Edit Contrib Package

Provides subroutines useful in writing plugins that edit and save parts of topics.

Summary of Contents

This contrib provides subroutines that come in handy when editing and saving parts of topics (refered to as sections).

• init_edit initializes editing of a topic
• edit sets up the section for editing
• finalize_edit completes the generation of the edit topic
• bin/savesection is an adaption of bin/save
• templates/editsection.pattern.tmpl and templates/editsection.tmpl are templates supporting editing of sections.

This contrib is used by TWiki:Plugins/SectionalEditPlugin, TWiki:Plugins/MultiEditPlugin, and TWiki:Plugins/ThreadedDiscussionPlugin. Examining these plugins will provide guidance of how to use these subroutines in implementing your own plugin.

This contrib supports TWiki4 and onward. For a version of this contrib that works with the Cairo release, please download the appropriate version from twiki.org.

Detailed Documentation

The use of this contrib follows closely the pattern used in TWiki core when editing a topic. A plugin implementing editing of a section of a topic has to

• Implement code called during view which would provide appropriate controls for edting a section, and identify the section to be edited by differentiating
  • the part of the topic before the section to be edited,
  • the section to be edited, and
  • the part of the topic following that section.
• Pass this information into the edit script in URL variables (see below) upon invocation of the edit script
• Implement the edit script to obtain that information from the URL variables and render the edit topic. Implementing the edit script is straightforward:
  • Obtain the topic text, template text, etc., by invoking edit().
  • Determine the text before the section to be edited, the section to be edited, and the text after that section, as well as the rendered versions (if desired) of the pre- and post-sections.
  • Pass these to finalize_edit() to generate the edit topic.

edit ( $session ) -> ( $session, $text, $template )

Sets up a section of the topic for editing. This code is derived from lib/TWiki/UI/Edit.pm, but omits code related to topic creation (as the topic must exist for this function to be called).

Returns the current session object, the topic text passed into the script, as well as the appropriate template rendered with the exception of application specific text (these template variables must be substituted for by the client function):

finalize_edit ( $session, $pretxt, $sectxt, $postxt, $pretxtRender, $postxtRender, $tmpl )

Sets up the final edit topic.

$pretxt, $sectxt, $postxt, are the text preceding the edited section, the section to be edited, and the text following that section, respectively. $sectxt will be shown in the textarea for editing, and upon save the obtained edited text will be combined with $pretxt and $postxt. These will be encoded to prevent mangling by browsers and substituted for %PRETEXT%, %TEXT%, and %POSTEXT%.

$postxtRender and $pretxtRender will be rendered for edit and displayed above and below the text area, respectively. Pass an empty string if no such text should be displayed. These will be encoded for display and substituted for %PRETEXTFIELD% and %POSTEXTFIELD%, respectively.

bin/savesection

Works identical to bin/save except

• invokes TWiki::Contrib::savemulti
• constructs the edit link (see above) from the URL parameters edit and editparams. The former has to be the edit script to be invoked when "Checkpoint" is selected, the latter determines any additional URL parameters to be passed to the edit script (must include the leading &).

templates/editsection.tmpl, templates/editsection.pattern.tmpl

Templates supporting the editing of a section. The pretxt and postxt URL parameters (see savemulti) are generated by the two variables %PRETEXTFIELD% and %POSTEXTFIELD%. The size of the edit window is controlled by preference variables (see below).

Settings

Settings are stored as preferences variables. To reference a setting write %<plugin>_<setting>%, e.g. %JSCALENDARCONTRIB_STUB%

• Name of the perl package
  • Set STUB = TWiki::Contrib::EditContrib

Set the variables conrolling the size and style of the textara for editing in the desired preference topic, for example:

• Edit Box Width, Height, Style (set to width: 99% for full width, auto to disable).
  • Set SECTIONEDITBOXWIDTH = 70
  • Set SECTIONEDITBOXHEIGHT = 27
  • Set SECTIONEDITBOXSTYLE = width: 99%;

• One line description:
  • Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Provides subroutines useful in writing plugins that edit and save parts of topics.

• Name of the perl package
  • Set STUB = TWiki::Contrib::EditContrib

Installation Instructions

Note: You do not need to install anything on the browser to use this contrib package. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the package on the server where TWiki is running.

• Download the ZIP file from the Plugin web (see below)
• Unzip EditContrib.zip in your twiki installation directory. Content:

  File:	Description:
  data/TWiki/EditContrib.txt	Contrib topic
  data/TWiki/EditContrib.txt,v	Contrib topic repository
  lib/TWiki/Contrib/EditContrib.pm	Contrib Perl module
  bin/savesection	save script
  templates/editsection.tmpl
  templates/editsection.pattern.tmpl

• Verify access and ownership settings for the new scripts.
• Edit your .htaccess file to require a valid user for the savesection script (if needed).

Contrib Info

Related Topics: TWiki:Plugins/SectionalEditPlugin, TWiki:Plugins/MultiEditPlugin, TWiki:Plugins/ThreadedDiscussionPlugin, TWiki:Plugins/EditTablerowPlugin

-- TWiki:Main/ThomasWeigert 04 Aug 2006