defines common variables, like a standard separator (ex: "|"), in the base template;
• defines variable text in the individual templates and passes it back to the base template.

How Template Variables Work

• Special template directives (or preprocessor commands) are embedded in normal templates.
• All template preprocessing is done in &TWiki::Store::readTemplate() so that the caller simply gets an expanded template file (the same as before).
• Directives are of the form %TMPL:<key>% and %TMPL:<key>{"attr"}%.
• Directives:
  • %TMPL:INCLUDE{"file"}%: Includes a template file. The template directory of the current web is searched first, then the templates root (twiki/templates).
  • %TMPL:DEF{"var"}%: Define a variable. Text between this and the END directive is not returned, but put into a hash for later use.
  • %TMPL:END%: Ends variable definition.
  • %TMPL:P{"var"}%: Prints a previously defined variable.
• Variables live in a global name space: there is no parameter passing.
• 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 topic text.

Types of Template

There are three types of template:

• Master Template: Stores common parts; included by other templates
• HTML Page Templates: Defines the layout of TWiki pages
• Template Topics: Defines default text when you create a new topic

Master Templates

Common parts, appearing in two or more templates, can be defined in a master template and then shared by others: 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

TWiki uses HTML template files for 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.

Templates are stored either in the twiki/templates directory or in user topics. As an example, twiki/templates/view.tmpl is the template file for the twiki/bin/view script.

Templates can be overloaded by individual webs.

TWikiSkins can overload the standard templates.

TWiki uses the following search order to determine which template to use:

If a skin is specified	If no skin is specified
templates/%WEB%/script.skin.tmpl	templates/%WEB%/script.tmpl
templates/script.skin.tmpl	templates/script.tmpl
data/%WEB%/SkinSkinScriptTemplate.txt	data/%WEB%/ScriptTemplate.txt
data/TWiki/SkinSkinScriptTemplate.txt	data/TWiki/ScriptTemplate.txt
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 the skin name, e.g dragon, pattern • Skin refers to the same, but with the first character capitalized, e.g Dragon • %WEB% refers to the current web

Additionally (and primarily for use in %TMPL:INCLUDE{}%) the template name may be a wiki topic name, specified as Web.Topic, in which case the search is:

If a skin is specified	If no skin is specified
templates/web/Web.Topic.skin.tmpl	templates/web/Web.Topic.tmpl
templates/Web.Topic.skin.tmpl	templates/Web.Topic.tmpl
data/Web/Topic.txt

Special variables are used in templates, especially in view, to display meta data.

Template Topics

Template topics define the default text for new topics. There are three types of template topic:

Topic Name:	What it is:
WebTopicViewTemplate	Error page shown when you try to view a nonexistent topic
WebTopicNonWikiTemplate	Alert page shown when you try to view a nonexistent topic with a non-WikiName
WebTopicEditTemplate	Default text shown when you create a new topic.

1. A topic name specified by the templatetopic CGI parameter.
2. WebTopicEditTemplate in the current web
3. 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%	Current date, e.g. 22 Dec 2024
%USERNAME%	Login name, e.g. jsmith
%WIKINAME%	WikiName of user, e.g. JohnSmith
%WIKIUSERNAME%	User name, e.g. Main.JohnSmith
%URLPARAM{"name"}%	Value of a named URL parameter
%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%{...}%
%NOP{ ... }%	A no-operation text that gets removed. Useful to write-protect an edit template topic, but not the topics based this template topic. See notes below. Example: %NOP{    * Set ALLOWTOPICCHANGE = Main.TWikiAdminGroup }%

Notes:

• Unlike other variables, %NOP{ ... }% can span multiple lines.
• The scan for the closing }% pattern is "non-greedy", that is, it stops at the first occurance. That means, you need to escape variables with parameters located inside %NOP{ ... }%: Insert a %NOP% between } and %. Silly example: %NOP{ %GMTIME{"$year"}%NOP%% }%.

