[Pmwiki-users] Hierarchical groups

[Steven Leite]

On Tuesday, June 08, 2004 4:42 PM [GMT+1=CET],
Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:

> Some suggest using a "parent" operator such as '..' to resolve,
> meaning move
> up one level in the hierarchy, the same as filesystems currently do.
> Unfortunately, '.' is already being used as a group separator
> character.
> I suppose I could change this to something else, but '.' just seems
> natural to me somehow.  Alternately, we could use something like '^'
> to mean "parent".

I'd like to see the parent operator as / since that's what used in OS's

> So far I've only come up with three approaches that I think might
> work.
>
> The first is to only allow absolute group names--i.e., all group names
> start from the top.  I personally don't have a problem with this, but
> I suspect people will have issues with the lack of a way to do
> relative group references...

Nah, that's not a very good idea.

> Another approach is to just adopt the filesystem (hierarchical
> directory) form of links.  This has an advantage of being widely
understood, at
> least among people who work with filesystems.  On the other hand, this
> would mean that a reference to [[Alpha/Beta]] would always put "Beta"
> at a level below the current one (i.e., beneath the page named "Alpha"
> at the current level).  We'd undoubtedly want some sort of markup
> to indicate "top level", such as a leading '/' or '^'.

Agreed, I like this one best.  I would like to stick close to the OS
approach as possible.
>
> The other approach is to use the first component as a relative anchor
> if it occurs in the current group name.  Thus, in the page
> Alpha.Beta.Gamma, the link [[Beta.Zeta]] would refer to
> Alpha.Beta.Zeta, [[Alpha.Delta.Epsilon]] would refer to
> Alpha.Delta.Epsilon, and [[Iota.Omega]] would refer
> to Iota.Omega.  But this can also get confusing, because
> [[Alpha.Delta.Epsilon]] and [[Delta.Epsilon]] refer to different
> pages, even though [[Alpha.Beta.Zeta]] and [[Beta.Zeta]] refer to the
> same page.

I don't like this approach either.  It might get messy if somebody has
several sub-levels.
>
> Anyway, I don't have clean answers, and I've liked the way PmWiki's
> current grouping mechanism works.  But if someone comes up with a
> clean alternative, and if a majority of folks like it, I'm certain it
> can be supported.

Here's some examples of the OS approach using the examples you provided

> For example, if we're currently on a page
> called "NFL.Teams.Patriots.Playoffs", then how do the following
> resolve...?

> 1. [[SeasonOpen]] links to NFL.Teams.Patriots.SeasonOpen (standard
> wikiword)

[[SeasonOpen]] would resolve to [[NFL.Teams.Patriots.SeasonOpen]]

> we're currently on a page called "NFL.Teams.Patriots.Playoffs"

> 2. [[Teams.WorkingTogether]] links to Teams.WorkingTogether or
>       NFL.Teams.WorkingTogether or
> NFL.Teams.Patriots.Teams.WorkingTogether?

[[Teams.WorkingTogether]] would link to
[[NFL.Teams.Patriots.Teams.WorkingTogether]]

To correctly point it to NFL.Teams.WorkingTogether, you would enter the
link as follows:  [[../WorkingTogether]]

[[../../WorkingTogether]] would point to NFL.WorkingTogether, which
would be the same as writing [[/WorkingTogether]].

[[/WorkingTogether/]] on the other hand, would (should) resolve as
WorkingTogether/HomePage (where HomePage is the default page for an
arbitrary Group, set in config.php).

> we're currently on a page called "NFL.Teams.Patriots.Playoffs"

> 3. [[Patriots.Washington]] links to NFL.Teams.Patriots.Washington or
>       Patriots.Washington or NFL.Teams.Patriots.Patriots.Washington?

[[Patriots.Washington]] would resolve as
NFL.Teams.Patriots.Patriots.Washington.

To resolve NFL.Teams.Patriots.Washington, you would write [[Washington]]
To resolve Patriots.Washington you would write
[[../../Patriots.Washington]], or more simply [[/Patriots/Washington]].

Additionally, to specify the default page for the Group
Patriots/Washington/ you would write [[/Patriots/Washington/]] or
[[/Patriots/Washington/HomePage]] (where HomePage is the default page
for an arbitrary Group, set in config.php)

> we're currently on a page called "NFL.Teams.Patriots.Playoffs"

> 4. [[Playoffs.WildCard]] links to
>       NFL.Teams.Patriots.Playoffs.WildCard, or Playoffs.WildCard?

[[Playoffs.WildCard]] would link to
NFL.Teams.Patriots.Playoffs.WildCard.
To link to Playoffs.WildCard, you would write [[/Playoffs/WildCard]] (or
[[../../Playoffs/WildCard]]

>
> Pm

[Steven]