Feature Proposal: Read-only skin mode

Motivation

Use cases where read-only mode is desired:

• The TWiki web is supposed to be read-only for end users and TWiki admins.
• In some TWiki installations it is desirable to keep the Main web clean, e.g. reserve it just for user homepages and TWiki groups.
• Pages that make up TWiki application logic are supposed to be read-only. For example, in a contact database there is no reason to have an edit button the page that has a form to submit a new contact person.

This proposal adds a new feature to set a preferences variable to remove the relevant links to modify a page.

Description and Documentation

Add the following preferences setting to a topic or WebPreferences to turn the skin into read-only mode:

   * Set READONLYSKINMODE = 1

Note that this feature does not replace access control, its intent is to give a visual clue that a page is read-only.

The PatternSkin and TopMenuSkin are enhanced to support this feature.

PatternSkin enhancements

If in read-only mode:

• remove [Edit] and [Attach] buttons on top
• remove topic action links bar at bottom
• add hard to see edit link: Turn the dash before the WikiName in the "topic revision" row into an edit link, such as:
  Topic revision: r10 - 2011-05-17 - PeterThoeny

TopMenuSkin enhancements

If in read-only mode:

• remove [Edit] and [Attach] buttons on top
• remove topic action links bar at bottom (this is inherited from the PatternSkin)
• remove the "Edit " pulldown menu

Open question

• What happens with red-links? Disable them, e.g. show as plain text? It is not that easy to do this right, for example, a red-link could point to another web that is not read-only.

Impact

Implementation

-- Contributors: PeterThoeny - 2011-01-22

Discussion

This is now an accepted proposal by 7 day feedback period.

-- PeterThoeny - 2011-02-12

I simplified the spec: Only 0 and 1, no more 2.

-- PeterThoeny - 2011-05-18

This is now implemented and documented in SVN trunk. The PatternSkin and the TopMenuSkin are also published on twiki.org.

-- PeterThoeny - 2011-05-18