Comments on VarSUBSCRIBE

What is VarSUBSCRIBE? It looks like it belongs to a plugin in the TWiki web so that it is picked up by the TWikiVariables topic? If so, better to remove this topic from the Plugins web. Also, better to have a link to the extension for Var* topics that are part of an extension (so that users can access more info on the extension.)

-- PeterThoeny - 09 Sep 2007

Maybe it just appeared as a side effect of an upload with BuildContrib? Anyway - the topic is what I always wanted how plugins should behave, i.e. make their variables visible in TWiki.TWikiVariables in a reference manual style if the plugin is installed. I agree that it should have a link to Plugins.SubscribePlugin, so that a casual reader of the section in TWiki.TWikiVariables will be guided to the purpose and context of the variable. The SubscribePlugin description itself simply includes the relevant part of this topic, so it is comprehensive (as it should be). It isn't urgent in that special case where SubscribePlugin defines just one single variable %SUBSCRIBE{...}%, but as a general rule.... And maybe it should have TWiki.TWikiVariables defined as its parent topic, like the other variables.

Some of the complex plugins have more than just one topic in the Plugins web, and that additional documentation (e.g. tutorials) will make it into the TWiki web as soon as the extension is actually installed. Therefore I would not like to have this or any of the other documentation removed from the Plugins web at twiki.org. Plugins is the web showing the potential use cases of TWiki, and contains the comprehensive set of documentation for all extensions.

For plugin authors, I would welcome a template for this type of PluggableDocumentationArchitecture. Not as mandatory, but as a guideline, or convention. TWiki.TWikiVariables should look "homogeneous" wherever possible.

I wonder whether these comments, and the form fields will vanish on the next upload of the plugin? Probably not, from what I can see in the code...

-- HaraldJoerg - 09 Sep 2007

Comments on VarSUBSCRIBE moved from that topic.

As Harald describes. You're the one who raised the bug reports asking for these topics, Peter, so I'm shocked that you are surprised when they appear in Plugins web ;-).

Harald, yes, the comments will be wiped next time the plugin is updated. These are documentation topics, and need to be marked as such (my fault for not adding a comment, now remedied in BuildContrib).

-- CrawfordCurrie - 10 Sep 2007