Difference: CommentPlugin (1 vs. 17)

Revision 172011-06-17 - TWikiContributor

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Comment Plugin

Revision 162011-03-28 - TWikiContributor

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Comment Plugin

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 The Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Related topics: CommentPluginTemplates, CommentPluginExamples

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threadmode Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
tableprepend Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
tableappend Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
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action Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for immportant notes)
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action Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for important notes)
 
table Tablerows adding on end
toctalk Talk using TOC adding on end
bookmark Create a list of annotated bookmarks
return Post to a different topic and return
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Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.
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Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customization, below.
 
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Customisation

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Customization

 
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Customisation of the comment plugin requires
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Customization of the comment plugin requires
 
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  The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.
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Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customizations.

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  1. To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
  2. To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalized, e.g. Pattern)
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You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with templatetopic. For example:
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Per topic custom comment template

You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with a templatetopic parameter. For example:

 
%COMMENT{type="blogpost" templatetopic="BlogPostCommentTemplate" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%
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templatetopic accepts topic or web.topic syntax. See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
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templatetopic accepts topic or web.topic syntax. See an example in CommentPluginExamples#TemplateTopic.
 
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If you use any topic other than UserCommentTemplate, it is critically important that you include this line at the end of your comment template topic:
%TMPL:INCLUDE{"%SYSTEMWEB%.CommentPlugin"}%
Without this line your templates will not be picked up.
 
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ALERT! Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.
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ALERT! Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE% to include other files of templates.
 ALERT! Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.
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Customisation example

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Customization example

  Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:
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Customisation example with custom form template

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Customization example with custom form template

  Write a custom form in a topic.
  • In the form set the location of the prompt with %COMMENTPROMPT%; the prompt will be positioned here.
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Plugin Info

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Plugin Author: TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main/DavidWeller and TWiki:Main/PeterMasiar
Copyright: © 2004, TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie;
© 2009 TWiki:Main/SopanShewale;
© 2004-2010 TWiki:TWiki/TWikiContributor
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Plugin Author: TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller and TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar
Copyright: © 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie;
© 2009 TWiki:Main.SopanShewale;
© 2004-2011 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
 
License: GPL (GNU General Public License)
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Plugin Version: 18706 (2010-05-29)
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Plugin Version: 20818 (2011-05-03)
 
Change History:
<-- versions below in reverse order -->
 
Added:
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2011-03-28: TWikibug:Item6672 - doc improvements: Adding link to HIDE
2010-12-11: TWikibug:Item6530 - doc improvements -- TWiki:Main.ScottGutman
 
2010-05-16: TWikibug:Item6433 - doc improvements
2010-03-19 TWikibug:Item6404 Use $br in newline parameter for break tag instead of turning off encoding -- TWiki:Main/PeterThoeny
2010-02-27 TWikibug:Item6276 Cannot specify percentBRpercent for newline value -- TWiki:Main/SopanShewale

Revision 152010-05-17 - TWikiContributor

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Comment Plugin

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The Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
 
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Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

Related topics: CommentPluginTemplates, CommentPluginExamples

WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please use revision 31 of the zip.
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Related topics: CommentPluginTemplates, CommentPluginExamples
 

Features

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  • in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax

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  Write %COMMENT{attributes}% anywhere in a TWiki topic.
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  • A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.
  • A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:
    Parameter Description Default
    type This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences. "below"
    default Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.  
    target Name of the topic to add the comment to the current topic
    location Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!  
    mode For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with type  
    nonotify Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics "off"
    noform Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert <form> tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example. "off"
    nopost Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic. "off"
    remove Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked. "off"
    button Button label text "Add comment"
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  • A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.
  • A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:
    Parameter Description Default
    type This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences. "below"
    default Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.  
    target Name of the topic to add the comment to the current topic
    location Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!  
    mode For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with type  
    nonotify Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics "off"
    noform Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert <form> tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example. "off"
    nopost Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic. "off"
    remove Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked. "off"
    button Button label text "Add comment"
 (See also additional attributes)

Positioning the comment

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 will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

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 The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,
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<--/commentPlugin-->
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<--/commentPlugin-->
 
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This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.
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This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.
 

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

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 Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,
%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%
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%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%
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will place comments above the first occurence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.
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will place comments above the first occurrence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.
  Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.
Also note that you cannot have the text location=" just before the location.
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Customisation

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 Customisation of the comment plugin requires
  • familiarity with HTML forms
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  To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Defining custom templates

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By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customisations.
 
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This allows for several levels of customisation:
  1. To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
  2. To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
  3. To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
  4. To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)
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By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customizations.

This allows for several levels of customization:

  1. To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customization will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
  2. To add site-wide local template customizations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
  3. To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
  4. To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalized, e.g. Pattern)
  You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with templatetopic. For example:
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Customisation example with custom form template

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Customisation example with custom form template

 Write a custom form in a topic.
  • In the form set the location of the prompt with %COMMENTPROMPT%; the prompt will be positioned here.
  • In %COMMENT use parameter noform="on"
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%COMMENTPROMPT% Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here.

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All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.
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All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.
 

Settings

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Two TWiki Preference variables are recognised by the CommentPlugin:
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Two TWiki Preference variables are recognized by the CommentPlugin:
 
Preference Default Description
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%COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES% comments Name of template file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes UserCommentsTemplate.
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%COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES% comments Name of template file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes UserCommentsTemplate.
 
%COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE% above Default template type
These can be set in TWikiPreferences, in WebPreferences or in individual topics.

