[Pmwiki-users] Hierarchical groups - possible notation

[J. Perkins]

Patrick R. Michaud wrote:
> It's definitely replaceable in 2.0 -- all conversions of strings
> to pagenames is handled by a single MakePageName(...) function, 
> which can be overridden by a local customization.  

Then I'm happy. I will try to have a look at this as soon as I get free 
moment.


> If I call it just "/PmWiki" (at the root), then this page has to 
> use "PmWiki/" to link to any of the other pages in the group, thus
> [[PmWiki/DocumentationIndex]], [[PmWiki/Installation]], etc.  

Actually I use [[./DocumentationIndex]] and [[./Installation]]. And this 
is only for the parent page, DocumentationIndex can still use 
[[Installation]] to refer to a sibling page.


> since '/' no longer suppresses part of the name as it used to, I 
> have to write [[(PmWiki/)documentation index]] and [[(PmWiki/)installation]]

IMHO, '/' should work as it always has, and the '.' behavior should go 
away. That's just my opinion. Your example above nicely illustrates why 
I feel this way.


> Perhaps this sounds contrived, but I can see it happening.  We
> start with a page of PmWiki.Installation.  Someone later adds a
> page called PmWiki.Installation.Windows.  Woops, this is just like
> the case I started with--where there are now multiple pages dealing
> with installation--so now I need a PmWiki.Installation.Installation
> page as the entry point to the PmWiki.Installation group, and the
> links get more complex...

I think PageName.PageName as a "default" is a Bad Idea, there should 
just be "PageName".

PmWiki -> Windows        [[./Installation/Windows]]
Windows -> PmWiki        [[../..]] or [[/PmWiki]]
Installation -> Windows  [[./Windows]]

The one strange bit is going from "Windows" in the example above to 
"PmWiki/TipsForEditing" would be [[../TipsForEditing]]. In this case it 
doesn't really behave like a filesystem, but then I would say "it is 
like filesystem" in the documentation anyway.

I guess I don't see this as being much different than the existing 
markup. A simple site will put everything at one level, plain old 
WikiWords. The vast majority of sites will have two levels and use 
[[/GroupName/PageName]] to cross groups -- one extra character. Maybe 
you could allow the '.' operator to print the whole path, in which case 
[[.GroupName.PageName]] but I never cared for that. I would rather write 
"Please see [[/PmWiki/Installation | PmWiki: Installation]]" or "Refer 
to [[/Docs/MyClass/MyMethod | MyClass::MyMethod]] or whatever made sense 
in the current context. But I'm a pretty fast typist... ;)


> Again, I don't know if this counts as a "fatal flaw", but I can see
> people being confused by it all.  A significant difference between
> a filesystem hierarchy and the one proposed here is that in a filesystem a
> directory never has any content of its own beyond simply listing the
> files contained in the directory.

That is true. Any grouping scheme is going to introduce a learning 
curve. The lists gets questions about the existing system from time to 
time. I think this system gets a lot of bang for the buck.

As I said at the start, if the current system is replaceable, I'm 
already happy. If you decide to adapt this as the default, I'm even happier.

Thanks for the dialog,

Jason