Question

Hi,

I have several projects (each has already a TWiki web):

• projA
• projB
• projC
• projD

and several old legacy "web" applications.

• AppOne
• AppTwo
• AppThree

Those applications parse various data and write a static report of a hundred html files with two hundred attachments (PNG images). Each of those application has been written and is maintained by a different developper. They need to have full access to their files through the filesystem, but they need to be protected from each other.

How do I integrate those legacy stuff in my TWiki ?

initial thoughts : use hierarchy

create a subdirectory for each application under each web:

• projA/AppOne
• projA/AppTwo
• projA/AppThree
• projB/Appone
• ...

and give each developper write access to their respective directory. The problem is that TWiki does not support hierarchy. The resulting webpages will be corrupted (no WebLeftBar for example). Even though I symlinked the files of the parent web, TWiki still did not work...

refined: use a web per application

Create a dedicated web per application:

• projA
• projB
• projC
• projD
• AppOne
• AppTwo
• AppThree

To be able to support several projects, each app developer will have to prefix every generated page name with the project name:

• AppOne/ProjAindex.txt
• AppOne/ProjBindex.txt

Pros:

this gives a sandbox for every developer to administer.

Cons:

this gives too much visibility to each Application, and will confuse the users/browsers of the site.

Suggestions ?

Environment

-- GillesEricDescamps - 28 Oct 2004

Answer

Probably best ask this one in Codev or on TWikiIRC

-- MartinCleaver - 29 Oct 2004

Low hanging fruit approach where generated files are kept outside of TWiki:

• Create a Unix user called apps
• Create a subdirectory that is accessible by URL, e.g. /home/apps/public_html (configure Apache if needed)
• All apps generate the html and png files below public_html, e.g. public_html/AppOne/ProjAindex.txt
• The file is now accessible via http://my.server.com/~apps/AppOne/ProjAindex.txt
• In your project topic, link to it, or INCLUDE it

-- PeterThoeny - 30 Oct 2004

Thanks Peter for the feedback. The apps were already accessible that way. Using INCLUDE to get them in twiki would just give them the look, not the feel. I wanted them integrated INTO twiki because

• I want to search through those pages' content
• ( OK Peter, you can kill me now ) I want TWiki to enforce the user-access policy (Yes, I'm using TWiki to secure some pages).
• I don't want to write two html pages (the app one, and the INCLUDE twiki one) for every one user page (page generated by the app.

-- GillesEricDescamps - 02 Nov 2004