#Installation

Plugin Installation Instructions

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  • This plugin is pre-installed in most TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
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  • This plugin is pre-installed in TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
 
  • Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
  • Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
    • You may need to correct file permissions
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Plugin Info

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Another great TWiki extension from the WikiRing - working together to improve your wiki experience!

Plugin Author: TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller and TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar
Plugin Version: 03 Aug 2008 17791 (02 Sep 2009)
Change History:  
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Plugin Author: TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main/DavidWeller and TWiki:Main/PeterMasiar
Copyright: © 2004, TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie;
© 2009 TWiki:Main/SopanShewale;
© 2004-2010 TWiki:TWiki/TWikiContributor
License: GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Version: 18706 (2010-05-29)
Change History:
<-- versions below in reverse order -->
 
2010-05-16: TWikibug:Item6433 - doc improvements
2010-03-19 TWikibug:Item6404 Use $br in newline parameter for break tag instead of turning off encoding -- TWiki:Main/PeterThoeny
2010-02-27 TWikibug:Item6276 Cannot specify percentBRpercent for newline value -- TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
2009-01-21 TWikibug:Item6163 Fix for Comment Plugin losing data if target anchor is missing -- TWiki:Main/TimotheLitt and TWiki:Main/SopanShewale
 
03 Aug 2008 The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008 TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove
5 Sep 2007 TWikibug:Item3689 corrected location handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
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13311 Added option to define a comment template in any topic. Pass the topic location with templatetopic (either topic or web.topic). See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
12822 TWikibug:Item3598 minor doc fixes
12750 TWikibug:Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
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11358 TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as nopost and remove. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
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11358 TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:Main/PankajPant's suggestions as nopost and remove. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
 
11118 TWikibug:Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788 TWikibug:Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787 TWikibug:Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
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8433 TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
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8433 TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to '%TWIKIWEB%.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
 
7427 TWikibug:Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251 TWikibug:Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906 TWikibug:Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
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4889 Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882 Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745 06 Mar 2002 initial commit
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Copyright: © 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie
© 2004-2007 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License: GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Home: TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback: TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

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Plugin Home: http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback: http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginDev
Appraisal: http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/CommentPluginAppraisal
 
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META FILEATTACHMENT attr="h" comment="" name="wikiringlogo20x20.png" version="1"
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Related Topics: CommentPluginTemplates, CommentPluginExamples, TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

Revision 142007-02-04 - TWikiContributor

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Comment Plugin

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 Another great TWiki extension from the WikiRing - working together to improve your wiki experience!

Plugin Author: TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller and TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar
Changed:
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Plugin Version: 03 Aug 2008 17791 (29 Apr 2009)
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Plugin Version: 03 Aug 2008 17791 (02 Sep 2009)
 
Change History:  
03 Aug 2008 The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008 TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove

Revision 132007-02-04 - TWikiContributor

Line: 1 to 1
 

Comment Plugin

Line: 251 to 251
 Another great TWiki extension from the WikiRing - working together to improve your wiki experience!

Plugin Author: TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller and TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar
Changed:
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Plugin Version: 03 Aug 2008 17791 (30 Mar 2009)
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Plugin Version: 03 Aug 2008 17791 (29 Apr 2009)
 
Change History:  
03 Aug 2008 The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008 TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove

Revision 122007-02-04 - TWikiContributor

Line: 1 to 1
 

Comment Plugin

Line: 251 to 251
 Another great TWiki extension from the WikiRing - working together to improve your wiki experience!

Plugin Author: TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller and TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar
Changed:
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Plugin Version: 03 Aug 2008 17302 (06 Dec 2008)
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Plugin Version: 03 Aug 2008 17791 (30 Mar 2009)
 
Change History:  
03 Aug 2008 The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008 TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove

Revision 112007-02-04 - TWikiContributor

Line: 1 to 1
 

Comment Plugin

Line: 251 to 251
 Another great TWiki extension from the WikiRing - working together to improve your wiki experience!

Plugin Author: TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller and TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar
Changed:
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Plugin Version: 03 Aug 2008 17302 (04 Aug 2008)
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Plugin Version: 03 Aug 2008 17302 (06 Dec 2008)
 
Change History:  
03 Aug 2008 The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008 TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove

Revision 102007-02-04 - TWikiContributor

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Comment Plugin

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threadmode Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
tableprepend Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
tableappend Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
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action Action added to action table directly above comment box (requires TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin)
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action Action added to action table directly above comment box (see Plugin Installation Instructions below for immportant notes)
 
table Tablerows adding on end
toctalk Talk using TOC adding on end
bookmark Create a list of annotated bookmarks
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%COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE% above Default template type
These can be set in TWikiPreferences, in WebPreferences or in individual topics.
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#Installation
 

Plugin Installation Instructions

  • This plugin is pre-installed in most TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
  • Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
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  None
  • Use configure to enable the plugin
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Note that if you want to use the action template then you must also:
  1. Install the TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin;
  2. Put the CommentPlugin before the ActionTrackerPlugin in the {PluginsOrder} configuration option (in configure)
 

Plugin Info

Another great TWiki extension from the WikiRing - working together to improve your wiki experience!

Plugin Author: TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller and TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar
Changed:
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Plugin Version: 15776 (22 Jan 2008)
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Plugin Version: 03 Aug 2008 17302 (04 Aug 2008)
 
Change History:  
Added:
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03 Aug 2008 The TWiki 4.2.1 release version
11 Apr 2008 TWikibug:Item5518 corrected the template definition for bulletabove
 
5 Sep 2007 TWikibug:Item3689 corrected location handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
22 Jun 2007 Removed the long-deprecated %TIME (use %GMTIME instead). Minor doc changes
14021 TWikibug:Item3755 Fixed incorrect handling of line terminators when targeting an anchor

Revision 92007-02-04 - TWikiContributor

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Comment Plugin

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  Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
Changed:
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WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please use revision 31 of the zip.
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Related topics: CommentPluginTemplates, CommentPluginExamples

 
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WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please use revision 31 of the zip.
 

