Question

I am writing a converter from XWiki to TWiki. I have been able to convert most of XWiki syntax to TWiki syntax and therefore have directory of files converted to TWiki Syntax. I have some questions:

1) What should be the directory structure of these files. I mean where should i keep these files in TWiki so that my TWiki starts showing up these pages.

2) Do I need to create some sort of mapping to link all the wiki pages or they get link automatically by Wiki Links

3) How does TWiki handles attachments.

It would be of great help if someone answers these questions.

Environment

-- BikramjitSingh - 30 Oct 2007

Answer

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1) The default structure in TWiki is like this:

twiki/data/Sandbox/TestTopic1.txt                - TestTopic1 page in Sandbox web/namespace
twiki/data/Sandbox/TestTopic1.txt,v              - History file of TestTopic1 page
twiki/data/Sandbox/SubWebs/IfNeeded/FooBar.txt   - Page in nested web (if needed)
twiki/data/Sandbox/SubWebs/IfNeeded/FooBar.txt,v
twiki/pub/Sandbox/TestTopic1/test_file.doc       - File attached to TestTopic1 page in Sandbox web
twiki/pub/Sandbox/TestTopic1/test_file.doc,v     - History file of attached file
twiki/pub/Sandbox/TestTopic1/test_image.jpg      - Image attached to same page
twiki/pub/Sandbox/TestTopic1/test_image.jpg,v    - History file of attached image

If you use the official API of TWiki (e.g. the TWiki::Func:: API documented at TWikiFuncDotPm) you will get the history files automatically. Simply generating the text files is OK too if you do not care about the history, TWiki will add a history file the first time a person updates a page.

2) Linking of pages: You can rely on the automatic WikiWord linking if XWiki does that. If not, you can force a link with the [[TestTopic1]] syntax. Linking across webs/namespaces works too, use the [[Otherweb.TestTopic1]] syntax.

3) TWiki attachments are handled properly if you use the official API. If you do not care about history and attachment table, you can put files as indicated in 1). To link to an attached file, write %ATTACHURL%/test_file.doc to get the full URL, or [[%ATTACHURL%/test_file.doc][test_file.doc]] to get just the linked filename. See details in FileAttachment.

Please consider sharing your converter with the TWikiCommunity! You can do that by posting a XWikiToTWikiAddOn (starting from AddOnPackageHowTo.)

-- PeterThoeny - 31 Oct 2007

Thanks a lot we will definitely share the converter

-- BikramjitSingh - 31 Oct 2007

Cool, thanks! See also other Extensions:import for inspiration.

-- PeterThoeny - 31 Oct 2007

I am facing some problem with white-spaces. There are many pages in XWiki which are not wiki words and they don't link to the forced links. example i have one page named Bikramjit Singh and one forced link like Bikramjit Singh. On wiki a "?" appears following Bikramjit Singh. When i click to that "?" a new page opens which trims the space between two words and says that page BikramjitSingh does not exist. So what can be done to overcome this issue

-- BikramjitSingh - 06 Nov 2007

Two approches:

1. Change page name text according to TWiki's link rule:
   • Capitalize initial letters and remove spaces, e.g. "foo bar.txt" becomes "FooBar.txt"
   • Links such as [[foo bar]] will point properly to "FooBar"
2. Change spaces to underscores:
   • Replace space with underscore, capitalize initial letter of file, e.g. "foo bar.txt" becomes "Foo_bar.txt"
   • In links, replace spaces with underscores such as [[foo_bar]] will point to "Foo_bar"

-- PeterThoeny - 09 Nov 2007

Means there is no way to preserve spaces??

-- BikramjitSingh - 11 Nov 2007

Not out of the box. Yes with some customization. See SpacedWikiWordPlugin, UnderscoreWikiWords, UnderscoreWikiWordsWithoutSyntaxChange.

-- PeterThoeny - 12 Nov 2007

I have some converted data and I want to run it on TWiki. But when I copy all XWiki Webs(about 30 webs. many of them contain only one page) to data folder in TWiki. It shows three webs Main and two other webs. But it doesn't show up rest of the webs.

Do I have to define change some settings or define something specific so that all the webs show up?

One more problems is with WebHome, One Web which is showing up does not contain WebHome, So what should be the possible solution?

-- BikramjitSingh - 12 Nov 2007

You need all topics from the _default web in each of the generated webs: WebAtom, WebChanges, WebHome, WebIndex, WebLeftBar, WebNotify, WebPreferences, WebRss, WebSearchAdvanced, WebSearch, WebStatistics, WebTopicCreator, WebTopicList. The WebHome and WebPreferences are mandatory, the other are recommended.

-- PeterThoeny - 13 Nov 2007

Is there any way to create WebHome and WebPreferences automatically as I have countless Webs

-- BikramjitSingh - 19 Nov 2007

Peter, One more problem which am facing is that if theres any WikiWord eg.P4CLIENT and P4V they are coming up as link, do u have any possible solution except escaping (it would be a pain to escape those many words)in mind regarding those

-- BikramjitSingh - 19 Nov 2007

Yea, we had an unfortunate spec change in the last release where alpha-number-alpha are now valid WikiWords. Look into the StopWikiWordLinkPlugin.

On default topics, simple copy the ones you find in the _default web.

-- PeterThoeny - 20 Nov 2007