[pmwiki-users] Keeping recipes up to date -- updated

[Dominique Faure]

On 2/16/07, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
> Based on excellent feedback provided on the mailing list,
> we now have an improved script for checking installed versions
> of recipes and comparing those to what's listed on pmwiki.org.
>
> The new recipe is available at
>
>     http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/RecipeCheck
>
> Yes, it used to be called "RecipeUpdates", but I figure that
> "Recipe Check" is a more accurate name.
>
> To see a sample report for pmwiki.org, visit
>
>     http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/RecipeCheck?action=recipecheck
>
> This new version has two major improvements:
>   - provides a more useful message when allow_url_fopen is disabled
>   - obtains version information from scripts in cookbook/ even
>     for those scripts that aren't loaded
>   - can report "unknown" version some recipes that don't set $RecipeInfo
>
> For those who are unable to use RecipeCheck due to PHP restrictions,
> the site analyzer script has also been updated to perform the same
> checks:   http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/SiteAnalyzer
>
> I've also started a page at http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/RecipeMap
> that maps script names to the corresponding recipe page
> (e.g., 'mimetex.php' maps to Cookbook:MimeTex).  This allows
> RecipeCheck to report pmwiki.org version information
> even for those scripts that don't set $RecipeInfo.
> However, the Cookbook.RecipeMap is still incomplete -- if you
> find an older recipe that needs to be mapped, feel free to add it
> to the page or report it here and someone can add it.
>
> This feature is still somewhat experimental, and we probably
> still have some kinks to be worked out, but using it I've
> already been able to clean up and update some scripts
> on pmwiki.org .
>
> Comments welcomed as always.
>

IMHO, a really nice improvement would be to allow the recipe to work
without any direct internet access. My usual PmWiki configs are quasi
exclusively lying on private networks with proxied access to the outer
world usually denied.
Therefore, I would find interesting to allow the recipe to act as a
simple recipe lister when no comparison data source is available.
OTOH, it could be nice to also provide the stuff to manage our own
Cookbook reference repository, configuring wikis with:

  $RecipeListUrl = 'http://10.0.42.2/pmwiki/recipelist';

ie., the recipelist generator [c|s]hould be included in the recipe itself:

  $RecipeListUrl =
'http://10.0.42.2/wiki/Cookbook/RecipeCheck?action=recipelist';

Dom