Features

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  • signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
  • in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.
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Syntax Rules

Write the command %COMMENT{ attributes }% anywhere in a TWiki topic. %COMMENT% is also legal.

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Syntax

 
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The following attributes are recognized (see also additional attributes):
Name Description
type This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see Customisation, below. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences. By default this is 'below'.
default Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
target Name of the topic to add the comment to. Defaults to the current topic.
location Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully below!
mode For compatability with older versions only, synonymous with type
nonotify Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics
noform Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert <form> tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.
nopost Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.
remove Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.
button Button label text; by default Add comment.
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Write %COMMENT{attributes}% anywhere in a TWiki topic.

  • A %COMMENT% without parameters shows a simple text box.
  • A %COMMENT{}% can handle the following parameters:
    Parameter Description Default
    type This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see customization. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences. "below"
    default Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.  
    target Name of the topic to add the comment to the current topic
    location Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully the CommentPlugin documentation!  
    mode For compatibility with older versions only, synonymous with type  
    nonotify Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics "off"
    noform Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert <form> tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example. "off"
    nopost Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic. "off"
    remove Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked. "off"
    button Button label text "Add comment"
(See also additional attributes)
 

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.
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  will place comments above the first occurence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.
Changed:
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Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.
>
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Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.
Also note that you cannot have the text location=" just before the location.
  I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.
Line: 77 to 68
 

Default templates

Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.
Changed:
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A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin. These are:
>
>
A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin - see also CommentPluginTemplates:
 
Template type Description
top Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
bottom Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
above Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the %COMMENT if no anchor is specified
below Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the %COMMENT if no anchor is specified
Added:
>
>
belowthreadmode Comments, signed and dated, added recurse after comment box
 
threadmode Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
tableprepend Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
tableappend Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
Added:
>
>
action Action added to action table directly above comment box (requires TWiki:Plugins/ActionTrackerPlugin)
table Tablerows adding on end
toctalk Talk using TOC adding on end
bookmark Create a list of annotated bookmarks
return Post to a different topic and return
  Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.
Line: 108 to 105
 
  1. To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
  2. To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)
Changed:
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ALERT! Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.
>
>
You can also define a comment template in a topic, by passing the topic location with templatetopic. For example:
%COMMENT{type="blogpost" templatetopic="BlogPostCommentTemplate" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%

templatetopic accepts topic or web.topic syntax. See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.

 
Added:
>
>
ALERT! Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.
 ALERT! Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.

Customisation example

Line: 163 to 169
 
comment_nonotify As passed to %COMMENT
comment_remove Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
comment_nopost As passed to %COMMENT
Added:
>
>
comment_templatetopic As passed to %COMMENT
 Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
Line: 173 to 180
 
Added:
>
>

Customisation example with custom form template

Write a custom form in a topic.
  • In the form set the location of the prompt with %COMMENTPROMPT%; the prompt will be positioned here.
  • In %COMMENT use parameter noform="on"
  • In %COMMENT use parameter templatetopic to point to the topic with the form template

Example form:

%TMPL:DEF{FORM:example}%
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%BASEWEB%/%BASETOPIC%" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" name="examplecomment" id="examplecomment">
<input type="hidden" name="redirectto" value="%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%" />
%COMMENTPROMPT%
</form>
%TMPL:END%

Example comment:

%COMMENT{noform="on" type="example" templatetopic="Sandbox.CommentPluginTemplateExample" target="%TOPIC%" button="Add comment" }%
 

The OUTPUT template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.
Line: 184 to 212
 
%POS:AFTER% If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the %COMMENT% tag
Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE
Added:
>
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%COMMENTPROMPT% Use with a custom form. If present, the comment prompt will be positioned here.

 All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.

Settings

Line: 213 to 243
 

Plugin Info

Changed:
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Plugin Author: TWiki:Main.DavidWeller, TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk
Copyright: © 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie
© 2004-2007 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License: GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Version: 12750 (04 Feb 2007)
Change History:
<-- specify latest version first -->
 
12750 Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358 Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as nopost and remove. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118 Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788 Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787 Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433 Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427 Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251 Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906 Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
>
>
Another great TWiki extension from the WikiRing - working together to improve your wiki experience!

Plugin Author: TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk inspired by the work of TWiki:Main.DavidWeller and TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar
Plugin Version: 15776 (22 Jan 2008)
Change History:  
5 Sep 2007 TWikibug:Item3689 corrected location handling TWikibug:Item4181 added VarCOMMENT TWikibug:Item4402 corrected access check
22 Jun 2007 Removed the long-deprecated %TIME (use %GMTIME instead). Minor doc changes
14021 TWikibug:Item3755 Fixed incorrect handling of line terminators when targeting an anchor
13311 Added option to define a comment template in any topic. Pass the topic location with templatetopic (either topic or web.topic). See an example in CommentPluginExamples:templatetopic.
12822 TWikibug:Item3598 minor doc fixes
12750 TWikibug:Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358 TWikibug:Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as nopost and remove. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118 TWikibug:Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788 TWikibug:Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787 TWikibug:Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433 TWikibug:Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427 TWikibug:Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251 TWikibug:Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906 TWikibug:Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
 
5519 CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518 CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455 On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
Line: 238 to 273
 
