[pmwiki-users] Delete Pages -- keep editing docs only

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Thu, Feb 24, 2005 at 07:22:08AM -1000, Sivakatirswami wrote:
> OK, I must be missing something basic: How do you delete pages? Can't 
> find those in the docs or FAQ (or I am sleepy and missed it)

Normally one deletes a page by entering "delete" as the text
of the page.  However, for the pages that come with the PmWiki
distribution, entering "delete" just reverts back to the distributed
version of the page.

> Goal: I want to customize our public wikis, but keep the beginner and 
> intermediate editing docs pages and sand box, from the PMWiki 
> documentation, so that new users of our WIKI can use those pages. They 
> don't need to see all the other admin docs. So I presume the path to 
> that goal is:
> 
> 1. Install PMWiki -->
> 2. install custom skins -->
> 3. edit side bar leaving only the links to documentation needed by 
> users for editing.
> 4. delete the now orphaned admin docs pages.
> 5. and, later be able to upgrade the beginning and immediate pages as 
> PMWiki.org upgrades them

Everything would be fairly easy to do if it weren't for that step #5.
Still, there's several ways one could approach this.  

Method #1:  If you're comfortable with the idea of creating
symbolic links, then this method will be by far the easiest:
    - After you've installed PmWiki and your custom skins,
      create a directory called 'wikilib2.d/' which will
      hold symbolic links to the PmWiki pages you're interested
      in keeping.
    - Add the following lines to your local/config.php:
          $WikiLibDirs = 
            array(&WikiDir, new PageStore('$FarmD/wikilib2.d/$FullName'));
      This tells PmWiki to look in the wikilib2.d/ directory
      for pages instead of the wikilib.d/ directory.
    - You'll see that the distribution pages will seem to have
      disappeared.  You can then symlink any pages you want to
      keep from the wikilib.d/ directory into the wikilib2.d/
      directory:
          ln -s wikilib.d/Main.WikiSandbox wikilib2.d/
          ln -s wikilib.d/PmWiki.BasicEditing wikilib2.d/
          ln -s wikilib.d/PmWiki.CreatingNewPages wikilib2.d/
          # etc.
    - As you link each page, they'll start to appear in the website.
      But only the pages you link will appear.
    - When you upgrade PmWiki, any new distribution pages will
      still be placed in wikilib.d/, and the symlinks in wikilib2.d/
      will end up pointing to the new versions of the pages.

Method 2:  If you're not comfortable with making symlinks, then
you can repeat the above but simply copy the desired files from
wikilib.d/ into wikilib2.d/ :
          cp wikilib.d/Main.WikiSandbox wikilib2.d/
          cp wikilib.d/PmWiki.BasicEditing wikilib2.d/
          cp wikilib.d/PmWiki.CreatingNewPages wikilib2.d/
The disadvantage of this approach is that you won't automatically
see any updated versions of the pages unless you remember to
manually copy them over.

Method 3: This method is nice in that you don't have to create
directories or copy files.  Simply visit each page you *don't*
want to have on the site, and change its contents to be completely
blank, or whatever you desire for that page.  (Don't delete it,
as it will simply revert back to the distributed version.)  Any 
local edits you make will take precedence over the distributed 
versions of the page.  Blank pages will simply appear blank, 
which is probably okay.

Hope this helps -- feel free to ask if you have further questions!

Pm