URL Settings don't Propogate

if I click on a link on a page that I have set the skin on using a url parameter such as

http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/WebForm?skin=print

this setting is lost when going to the next page.

I have a nice gui skin set up for normal browsing, but I also use w3m - fow which i would like to specify the skin in the url and then browse with that skin for that session

-- SvenDowideit - 28 Feb 2003

Would this be addressed with a skin setting on the user level? Or a session based skin setting without URL parameter change?

-- PeterThoeny - 02 Sep 2003

its can't be a user level setting as i normally use TigerSkin so i get the same view as my users, and if its not in the url, where else do i set - for all pages opened in this instance of my browser (not the other instance) use this skin until i say otherwise. the Url seems the best place for it...

-- SvenDowideit - 02 Sep 2003

As Peter hinted on, you should look into using a session-based skin setting.

Look into SmartSessionPlugin (or SessionPlugin). You'll see that it implements "sticky skins" that give you, I think, that you want. By doing:

http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/WebForm?stickskin=print

THen every page that is opened from then on out until the user closes the browser or changes to another stickskin will be the "print" skin.

You'll find that this is built into skins like TigerSkin and GnuSkin. If you have either of the two session plugins mentioned above installed, these skins have a "Skin" option that allows you to select a new skin for the session (and for that one session alone).

-- TedPavlic - 02 Sep 2003

sorry, i can't install another SessionPlugin, we use the userCookiePlugin already. and i still don't see why you wouldn't want to propagate a user set option (actually any&all of them) as specified in the Url. This seems to me to be one of those completeness things. (stickskin should be redundant then)

-- SvenDowideit - 02 Sep 2003

We need a cancel feature to go back to normal in case the sticky skin is implemented (based on URL parameter). What would an intuitive UI be?

-- PeterThoeny - 02 Sep 2003

This needs to be a new CGI parameter, I think. I'd hate to change the sematics suddenly for "?skin". It's hardly incomplete for "?skin" not to be persistent. "?skin" is primarily meant to try out looking at different pages with different skins. It's really useful for that. If persistent skins are going to be added (that are not session based), they need to be attacked with a separate directive (as to not upset or confuse existing users of "?skin").

The easiest way to implement something like that would be to create some sort of CGI variable like "persistent_skin" that could be set to any skin style. If it was set to an empty string, it would assume the default skin style thus "cancelling" its "sticky-ness."

Otherwise, having a "persistent_skin" paramter as well as a "clear_persistent_skin" might be useful.

Before going too far with that though, you may want to ask whether there are any other preferences that would be nice to be persistent. Maybe a "persist_preference" parameter and a "clear_persist_preference" parameter should be implemented to allow for setting of persistent skin as well as other parameters.

Note that as this gets sillier and sillier, it looks a lot more like CommonFrontEndCgiScript.

Also note that if the user is already using a session-based authentication solution, why not just ask the user to "upgrade" to one of the existing session-based solutions that allows for pluggable authentication? SessionPlugin and SmartSessionPlugin allow for this.

-- TedPavlic - 02 Sep 2003

I think you guys missunderstood - i want the ?skin UrlParameter to propagate for that browser instance (not any others that I am using) and not to be persistent for my user.

I don't entirely agree that you need a new Url Paramter, as there will be two classes of users for this - the ones who append the ?skin= to their Url (and remove it the same way) and those who click on a link provided by someone else - they will probably hit Back on their browser to quite the new view..

not a very dangerous thing as removing the setting is just an application close away. I also think that All similar Url Parameters should be persisted (and the mechanism for this should be common code)

SmartSessionPlugin, like my UserCookiePlugin does nothing for my feature (I use ?skin=plain when working on my Bugs at work in Lynx, but TigerSkin normally)

-- SvenDowideit - 01 Jan 2004

-- SvenDowideit - 01 Jan 2004