4889 Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882 Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745 06 Mar 2002 initial commit
Changed:
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Perl Version: >= 5.6.1
>
>
Copyright: © 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie
© 2004-2007 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License: GPL (GNU General Public License)
 
Plugin Home: TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback: TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

Changed:
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-- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 15:45:58 03 March 2007
>
>
META FILEATTACHMENT attr="h" comment="" name="wikiringlogo20x20.png" version="1"

Revision 82007-02-04 - TWikiContributor

Line: 1 to 1
 

Comment Plugin

Line: 244 to 244
  Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins
Changed:
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-- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 01:11:36 05 February 2007
>
>
-- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 15:45:58 03 March 2007

Revision 72007-02-04 - TWikiContributor

Line: 1 to 1
 

Comment Plugin

Line: 110 to 110
  ALERT! Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.
Added:
>
>
ALERT! Note that from TWiki release 4.1.0 leading and trailing whitespace is no longer stripped. This means that when you upgrade to TWiki 4.1.X you may need to remove the first line break in your custom comment templates. See TWikiReleaseNotes04x01 for more information.
 

Customisation example

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:
Line: 210 to 212
 
  • Use configure to enable the plugin

Plugin Info

Added:
>
>
 
Plugin Author: TWiki:Main.DavidWeller, TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk
Changed:
<
<
Change History:  
11358 Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as nopost and remove. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118 Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788 Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787 Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433 Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427 Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251 Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906 Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
>
>
Copyright: © 2004, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie
© 2004-2007 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License: GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Version: 12750 (04 Feb 2007)
Change History:
<-- specify latest version first -->
 
12750 Item3510 added a note about the changed template spec in TWiki 4.1.0. Code remains unchanged
11358 Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as nopost and remove. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
11118 Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788 Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787 Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433 Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427 Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251 Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906 Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
 
5519 CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518 CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455 On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
Line: 237 to 244
  Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins
Changed:
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-- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 05:07:17 16 January 2007
>
>
-- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 01:11:36 05 February 2007

Revision 62005-03-27 - TWikiContributor

Line: 1 to 1
 

Comment Plugin

Line: 11 to 11
  Instead, you could check your fix in, raise a bug in the Bugs web, or mail thge author. -->
Deleted:
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<
This plugin allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
 
Changed:
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WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please see here
>
>
Comment Plugin lets users quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please use revision 31 of the zip.
 
Changed:
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<

Features

>
>

Features

  Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made
  • in different formats (as defined by a template),
Line: 24 to 26
 
  • signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
  • in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.
Changed:
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Syntax Rules

>
>

Syntax Rules

 
Changed:
<
<
Write the command %COMMENT{ attributes }% anywhere in a TWiki topic. %COMMENT% is also legal.
>
>
Write the command %COMMENT{ attributes }% anywhere in a TWiki topic. %COMMENT% is also legal.
 
Changed:
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The following attributes are recognised
>
>
The following attributes are recognized (see also additional attributes):
 
Name Description
<-- -->
Sorted ascending
type This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see Customisation, below. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences. By default this is 'below'.
Added:
>
>
default Default text to put into the textarea of the prompt.
 
target Name of the topic to add the comment to. Defaults to the current topic.
location Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully below!
mode For compatability with older versions only, synonymous with type
nonotify Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics
Changed:
<
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noform Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert <FORM> tags yourself!
>
>
noform Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert <form> tags yourself! See CommentPluginExamples#noform for an example.
nopost Set to "on" to disable insertion of the posted text into the topic.
remove Set to "on" to remove the comment prompt after the first time it is clicked.
button Button label text; by default Add comment.
 
Changed:
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<

Positioning the comment

>
>

Positioning the comment

 %COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.
Changed:
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Location relative to %COMMENT tag

>
>

Location relative to %COMMENT tag

 The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:
%COMMENT{type="below"}%
will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.
Changed:
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<

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

>
>

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

 The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,
%COMMENT{type="above" target="%MAINWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%
This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.
Changed:
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Location relative to an arbitrary text string

>
>

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

 Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,
%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%
Line: 68 to 74
  If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.
Changed:
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Default templates

>
>

Default templates

 Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin. These are:

Line: 84 to 90
 Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.

Changed:
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Customisation

>
>

Customisation

 Customisation of the comment plugin requires
Changed:
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<
  • familiarity with HTML forms,
>
>
  • familiarity with HTML forms
 

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

Changed:
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The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins. By default, this template includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate. This allows for several levels of customisation:
  1. To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
  2. To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate. You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
  3. To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
  4. To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)
>
>
The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins.

Defining custom templates

By default, templates/comments.tmpl includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate that can include non-standard customisations.

This allows for several levels of customisation:

  1. To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
  2. To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to UserCommentsTemplate (create if it does not exist yet). You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
  3. To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
  4. To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)
  ALERT! Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.
Changed:
<
<

The PROMPT template

>
>

Customisation example

Provide both a PROMPT and an OUTPUT definition:

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{promptbox}%%TMPL:END%
%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:myComment}%%TMPL:P{outputoneliner}%%POS:TOP%
%TMPL:END%

Call your custom comment with:

%COMMENT{type="myComment"}%

The PROMPT template

 The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.
Changed:
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Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the >form< and &gt:/form< tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!
>
>
Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the <form> and </form> tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!
 
Added:
>
>

Providing attribute values

 If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:
<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">

Line: 118 to 145
 <textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">
Added:
>
>

Special variables

 As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:
Variable Description
Deleted:
<
<
%MESSAGE% A helpful generated message, either a lock message or a reminder to refresh.
 
%DISABLED% Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
Added:
>
>
%MESSAGE% The text specified by default. This may be overridden by a helpful message when the prompt is DISABLED.

