Feedback on AdvancedManageContrib

AUTHOR(S): This contrib has been developed by Sascha Vetter.

-- SaschaVetter - 26 Aug 2008

Nice Contrib! I wish this could be integrated into the main distribution, as it helps to ManageStaleContent.

Few suggestions for improvement:

• Be able to choose which topic to move based on formfield value, date or tags. For TWiki 4.2 the power of query searchs can be leveraged for searchs on formfield value and date, and the TagMePlugin can be leveraged to search by tag. This will make historic archival way easier than today.
• I think is could be useful to replace the advancedmanage script in the bin directory with REST handlers in the plugin. This ease the task of the sysadmin as there are no aditional scripts that need to be secured, plust you can code it using the whole Public API which guarantee stability.

-- RafaelAlvarez - 26 Aug 2008

Nice work. The use case we have often at work is to split part of a web into another web once a web has grown enough. For this we found that the best way was just being able to move a complete hierarchy of topics, since this way we could delegate the work to the user, letting them rearrange parents until they were satisfied with the result, then we TWiki admins would just come and move the hierachy with the help of a shell script listing the topics to move (by unix mv commands). It also checks the whole web hierarchy of topics for inconsistencies and aborts if it finds any. I have attached the script here as wiki-list-tree, usage is:

go to the wiki web you want to process, run it by
    wiki-list-tree [options] topics...
it will output all the topics sons of the listed topics.
Options:
  -t outputs the file names (.txt appended)
  -i ignore errors and print the results anyways in case of errors
  -s ignore errors only if none happens in topics to be outputted (sons)
  -_ allow underscores in wiki topic names
  -as) alphabetical sort (default) topics are printed in alphabetical sort,
       and appear only once
  -ts) topological sort, they are sorted from top to bottom, appear once
  -is) indented sort, tree-like, but topics may appear many times

-- ColasNahaboo - 26 Aug 2008

Thank you Sascha for sharing this extension with the TWikiCommunity!

Some feedback:

• I made some changes to the contrib topic, feel free to take this into the next release:
  • Avoid links to oneself (web usability)
  • Use Interwiki links for topics that might not exist on a target TWiki (such as your signature)
  • Add a SHORTDESCRIPTION, this is needed by the reports in the Plugins web
  • Use format of the NewContribTemplate: I modified the "Installation instructions" and the "Contrib info" sections accordingly
• Use terminology consistent with the TWiki documentation, e.g. "topics" instead of "sites"
• Possibly package this as a plugin instead of a contrib, removing the advancedmanage script to make this extension more robust. Use REST as Rafael suggests, or use plugin variables to take action on viewauth. As an example of the latter approach study the GlobalReplacePlugin.
• Possibly merge the functionality of this extensions and of GlobalReplacePlugin, both are about manipulating topics. Could be named ManageTopicsPlugin or the like.

-- PeterThoeny - 31 Aug 2008

I don't get it. Move sites to another web? Which sites?

-- ArthurClemens - 31 Aug 2008

s/sites/topics/

-- PeterThoeny - 31 Aug 2008

Ah, Seites

-- ArthurClemens - 31 Aug 2008

(german) Seiten = = (twiki) topics = = (english) pages

and what if InterwikiPlugin is disabled/not installed?

-- MatthiasThullner - 31 Aug 2008

The InterwikiPlugin is pre-installed and enabled; I have never seen a site where it was disabled. In case it is disabled, TWiki:MatthiasThullner is still an indication that this is twiki.org related, better than a MatthiasThullner? question mark link.

-- PeterThoeny - 01 Sep 2008

Thanks for your feedback!

New functions/changes in the latest version (v1.1):

• I added a parent-children function to move a complete hierarchy of topics (thanks to ColasNahaboo , nice idea!)
• Changed all "sites" entries to "topics".
• Added a SHORTDESCRIPTION
• Used Interwiki links
• Used format of the NewContribTemplate

Open issues

• Use REST- handler instead of advancedmanage script
• Avoid apache- timeout (Does anybody know some tricks (Without setting apache-timeout to >300)?)

-- SaschaVetter - 01 Sep 2008

This is a much-needed utility! Thanks Sascha! One small suggestion: provide a way to preview the list of topics picked up by the "wildcard patterns". This could be a simple search results.

-- LynnwoodBrown - 01 Sep 2008

Sascha, there are similarities to the GlobalReplacePlugin. Study how it uses a search to generate a list of topics with checkboxes for each topic.

-- PeterThoeny - 01 Sep 2008

Agreed - this should be a plugin. Confusing as a Contrib.

Or, pull it into TWiki. It's functionality is general enough to be useful to everyone. (Assuming it works properly).

-- MartinCleaver - 10 Oct 2008

Is there a way to rename multiple Topics at the same time ?

-- AlinGramescu - 2011-11-03

Please do not cross-post the same question in many topics. Please open a support question in the Support web.

-- PeterThoeny - 2011-11-03