I can never remember the name of topics i want to link to. Can we add a popup page on the EditFormTemplate that does an Index of the Wiki? Preferably a really fast query: no summary, version, etc.

-- SvenDowideit - 05 May 2001

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I implemented this for our Twiki some time ago. The attached file (edit.tmpl) has the necessary Javascript at the end of it (look for launchindex). I included the fallback html, but I've never tested it that way.

-- StanleyKnutson - 06 May 2001

An alternative method is NewWindowPerTopic. (MC's refactor to new topic)

-- JohnAltstadt - 06 May 2001

I implemented Popup page as well. Very useful, damn annoying on sites that don't have it!

Here's my implementation. It calls a page called WebFastIndex.

-- MartinCleaver - 07 May 2001

Is there any benefit to using JavaScript over just having a simple <A HREF="..." TARGET="TopicIndex"> kind of link?

I hate seeing people drag out the JavaScript when a simpler solution will suffice. One of the things I like about TWiki is that it is so easy to customize, but throwing in JavaScript just makes it more complicated.

-- KristopherJohnson - 12 May 2001

If that's what I've done them no reason, I copied the code from elsewhere. It would be better without.

-- MartinCleaver - 13 May 2001

I've implemented Martin's with-JavaScript version and it works well with IE 5.0, Netscape 4.76, and Opera 5.11 - a non-JavaScript version would be good as long as it can control window size. This feature is also handy when you just want to refer to the contents of another TWiki page, rather than having to start a new browser window and then get out of edit mode before being able to start getting to another page.

-- RichardDonkin - 15 May 2001

TWiki is already using JavaScript, but it degrades gracefully. In example, if you click on the TextFormattingRules link, a new default size window will pop up in case JavaScript is not enabled. In case it is, you will get a window with a smaller size. The link looks like this:

<a target="TextFormattingRules" onClick="return launchWindow('TWiki06x01','TextFormattingRules')" href="%SCRIPTURLPATH%/view/%TWIKIWEB%/TextFormattingRules">TextFormattingRules</a>

We will place a link in the edit template that pops up a window with a list of all topics in the current web. First we need to create a Perl routine that returns a simple bullet list of all topics.

-- PeterThoeny - 16 May 2001

OK, but how is the JavaScript version better than the "degraded" version? I'm not against using JavaScript if it actually serves some purpose. But otherwise, the KISS principle should apply.

-- KristopherJohnson - 18 May 2001

I've been using Martin's Javascript implementation for a while, and I think it would be very nice to also have a searchn link or button alongside List Topics - or even a search field + Go button right there in the Edit page, which would generate a pop-up list of results. This would make it easier to find topic names by keyword.

It would also be good if there was some way of causing a click in the List Topics window (not on a topic name, on a separate icon perhaps) to return the selected topic name to the main Edit window and insert it into the Textarea field. This should be doable with Javascript, I would hope.

-- RichardDonkin - 20 May 2001

These are good ideas, if work allows me to work on TWiki I'll take a look at it. Peter, at the minimum, can we get my existing implementation installed on TWiki.org? Thanks.

-- MartinCleaver - 03 Jun 2001

One thing to check if you are using this pop-up page: it's possible that this may cause BackFromPreviewLosesText when using IE5.x.

-- RichardDonkin - 05 Nov 2001

UPDATE: The BackFromPreviewLosesText bug is now fixed, so I'm going to implement this feature on our local site.

On a large web (e.g. Codev) the pop-up WebFastIndex takes a long time to appear, so it would be useful to set it to be cached for at least 5-10 minutes to reduce the system load. What do people think is the right length of time (if any) to cache such a list?

-- RichardDonkin - 09 Feb 2002

I don't have any idea, but, based on what you say it sounds like it should be easily adjustable, perhaps even by the user.

-- RandyKramer - 09 Feb 2002

Well, it takes me 10 minutes or so to edit/create a topic, and I exepct to be referring to already created topics, and not topics that are being created during my editing session. I see no problem with a 10-15 minute cache. If you feel it is necessary, put a button on the topic list page to update the page for those rare occurances of simultaneous interrelated topic creation.

-- JohnRouillard - 09 Feb 2002

I've created the WebFastList page in the Codev, Support and Plugins webs - this is a PopupPageIndexForEditing, for use by MozillaSidebar users (available at WebSidebar, and can work well for other browsers with a bit of window layout tweaking). I made WebFastList generate plain text so that in Mozilla and InternetExplorer you can just double-click on a WikiWord and then drag it from the pop-up window into the text area on the Edit page (this also avoids using copy/paste in case you have something useful copied already).

I'd be interested in comments on this model - it uses JavaScript to size the page, but works OK with JavaScript turned off (the user gets a default-size window). It is quite quick to run because it doesn't generate so much HTML and uses %TOPICLIST% - was taking about 5-6 seconds on the huge Codev web, a lot quicker than FormattedSearch.

Although you can keep the WebFastList open all the time when editing pages, I think 10-15 minutes would be a reasonable caching time - probably there should be a per-topic variable, e.g. %CACHE_EXPIRY{"15m"}%, for use by such dynamic pages, although ideally the "15m" would be a global parameter, e.g. CACHE_EXPIRY_DYNAMIC set at the TWiki or web level.

-- RichardDonkin - 13 Feb 2002

When installing MozillaSidebars and InternetExplorerSidebars on the primary TWiki site I use, I had to implement this feature (or remove the link...) a simple URL param can be used and the following code in a single WebFastList topic instead of having to create a page for each web in a wiki. I just used: %SEARCH{"." regex="on" web="%URLPARAM{"web"}%" format="$topic<br>"}%

in place of the TOPICLIST search.

-- MikeMaurer - 18 Mar '02