EXPERT Note that when a comment is saved, the TWiki save script is invoked on the target topic, with a number of parameters provided by the comment form. Normally the CommentPlugin will provide these fields in the form, but experts can also provide the fields themselves in order to get finer control over what is submitted, or you might want to define your own HTML forms that do comment submission. The parameters that the CommentPlugin recognises are as follows:

CGI parameter Description
comment_action Must be save to get the CommentPlugin to perform
comment_type Type of the OUTPUT template
comment_index Zero-based index of the %COMMENT in the source topic. Used to place a post relative to an existing %COMMENT.
comment_anchor Anchor taken from the target spec
comment_location As passed to %COMMENT
comment_nonotify As passed to %COMMENT
comment_remove Zero-based index of a %COMMENT to remove from the target topic
comment_nopost As passed to %COMMENT
Note that comment_location overrides comment_anchor, and both override comment_index. Example, shows an "I Approve" button that adds your approval signature to the end of the topic:
<form method="post" action="%SCRIPTURL{save}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%">
<input type="submit" value="I Approve" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_action" value="save" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment_type" value="bottom" />
<input type="hidden" name="comment" value="I Approve" />
</form>
 
Changed:
<
<

The OUTPUT template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made and the user who made it.
>
>

The OUTPUT template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made, and the user who made it.
  There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:
Line: 136 to 184
  All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.
Changed:
<
<

Settings

  • Description:
>
>

Settings

Two TWiki Preference variables are recognised by the CommentPlugin:
Preference Default Description
%COMMENTPLUGIN_TEMPLATES% comments Name of template file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentPluginTemplate, which in turn includes UserCommentsTemplate.
%COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE% above Default template type
These can be set in TWikiPreferences, in WebPreferences or in individual topics.
 
Changed:
<
<

Plugin Installation Instructions

>
>

Plugin Installation Instructions

 
  • This plugin is pre-installed in most TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
    • Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
    • Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
Changed:
<
<
    • You may need to correct file permissions.
    • Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on. You can also do this step manually. Dependencies:
>
>
    • You may need to correct file permissions
  • Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on, and enable the plugin.
  • Alternatively,
    • Manually resolve the dependencies listed below.
  None
Changed:
<
<
    • Visit configure in your TWiki installation, and enable the plugin in the {Plugins} section.

Plugin Info

>
>
  • Use configure to enable the plugin

Plugin Info

 
Plugin Author: TWiki:Main.DavidWeller, TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk
Change History:  
Added:
>
>
11358 Item2802 moved SHORTDESCRIPTION to .pm. Coded up TWiki:main.PankajPant's suggestions as nopost and remove. Added default text for the %COMMENT as requested by TWiki:Main.AndyGlew
 
11118 Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
8788 Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787 Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
Changed:
<
<
8433 Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to '%TWIKIEB%.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
>
>
8433 Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to 'TWiki.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
 
7427 Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251 Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
Changed:
<
<
5906 Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not foudn
5519 CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518 CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
>
>
5906 Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not found
5519 CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518 CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
 
5455 On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280 Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250 Removed newlines from prompt box
4902 Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901 Added templates in user webs support
4897 Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
Changed:
<
<
4889 Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882 Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
>
>
4889 Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882 Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
 
4745 06Mar 2002 initial commit
Perl Version: >= 5.6.1
Plugin Home: TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin
Line: 179 to 237
  Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins
Changed:
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-- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 02:16:06 25 October 2006
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-- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 05:07:17 16 January 2007

Revision 52005-03-27 - TWikiContributor

Line: 1 to 1
 

Comment Plugin

Line: 155 to 155
 

Plugin Info

Plugin Author: TWiki:Main.DavidWeller, TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk
Change History:  
Added:
>
>
11118 Item2322 removed span tag around oneliner bullet output
 
8788 Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787 Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433 Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to '%TWIKIEB%.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
Line: 178 to 179
  Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins
Changed:
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-- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 02:19:11 26 June 2006
>
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-- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 02:16:06 25 October 2006

Revision 42005-03-27 - TWikiContributor

Line: 1 to 1
 

Comment Plugin

Line: 178 to 178
  Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins
Changed:
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-- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 21:44:41 31 March 2006
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-- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 02:19:11 26 June 2006

Revision 32005-03-27 - TWikiContributor

Line: 1 to 1
 

Comment Plugin

Changed:
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This plugin allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
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This plugin allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
 
Changed:
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<
Note: this version of the CommentPlugin will not work with TWiki versions released prior to June 2005
>
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WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this plugin with an earlier version of TWiki, please see here
 

Features

Line: 84 to 91
  To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.
Changed:
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The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins. By default, this template includes the topic CommentsTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate. This allows for several levels of customisation:
>
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The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins. By default, this template includes the topic CommentPluginTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate. This allows for several levels of customisation:
 
  1. To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
  2. To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate. You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
  3. To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
Line: 147 to 154
 
    • Visit configure in your TWiki installation, and enable the plugin in the {Plugins} section.