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%SCRIPTSUFFIX%/%INTURLENCODE{"%WEB%"}%/">
   * New example topic: 
     <input type="text" name="topic" value="ExampleTopic%SERVERTIME{$yearx$mox$day}%" size="23" />
     <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" value="Create" />
     (date format is <nop>YYYYxMMxDD)
</form>

The edit scipt understands the following parameters, typically supplied by HTML input fields:

Parameter:	Description:
topic	Name of topic to create. Can be set in a text field, or is set programmatically (e.g. with a sequential number)
onlywikiname	If set, TWiki will complain if the topic name is not a WikiWord
onlynewtopic	If set, TWiki will complain if a topic of the same name already exists
templatetopic	The name of the template topic, e.g. topic used to copy the initial content
topicparent	Sets the parent topic
TopicClassification	Assuming the template topic has a form with a field called "TopicClassification", it will set the value of the field
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

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%

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. %A% 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="%SCRIPTURL%/view%SCRIPTSUFFIX%/%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&param1=WebHome&param2=WebNotify

Known Issues

• A drawback of referring to a master template is that you can only test a template from within TWiki, where the include variables are resolved. In the previous system, each template was a structurally complete HTML document with a .tmpl filename extension - it contained unresolved %VARIABLES%, but could still be previewed directly in a browser.

-- TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie - 30 Jun 2004
-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny - 15 Aug 2004
-- TWiki:Main.MikeMannix - 14 Sep 2001
-- TWiki:Main.DavidLeBlanc - 11 Mar 2002

TWiki Skins

Skins overlay regular templates with alternate header/footer layouts; topic text is not affected

Overview

Skins are customized TWikiTemplates files. You can use skins to change the look of a TWiki topic, for example, the layout of the header and footer. Rendered text between header and footer does not change. You can also use skins to define an alternate view, like a view optimized for printing.

Defining Skins

Skin files are located in the twiki/templates directory and are named with the syntax: <scriptname>.<skin>.tmpl. For example, the Printable skin for the view template is view.print.tmpl.

Use the existing TWikiTemplates (like view.tmpl) or skin files as a base for your own skin, name it for example view.myskin.tmpl.

Variables in Skins

You can use template variables, TWikiVariables, and other predefined variables to compose your skins. Some commonly used variables in skins:

The "Go" Box and Navigation Box

The %WEBTOPICLIST% includes a "Go" box to jump to a topic. The box also understand 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

Although work is underway at TWiki:Codev.CssClassNames, the regular templates files currently do not use style sheets. Many skin developers, however, choose to use them; it helps in separating style from content.

Example: To use a style sheet for the broadcast message, add this to view.myskin.tmpl:

<style type="text/css">
.broadcastmessage {
    background: yellow; display:block;
    border-style:solid;border-width: 2px;border-color:red;
}
.broadcastmessage strong {color: red}
</style>

Then add a div tag to the %BROADCASTMESSAGE% variable located after the #PageTop anchor or after the opening form tag:

<div class="broadcastmessage"> %BROADCASTMESSAGE% </div>

Attachment Tables

The format of standard attachment tables is defined through the use of special TWiki template macros which by default are defined in the templates/twiki.tmpl template using the %TMPL:DEF macro syntax described in TWikiTemplates. These macros are:

The ATTACH:row macros are expanded for each file in the attachment table, using the following special tags:

Note: it is easy to change the look and feel for an entire site by editing the twiki.tmpl template file. However, to simplify upgrading, you should avoid doing this. Instead, write a skin-specific template file e.g. attach.myskin.tmpl and use %TMPL:INCLUDE{attach.myskin.tmpl}% to include it in each of your skin files. As long as it it included after twiki.tmpl, your macro definitions will override the defaults defined there.

Packaging and Publishing Skins

See TWiki:Plugins/SkinPackagingHowTo and TWiki:Plugins/SkinDeveloperFAQ

Browsing Installed Skins

You can try all installed skins in TWikiSkinBrowser.

Activating Skins

A skin can be activated in two ways:

• Define the SKIN Preference variable in TWikiPreferences, one of the WebPreferences, or in a user - TWikiGuest - topic.
  • Set SKIN = print

• Add ?skin=name to the URL, for this example:
  • http://www.clausbrod.de/TWiki/TWikiSkins?skin=print (for the print view skin)
  • http://www.clausbrod.de/TWiki/TWikiSkins?skin=plain (for the plain view skin that has no header and footer)

The ?skin=name URL parameter overrides the SKIN Preference value.

-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny - 25 Jul 2004
-- TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie - 30 Jun 2004

TWiki Formatted Search Results

Inline search feature allows flexible formatting of search result

The %SEARCH{...}% variable documented in TWikiVariables has a fixed format for the search result, that is, a table consisting of topic names and topic summaries. Use the format="..." parameter to specify a customized format of the search result. The string of the format parameter is typically a bullet list or table row containing variables (such as %SEARCH{ "food" format="| $topic | $summary |" }%).

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: