Question

It's my first contribution, so be gentle with me... !! (Not sure if I should have used Support or Codev for this question, but anyway...)

I've just set up a TWiki on our intranet site with the hope of migrating it to our external web site for use by us and our customers.

I realise (and fully support) the openness of TWiki in allowing "anyone" to be able to edit and contribute to topics. But I can't help thinking that some of our customers would be less frightened of it if there was a facility to enable users to just append to a topic and not be able to change what is there already. Of course, some users could be still be allowed to edit the full topic text. I suppose eventually, when they grew to appreciate it, we could ween them off the 'append only' restrictions!

Thoughts?

• TWiki version: 01 Feb 2003
• Perl version: 5.6
• Web server & version: Apache 1.3.27
• Server OS: Mac OS X Server 10.2.6
• Web browser & version: Safari
• Client OS: Mac OS X

-- SteveFolly - 22 May 2003

Answer

CommentPlugin provides a text entry box at the bottom of the page plus a 'Add Comment box'. It does not disable the 'Edit' though. Check it out.

I hope this helps.

-- MartinCleaver - 23 May 2003

1

Yes, this is the right place for a question like yours. Don't hesitate to post any other questions here also --- after you've followed the SupportGuidelines, of course (like searching the Support and Codev webs to see if it's already been asked and answered).

2

Martin's suggestion about the CommentPlugin is excellent. Did you know that you can customize the skin (the appearance) of your TWiki installation so that for instance, the edit this page link is not shown? If you remove the link, then ordinary visitors will not know how to get to the edit screen. It's a simple solution but works for 90% of the average visitors. The remaining experienced users will know that they can type /bin/edit/Support/WebHome in the URL to edit a page, of course. So the combination of the CommentPlugin and a skin without the edit hyperlink will get you a long way towards your goal.

-- TorbenGB - 23 May 2003

Thanks MartinCleaver and TorbenGB. Hmmm... I should have searched through Codev to find what I was looking for first !!. The CommentPlugin is just what I'm looking for. The idea of removing the Edit option sounds interesting. I shall investigate. Thanks again.

-- SteveFolly - 23 May 2003

Steve, looks like my users are as tech-agnostic as yours. I created a skin without edit link, where clicking on web logo changes skin (to a skin with edit). So only "enlightened" users will ever be aware that web site is a wiki. I'll upload it as SimpleSkin ... soon but I linked working alpha version.

-- PeterMasiar - 24 May 2003