Plugin Info

Plugin Author: TWiki:Main.DavidWeller, TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk
Changed:
<
<
Change History: Please refer to the TWiki Subversion repository for a complete change history of this plugin.
Dependencies: None
>
>
Change History:  
8788 Item1465 Item1577: reverted 8433 to fix inclusion of correct user templates
8787 Item1573 renamed standard templates topic to avoid naming clash on Windows, where filenames are case-insensitive
8433 Item1465 Fix 'TWiki.' to '%TWIKIEB%.'; also fixed include 'UserComments' to 'UserCommentsTemplate' (at least that is what the doc suggests)
7427 Item845 removed duplicate date in default comments; stick with server time
7251 Item810 fix for user template inclusion; reorganised templates to make customisation easier
5906 Item143 apache warning from comment plugin when CommentsTmpl.txt not foudn
5519 CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated JacobEisinger's fix
5518 CommentPluginOnAnchorsBroken: incorporated OlivierBerger's fix
5455 On Niels Kodslo's prompting, removed the global recursion prevention that I believe is no longer needed.
5280 Removed templates, and some minor fixes
5250 Removed newlines from prompt box
4902 Changed to use viewauth. Moved templates into user topics.
4901 Added templates in user webs support
4897 Fixes for disabling during preview; re-enabled old legacy parameters
4889 Chopped down from PeterMasiar version, removing several parameters, savecomment script, changing way templates are done. Major rewrite, atcherly.
4882 Update from PeterMasiar's 2.0 version, plus documentation and small code improvements.
4745 06Mar 2002 initial commit
 
Perl Version: >= 5.6.1
Plugin Home: TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback: TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

Changed:
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-- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 23:00:07 01 February 2006
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-- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 21:44:41 31 March 2006

Revision 22005-03-27 - TWikiContributor

Line: 1 to 1
Added:
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Comment Plugin

This plugin allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

( Discussion in TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev )

Added:
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>
Note: this version of the CommentPlugin will not work with TWiki versions released prior to June 2005
 

Features

Line: 21 to 24
  The following attributes are recognised
Name Description
Changed:
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type (Required) This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see Customisation, below. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences. By default this is 'below'.
>
>
type This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see Customisation, below. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences. By default this is 'below'.
 
target Name of the topic to add the comment to. Defaults to the current topic.
location Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully below!
mode For compatability with older versions only, synonymous with type
nonotify Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics
Added:
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noform Set to "on" to disable the automatic form that encloses your comment block - remember to insert <FORM> tags yourself!
 

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.
Line: 53 to 57
  Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.
Added:
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I look forward to someone leveraging this feature to create - for example - threaded conversations using %COMMENT.
 If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

Added:
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Templates are used to define the "comment style" i.e. how comments appear in the page. The default is to add comments in "Blog like" style using bulleted lists, with the most recent comment at the top, but many other styles are available such as tables or Wiki thread mode comments. It is easy to define your own customer styles as well.
 A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin. These are:
Template type Description
Changed:
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top Comments, signed and dated, added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
bottom Comments, signed and dated, added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
above Comments, signed and dated, added immediately before the target anchor, or the %COMMENT if no anchor is specified
below Comments, signed and dated, added immediately below the target anchor, or the %COMMENT if no anchor is specified
tableprepend Comments, signed and dated, formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
tableappend Comments, signed and dated, formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
>
>
top Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
bottom Comments, signed and dated (server time), added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
above Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately before the target anchor, or the %COMMENT if no anchor is specified
below Comments, signed and dated (server time), added immediately below the target anchor, or the %COMMENT if no anchor is specified
threadmode Wiki thread mode comment, signed and dated (server time)
tableprepend Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
tableappend Comments, signed and dated (server time), formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
  Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.
Line: 73 to 82
 
Deleted:
<
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The plugin picks up its templates from a standard TWiki template file, named "comments". This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins. This template file may include other template files, or may include a topic from a user web (this is an extension to the normal handling of %TMPL:INCLUDE described in the documentation). The shipped plugin defines default templates in comments.tmpl and then includes the topic CommentsTmpl. If you want to define your own templates, add them to UserTemplates. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE in this file to include other files of templates. Note also that if you want to override any of the default templates shipped with the plugin, you can simply do so by defining them in UserTemplates, and they will replace the installed versions.
 To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.
Added:
>
>
The plugin picks up these template definitions from a standard TWiki template file, templates/comments.tmpl. This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins. By default, this template includes the topic CommentsTemplate, which contains all the shipped standard templates and in turn includes TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate. This allows for several levels of customisation:
  1. To override all default templates, everywhere, change comments.tmpl to include a different topic (this customisation will be lost next time you upgrade, though).
  2. To add site-wide local template customisations, add them to TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate. You can redefine the standard templates here if you want, and your definitions will override the standard definitions.
  3. To override templates on a web-by-web basis, add a topic UserCommentsTemplate to the web (this will replace TWiki.UserCommentsTemplate)
  4. To override templates for a specific skin, add them to TWiki.UserComments<Skin>Template (where <Skin> is the name of the skin with the first letter capitalised, e.g. Pattern)

ALERT! Templates are picked up by following the standard TWiki rules for locating template files. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE to include other files of templates.

 

The PROMPT template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.
Changed:
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Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the >form< and &gt:/form< tags. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!
>
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Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the >form< and &gt:/form< tags, unless you specify noform="on", in which case you have to provide them yourself. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!
  If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:
Line: 89 to 104
  and the %COMMENT tag is:

Changed:
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%COMMENT{type="example" rows="5" cols="20"}%
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%COMMENT{type="example" cols="75"}%
  then the template will be expanded as

Changed:
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<textarea rows=5 cols="20" value="Rubbish">
>
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<textarea rows="3" cols="75" value="Rubbish">
 

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable Description
%MESSAGE% A helpful generated message, either a lock message or a reminder to refresh.
Changed:
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%DISABLED% Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (see Important Note regarding Locks, below).
>
>
%DISABLED% Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (e.g. in preview mode).
 

The OUTPUT template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made and the user who made it.
Line: 112 to 127
 
%POS:AFTER% If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the %COMMENT% tag
Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE
Changed:
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Important Note regarding Locks

The plugin checks if the page is locked for edit. When a locked page is displayed in 'view' mode, comment input is automatically disabled.

