[pmwiki-users] PmWiki is dead !

[Petko Yotov]

[My earlier message had a GIF animation over 100KB and was not 
distributed to the list, only to Pierre-Marie. Resending to the list 
with a PNG screenshot instead.]

Hi Pierre-Marie,

I am sorry you feel this way -- let's think of a way to better handle 
such cases.

A brief look at the link you provided shows that you have some very old 
custom markup rules for the headings. These are not compatible with your 
current PHP version 7.4.29 - they simply don't work. PmWiki disables 
such rules and replaces them with a text with a tooltip title that 
explains where is possibly the problem. See attached screenshot.

In your case, the tooltip balloon says:

   Markup rule "^!" is obsolete and has been disabled.
   ! File: /home/toposcop/www/local/config.php, line: 289,
   pat: /^(!{1,6})\s?(.*)$/, rep: '<br><:block><h'
   .strlen($m[1]).PSS('><br><a href=#top>◆ </a>'
   .$m[2].'</h').strlen($m[1]).'><br>'.
   See pmwiki.org/Troubleshooting

This specific message tells us to look into the file local/config.php, 
line: 289, where there is a Markup('^!'...) call that needs to be 
updated for your current PHP version.

This specific markup rule has been obsolete for many years (since PHP 
5.5) and PmWiki has a new way to define custom markup since PmWiki 
2.2.56 - released in September 2013, more than 9 years ago.

Recent PmWiki versions disable the obsolete markup rules with a message 
making it easy to locate and fix the problem. Previous PmWiki versions 
tried to process such markup anyway, but the visitors saw a long list of 
PHP warnings, or the PHP process crashed and they only saw a blank page.

One would think administrators could find some time to update their 
custom functions in 9 years - because of PHP, not PmWiki.

The problem with PHP is that it randomly deprecates and removes 
functions that used to work in the past and where people have built 
stuff they needed, based on those functions.

The problem with PmWiki is that it is highly customizable, and everyone 
is adding recipes. But when you add custom recipes to your website, and 
you upgrade your PHP versions, you are responsible for maintaining and 
updating these recipes.

PmWiki - the core - is maintained by me, and tested with PHP 
pre-releases so it works. It worked with PHP 8.2 before PHP 8.2.0 was 
released. The core has also recently included a number of popular 
recipes so that I can automatically support people with these. I 
maintain 100+ Cookbook recipes that are also up-to-date. I also try to 
help people with their recipes, when they write on talk pages, on the 
PITS Issue tracking system, to the mailing list, or directly to me.

This can probably be done better. What do you suggest that I do, or that 
the community does? How do you think your problem (very old custom 
markup rules unsupported by current PHP version) would be handled in a 
better way?

Notes:

1. "Documentation update" means that there were changes in the PmWiki/ 
group since the last release, and these were included in the new 
release. You can see which pages have been updated, and their individual 
histories, here:

   https://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/RecentChanges

2. Your custom markup rule inserts a link to the top of the page after 
headings. You can enable the core Table of contents and enable backlinks 
to the top after the headings, see:

   https://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/TableOfContents

and $PmTOC['EnableBacklinks'] = 1; on this page.

3. The "Release notes" page is editable -- feel free to improve it when 
needed. English is my *third* language, I am sure most of you 
speak/write better English than me and can improve my writing. :-)

4. You can always revert to an earlier PmWiki version if you feel it 
works better for you. Old PmWiki versions are available here:

   https://www.pmwiki.org/pub/pmwiki/
   (from the first link at the top of PmWiki/Download)


Petko

On 09/12/2022 06:12, Pierre-Marie Carette wrote:
> Since several updates, (for my part I am blocked since 2 3 13) pmwiki
> becomes incomprehensible, inaccessible to the common user.
> "The documentation was updated." is not enough.
> The release note is totally incomplete, unreadable to the average user
> An update shows totally incomprehensible "⚠!" (no link to the page
> concerned!!!)
> 
> PmWiki becomes php 8 compatible but PmWiki becomes a wiki inaccessible
> to everyone. Suffice to say he is dead!
> 
> I have been a user for over ten years. Yotov helped me a lot and I
> thanked him.
> 
> But now I expect PmWiki to return to its original purpose: to be a
> wiki for everyone! where each update does not destroy old wikis
> 
> FidelioEspoirMethode épistémique Toposcopie
> https://www.toposcopie.fr/Methode/Methode
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