Question

Under what conditions should the user's SKIN setting be used?

When troubleshooting a problem, I found that the user's SKIN setting was not evaluated, even after authenticating to edit a page.

The mySkin variable in the view script was always empty. I debugged by displaying all the preferences variables as they were processed in prvAddToPrefsList. The user's SKIN variable (and other variables on the user's page weren't evaluated).

However, when I turned on doRememberRemoteUser in TWiki.cfg, the SKIN variable and others would be evaluated.

I am doing something wrong or is there a bug?

• TWiki version: tested in both 1 Sep 2001 and 1 Dec 2001
• Web server: Apache 1.3.12
• Server OS: Linux
• Web browser: MS IE 5.5
• Client OS: Windows

-- MikeBarton - 02 Jan 2002

Answer

What you're seeing is what you'd expect if edits for pages are authenticated, but viewing is allowed without authenticating.

For a personal preference value to be taken notice of - eg the SKIN variable - TWiki needs some way of knowing who the remote user is. This can be done with 3 methods in twiki:

• Always authenticate all users. (ie even to view stuff you have to login. The normal/common configuration is for people to only be authenticated for changes)

• Make twiki try to remember who the remote user is based on IP address - this is only OK if you know your users will all be coming from different IP addresses. Many people behind proxies will show up under this scheme as the same user.

• Get users to login using someform of session management - ala the session management plugin in the Plugins web .

• Running: TWiki version TWiki-4.0.5, Tue, 24 Oct 2006, build 11822, Plugin API version 1.1. Setting SKIN did not work. Setting COVER = skin in the User's page did work.

-- Updated 03 Aug 2007