Note that if the page was read long time ago, it's possible that page was locked by another user after it was read, and the lock is still outstanding. In this case, comments cannot be saved, and you will be redirected to a "topic is locked" page. You then have two options:

  • Cancel - throw away your comment and return to viewing the page.
  • Back - WARNING some browsers might requery the page and lose your comments - so test how your browser behaves before using the Back button.

To help avoid edit conflict, a reminder to refresh the page before entering comments is the default text for a %COMMENT. When the target page is known to be locked, the PROMPT form is automatically disabled.

>
>
All the usual TWikiVariables that can be used in a topic template can also be used in an OUTPUT template. See TWikiVariables for details.
 

Settings

  • Description:
    • Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
Changed:
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<
>
>
  • Name of file in the 'templates' directory that contains the comment templates. The default 'comments.tmpl' automatically includes user templates from CommentsTmpl
 
    • Set TEMPLATES = comments
  • default template type (if not present, defaults to "below")
Changed:
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<
    • Set DEFAULT_TYPE = above
>
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    • Set DEFAULT_TYPE = below
 

Plugin Installation Instructions

Changed:
<
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* Make sure you have the TWiki:Plugins/SharedCode module installed. Among other things, TWiki:Plugins/SharedCode includes a compatibility module that enables plugins to use new TWiki features with earlier TWiki releases. If you don't already have it, install it now.
  • Download the ZIP file from the Plugin web (see below)
  • Unzip CommentPlugin.zip in your twiki installation directory. Content:
    File: Description:
    data/TWiki/CommentPlugin.txt Plugin doc page (this page)
    data/TWiki/CommentsTmpl.txt Example user templates
    templates/comments.tmpl Master comment templates
    lib/TWiki/Plugins/CommentPlugin.pm Plugin Perl module
    lib/TWiki/Plugins/CommentPlugin/Comment.pm Plugin Perl module
    lib/TWiki/Plugins/CommentPlugin/Templates.pm Plugin Perl module
    lib/TWiki/Plugins/CommentPlugin/test.zip Tests
    lib/TWiki/Plugins/CommentPlugin/build.pl Build file

  • The Plugin depends on the viewauth script to authenticate the user. As described in TWikiAccessControl, copy the view script to viewauth (or better, create a symbolic link) and add viewauth to the list of authenticated scripts in the .htaccess file.

If installed correctly, you should see a %COMMENT edit box below here.

 
<--/commentPlugin-->
>
>
  • This plugin is pre-installed in most TWiki releases. However if you need to upgrade the plugin for any reason:
    • Download the archive file from the Plugin web (see below)
    • Unpack the archive in your twiki installation directory.
    • You may need to correct file permissions.
    • Run CommentPlugin_installer to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on. You can also do this step manually. Dependencies: None
    • Visit configure in your TWiki installation, and enable the plugin in the {Plugins} section.
 

Plugin Info

Changed:
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Plugin Author: v1.0 TWiki:Main/DavidWeller v2.0 TWiki:Main/PeterMasiar v3.0 TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie
Plugin Version: 3.0
Change History:
<-- Most recent first -->
3.003 11 Apr 2004: Minor line termination problem fixed, and "security" hyphen on standard comment removed and replaced with a bulleted list.
  3.002 6 April 2004: Applied patches (thanks Peter Thoeny) for multiple comment adding, BOTTOM and TOP inside meta-data, and moved example to Sandbox.
  3.001 13 March 2004: Modified to use viewauth save technique (safer), add nonotify parameter, move templates fully into topics, with a hook for site-specifics, support %COMMENT%, internationalisation fixes
  3.000 18 Feb 2004: TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie rewrote for standard templates and other user requests. Recognition to Patrice Fournier and Sam Abrams for terrific testing and patch support.
  7 Feb 2004: TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie rewrote this page and CommentTemplates in an effort to make the plugin more user friendly. Added {TIME} variable. Also updated CVS.
  23 Sep 2003 TWiki:Main/PeterMasiar: 80% rewrite/refactor, adding templates
  15 July 2003: TWiki:Main/PeterMasiar added "reminder" parameter and feature to pass comments to oopslockedcomments.tmpl template to copy-paste later
  5 March 2002 Bug fixes, TWiki:Main/JonLambert created oopslockedcomments.tmpl template
  24 Feb 2002 added a few more user requests, made "English" text configurable
  4 Dec 2001: 1.01 release, changed name to CommentPlugin, added $button var, changed textarea WRAP setting to "soft"
  30 Nov 2001: Initial version
Dependencies:  
Perl Version: 5.0
>
>
Plugin Author: TWiki:Main.DavidWeller, TWiki:Main.PeterMasiar, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie http://www.c-dot.co.uk
Change History: Please refer to the TWiki Subversion repository for a complete change history of this plugin.
Dependencies: None
Perl Version: >= 5.6.1
 
Plugin Home: TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback: TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

Changed:
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<
-- TWiki:Main/DavidWeller - 05 Mar 2002
-- TWiki:Main/PeterMasiar - 15 Jul 2003, 23 Sep 2003
-- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 21 May 2004
>
>
-- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 23:00:07 01 February 2006

Revision 12004-08-08 - PeterThoeny

Line: 1 to 1
Added:
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Comment Plugin

This plugin allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.

( Discussion in TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev )

Features

Inserts an edit box into the page that allows users to type in and save comments. Comments can be made

  • in different formats (as defined by a template),
  • in both forward and reverse chronological order,
  • signed or unsigned, dated or undated (as defined by a template),
  • in other topics, or other positions within the current topic.

