waltergr
I discovered DokuWiki last night, printed out most of the manual, and was up all night reading it! I'm eager to get started, but I have many questions first. Most deal with parts of the manual that didn't have specific details. I'm planning on updating the manual with answers to the questions I found on my own, and in exchange for answers to these I'd be happy to update the manual. :)
I realize there are many questions here. Let me know if I should post a separate message per category or something.
General
o Is there a printable version of the manual? I had to click on all the links in the TOC and print each page individually, which took a long time. I also ended up missing some pages because they weren't in the TOC.
o Occasionally in the docs, the page diffs are mentioned. What do those look like? I haven't been able to find any examples when viewing the change history on the DokuWiki wiki.
o Is there a comprehensive list of shortcut keys anywhere?
o The Index page says "This page is created automatically by the dokuwiki engine from the available pages." Why is that text struck out?
Permissions
o Is it possible to prevent users from creating new namespaces?
Images
o Is a "catalog" of uploaded images kept anywhere? For example, can I upload a file via FTP to the proper directory, and begin using it in wiki pages? Or do I need to update a list of images?
o How are images named when uploaded to the server? Is it the same name as the original uploaded file? How are naming conflicts handled?
o Is it possible to prevent links to off-site images?
o The "Formatting Syntax" page says "If you specify a filename (external or internal) that is not an image (gif, jpeg, png), then it will be displayed as a link instead." Is this an exhaustive list or are other extensions interpreted as images? (For example, is jpg interpreted as an image?) Can other extensions be added?
o Regarding embedding HTML and PHP, is it possible to enable that for only administrators? If not, what's the alternative? (e.g. editing the files by hand?)
Marking articles that need improvement
o Wikipedia has a way (not sure what it's called) to mark pages as, say, needing citations or needing cleanup. Then you can view a list of all such pages. Is there something like that in DokuWiki?
o For example, is there a way to generate a page with links to all pages containing FIXME or DELETEME?
Search
o The Search page says, "Information about a page's content is added and updated when a page is viewed by a user. Each page includes an invisible image which calls the index update process if needed." How is it determined if an index update is needed?
o What's the server load for updating the index?
o Some shared hosting companies have policies on running cron jobs, and techniques like this may be interpreted as attempting to circumvent their policies. Is there a way to do index updates via cron rather than via a hidden image?
Files
o Are past revisions listed in any sort of catalog? The Old Revisions page says, "To remove any of the contents of the attic you can manually remove the corresponding files and sub-directories from the system." Does DokuWiki just checks the directory contents on the file system to determine what past revisions exist?
XML Syndication
o For a wiki with many documents, permitting mode=list seems like a bad idea. Is there a way to disable that, but permit mode=recent?
o For recent, a "num" parameter can be given. Is there a limit to this value? For example, is it limited to the value of the "recent" setting (as described in the config doc,) is there no limit?
o In the Feedcreator section, it says, "Note: Editing from correct timestamp: Not required in the latest release." What does that mean? Is there a misprint in that sentence?
Editing
o Is there a way to require that users click "Preview" before submitting an edit?
o Are edit summaries required? If not, is there a way to require them?
o Is there a way to disable the "minor edits" option?
o Is the "playground" available by default in all installations? If so, how is it disabled?
Viewing the source of pages
o In the "The wiki page source text" page, it says, "You can view the source text for any page by clicking the button labeled Edit this Page." But won't that lock the page? Is there a way to view the source without locking it, e.g. in a read-only mode?
Discussion on pages
o Wikipedia has a "Discussion" page for every entry. Is there a similar mechanism in DokuWiki?
Configuration options
o "start" - If this value is changed after the wiki has been up for a while, for example, changed from "start" to "index," will this break existing links?
o "deaccent" - the description in the Config page and in the Romanization page disagree.
o "refshow" - what is this setting? References for what, and where are they shown?
o "passcrypt" - how is the salt determined?
o "disableactions" - is there a list of default actions anywhere?
o "manager" - what rights do managers have? Is "Manager" a normal group - for example, can their permissions be edited in the Access Control List Management?
o Media settings - the page says "DokuWiki tries to detect... libGD automatically." Is there a way to determine whether it detected it or not? (aside from uploading an image and trying to view it resized...)
o "compression" - what happens if you leave attic pages uncompressed, then later change the "compression" setting? Will it automatically detect whether an attic file is compressed or not, and handle it appropriately?
Whew, I'm out of breath! :) That's it for now.
Thanks a bunch!
Walter
waltergr
Hi Andi,
I feel like most of my questions (about config, security, etc.) can't really be tested with experimentation. Certainly some of them can (e.g. what happens if I delete files from the attic?)
Is it okay if I split up the questions as Chi suggested and post again?
Thanks,
Walter
waltergr
As I read through the documentation, I jotted down questions. For those questions that I answered, I updated the documentation wiki. I hope my additions are valuable. I'm going to go ahead and post my other questions, and will update the documentation wiki as I receive answers.
Thanks,
Walter