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I'd like to create a site somewhat like the Open Directory Project, which can be viewed at http://dmoz.org. In short:

  • 99% of users acess the site read only, and it has a traditional website skin, but there's a link at the bottom of every page inviting them to "Join the team that creates this site!"
  • If you click that link you go to a page which explains what TWiki is, and how to join.
  • If you continue on you end up in a normal TWiki environment with the usual TWiki skin.

TWiki's existing skin feature provides what I need to get the look I want. But how to use it?

  • I don't want to use a complicated URL with ?skin=foo on the end of the URL. I don't want the 99% of read only users to have to log in. I guess the solution here is to have 2 separate TWikis sharing /data/ and make the readonly twiki have a different default view template.
  • I'd like the URL to be something like http://foo.com/bob.html instead of http://foo.com/twiki/bin/view/bob. Getting http://foo.com/v/bob isn't hard, but how to go all the way?
  • Ideally I'd like to be able to have many different skins, with each topic potentially having its own skin. The SKIN variable only applies to a user; how about a topic?

I think I know how to do the appropriate coding, but brainstorming help would be useful.

-- GregLindahl - 25 Nov 2001

Answer

You could turn templates and skins around: Rename the templates to be a skin (name it i.e. contrib) and create templates for read-only users. Then add a Set SKIN = contrib preferences variable to registration template register.tmpl so that registered users browse the site with the skin.

If you have a high volume site you could consider to create static HTML pages out of all TWiki topics in regular intervals.

-- PeterThoeny - 25 Nov 2001

Actually I think I like that last suggestion the best... creating static HTML pages allows me to specify a different skin, and also allows me to have simple URLs.

-- GregLindahl - 25 Nov 2001

There has been some discussion recently on a dmoz plugin for TWiki at DmozCatalogPlugin

-- MattWilkie - 26 Nov 2001

Interesting. However, what I'm talking about is only "like" dmoz, not actually dmoz. In particular, my pages are going to be mostly text, with only some links. dmoz has a lot of limitations, and there's no reason to be saddled with them.

I have a gizmo, by the way, that you redirect external links through, and it occasionally (every Nth access or every M seconds) validates the external link. That way you can produce a wiki topic which is a list of external links in a wiki that are broken and need fixing.

-- GregLindahl - 26 Nov 2001

Nice - could you package it as a plugin? It would be very useful to many.

-- MartinCleaver - 27 Nov 2001

Eventually, yes. First I'm building this "normal but with TWiki underneath" website (http://lacademie.org), next I'm building the website which will be the pages somewhat like dmoz only better. That one will use the external link gizmo.

-- GregLindahl - 27 Nov 2001

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Topic revision: r8 - 2001-11-28 - GregLindahl
 
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