[pmwiki-users] Edit template to use for documenting a new skin?

Petko Yotov 5ko at 5ko.fr
Mon Sep 17 18:36:57 CDT 2012


tamouse mailing lists writes:
> > You should note that most "generic" page names up here can already contain
> > some text in an existing wiki. In such a case, noone will ever see the
> > templates you provided. Some skin authors have chosen to have specific page
> > names, like wikilib.d/Site.MouseSkinSiteHeader.
>
> Ah, yes, I can foresee a problem with that... which I guess begs the
> question: how much should be done in the template, and how much should
> be done via wiki pages. I've been enjoying being able to mutate things
> quickly via wiki pages and prefer doing that to mucking with the
> template. The template is really pretty basic, and the richness comes
> from the wiki pages that populate the elements.

Any content that might need editing from within the wiki is probably better  
in wiki pages and not in the skin.tmpl template. Or even in a single  
wikipage, as PageTextVariables or as [[#sections]] to be included from the  
different parts of the skin.

But I notice that we call two things "template", one is the HTML skin  
template (structure/frame of the site), the other is a wiki page pre-filled  
with some default content and shipped with the recipe in wikilib.d files,  
like your Site.SiteHeader.

What I was saying is that when a page Site.SiteHeader already exists in a  
wiki, it will be shown/used/included instead of some default page (let's  
call it wikitemplate) from any wikilib.d directory.

And I know a number of sites which do have a page Site.SiteHeader, and often  
a complex one, so if people try your skin, it may not work as you or they  
expect. That's why I suggested using unique page names like  
MouseSkinSiteHeader.

> > I really don't recommend relying on pages GroupFooter or GroupHeader being
> > unused in a remote wiki.
>
> I was avoiding setting $GroupHeaderFmt and $GroupFooterFmt in the
> skin.php file to allow the admin to set these differently than what I

Right. We shouldn't change or use $GroupHeaderFmt and $GroupFooterFmt, or  
the pages GroupHeader and GroupFooter. These are reserved to the admins and  
authors of the wiki, to add or remove content at the beginning or at the end  
of all pages in a wikigroup. (If we absolutely have to, better document how  
admins can change it from config.php, and not inside your script.)

> might choose. I'm rethinking this now, but would appreciate some
> guidance on this

If you need some page to appear in the skin, just include it from the skin  
template. But I probably don't completely understand if there is some  
problem here.

Petko




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