Feature Proposal: new variable "WEBROOT"

Motivation

Now that TWIki has subwebs, we need a new variable that refers to the root of a web tree.

If I am in the People/Vicki/Notes web, %WEB% is Notes. We need a variable that returns "People".

-- TWiki:Main/VickiBrown - 22 Dec 2007

Could you spare a few more words on the usecase attached? TWiki:Plugins.FlexWebListPlugin could perhaps be expanded with this option.

-- TWiki:Main.SteffenPoulsen - 22 Dec 2007

Description and Documentation

This was originally filed as http://develop.twiki.org/~twiki4/cgi-bin/view/Bugs/Item5166 discussion started. Closed as "No Action required"

Reopening here. We should not lose the discussion that was started.

Examples

Steffen - Yes, this would be excellent for FlexWebListPlugin. Here's the use case:

In our TWiki at cfcl.com, I've set up a lot of webs and sub webs. I decided that I don't want to see all of the sub webs in the sidebars, so I've modified TWiki.WebLeftBarWebsList to show two lists:

• the current web hierarchy

%FLEXWEBLIST{... include="%INCLUDINGWEB%(/\w+)?" ...%

• the top level webs (no subwebs)

%FLEXWEBLIST{... subwebs="none" exclude="Shared|Trash.*" ...%

This works great when I enter a web (screenshot 1) but not so great when I'm down in a subweb (screenshot 2). I want to be able to say "show me my current hierarchy, up to my "web" parent and his subwebs, but no other webs or their subwebs.

In this example, when I'm in "Tut" I would like to be able to show the same weblist that I can show when I'm in "Learn".

I'm thinking WEBROOT because it's the root of the current subweb tree (the name of the directory that''s under data/)

Screenshot 1:

Screenshot 2:

Impact

Implementation

-- Contributors: VickiBrown - 27 Dec 2007

Discussion

I have actually also missed exactly this feature.

The feature I have missed is the ability to show the weblist with the root level only and the current web (current meaning the web tree I am currently viewing a topic in) expanded.

If it is OK not to add this to the core but to the FlexWebListPlugin then no feature proposal has to be accepted. Then it is only MichaelDaum that needs to accept as the FlexWebListPlugin has the ContactAuthorFirst policy.

Looking at the proposal as a core feature

As a core feature is would be to add a simple new feature to WEBLIST.

And it may make sense to add a simple fully compatible feature that enables people list the entire webtree of the current web.

-- KennethLavrsen - 27 Dec 2007

As far as I understand the proposal, you need the trail of webs up to the root down in some subweb, that is given you are in subweb

Learn/Tut/Extra/Foo/Bar

you want to show the list of parent webs somewhat like this:

• Learn
  • Tut
    • Extra
      • Foo
        • Bar

Is that the needed usecase? If so then please have a look at the BreadCrumbsPlugin. Use it to generate the web breadcrumbs down to the current web. Switch off the topics using recurse=topicoff.

Another solution is to use the FilterPlugin and take the %WEB% as "a list to be formatted", i.e. separated at the / and . chars and render it in whatever way you want. That will look like this:

%FORMATLIST{"%WEB%" split="/" format="   * $1"}%

In any case, I have not understood when a WEBROOT variable comes into play.

-- MichaelDaum - 28 Dec 2007

scary, I thought %WEB% should be equal to =People/Vicki/Notes

otherwise, how can %WEB%.%TOPIC% point to the current WebHome?

-- SvenDowideit - 29 Dec 2007