Syntax Rules

Write the command %COMMENT{ attributes }% anywhere in a TWiki topic. %COMMENT% is also legal.

The following attributes are recognised

Name Description
type (Required) This is the name of the template to use for this comment. Comment templates are defined in a TWiki template - see Customisation, below. If this attribute is not defined, the type is whatever is defined by COMMENTPLUGIN_DEFAULT_TYPE, either in this topic or in your WebPreferences. By default this is 'below'.
target Name of the topic to add the comment to. Defaults to the current topic.
location Regular expression specifying the comment location in the target topic. Read carefully below!
mode For compatability with older versions only, synonymous with type
nonotify Set to "on" to disable change notification for target topics

Positioning the comment

%COMMENT supports several ways to specify where a comment should be inserted in the target topic. This is referred to as the location of the comment.

Location relative to %COMMENT tag

The default location is the %COMMENT tag itself. For example:
%COMMENT{type="below"}%
will add comments in the current topic, directly below the %COMMENT tag.

Location relative to a TWiki anchor

The target attribute may specify a web, and may also specify an anchor within the target topic; for example,
%COMMENT{type="above" target="%MAINWEB%.PersonalRemarks#InsertHere"}%
This uses a standard TWiki in-topic anchor as the insertion location. See TextFormattingRules for more about TWiki anchors.

Location relative to an arbitrary text string

Getting more sophisticated, you can also specify a regular expression for the target location using the location parameter. The target topic is searched for the regular expression, and the comment inserted relative to the string that the search matched. For example,
%COMMENT{type="above" location="Flights of Fancy"}%
will place comments above the first occurence of the string Flights of Fancy in the current topic.

Warning of course, if a user's comment contains the string "Flights of Fancy" they may and up changing the location for the next comment! Also, if you use a tag in the location, then you've just inserted another tag in the page that contains the %COMMENT! So be very careful how you specify the RE for location. Note that the RE is matched using perl "multiple line" mode, so ^ and $ match the start of a line and the end of a line respectively.

If you specify an anchor and a location, the anchor will be ignored.

Default templates

A set of default comment templates are shipped with the plugin. These are:
Template type Description
top Comments, signed and dated, added at top of the topic (the anchor is ignored)
bottom Comments, signed and dated, added at end of the target topic (the anchor is ignored)
above Comments, signed and dated, added immediately before the target anchor, or the %COMMENT if no anchor is specified
below Comments, signed and dated, added immediately below the target anchor, or the %COMMENT if no anchor is specified
tableprepend Comments, signed and dated, formatted as an HTML table row, added below the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)
tableappend Comments, signed and dated, formatted as an HTML table row, added above the anchor (which must be in an HTML <table>)

Your local installation may add more template types as well - see Customisation, below.

Customisation

Customisation of the comment plugin requires

The plugin picks up its templates from a standard TWiki template file, named "comments". This allows different templates to be defined for different TWiki skins. This template file may include other template files, or may include a topic from a user web (this is an extension to the normal handling of %TMPL:INCLUDE described in the documentation). The shipped plugin defines default templates in comments.tmpl and then includes the topic CommentsTmpl. If you want to define your own templates, add them to UserTemplates. Note that you can use %TMPL:INCLUDE in this file to include other files of templates. Note also that if you want to override any of the default templates shipped with the plugin, you can simply do so by defining them in UserTemplates, and they will replace the installed versions.

To define a comment type, you have to provide two simple template definitions in the template file; one for the prompt box, and one for the generated output. If we have a template type "mytype", these are named PROMPT:mytype and OUTPUT:mytype respectively. See comments.tmpl in the templates directory for examples.

The PROMPT template

The PROMPT template defines the contents of an HTML form that is used to capture the comment. This form invokes the comment generator when submitted. Parameters to the comment generator are defined using standard HTML input fields, such as input, textarea and select. The user enters values for these parameters, and these are then available when the OUTPUT template is expanded, in the form of %URLPARAM%s.

Only the input fields of the form need be defined. The plugin automatically generates the >form< and &gt:/form< tags. Note that you must define a "submit" button if you want the form to work!

If an attribute is given to the %COMMENT tag that is not one of the standard attributes, then that attribute is taken as the name of a parameter to be expanded in the PROMPT template. Expressions in the template of the form %param|default% (e.g. %rows|3%, %button|Push me%) are expanded to the values given in the %COMMENT. For example, if the PROMPT template 'example' contains:

<textarea rows=%rows|3% cols="%cols|50%" value="%tval|Rubbish%">
and the %COMMENT tag is:
%COMMENT{type="example" rows="5" cols="20"}%
then the template will be expanded as
<textarea rows=5 cols="20" value="Rubbish">

As well as support for all the usual TWiki variables in templates, the following special variables are supported in the PROMPT definition:

Variable Description
%MESSAGE% A helpful generated message, either a lock message or a reminder to refresh.
%DISABLED% Set to 'disabled' when you cannot comment (see Important Note regarding Locks, below).

The OUTPUT template

The OUTPUT template defines the format for the text that actually gets embedded into the topic. All the usual TWiki variables are available in the PROMPT definition, but note that they get expanded when the comment is inserted in the text, so time, date and username will refer to the time and date when the comment was made and the user who made it.

There are also four position tags that are used to indicate where the comment should be placed, relative to the location defined in the %COMMENT tag:

%POS:TOP% If present, comments will be inserted at the top of the topic i.e. before any other text
%POS:BOTTOM% If present, comments will be inserted at the end of the topic i.e. after all existing text
%POS:BEFORE% If present, comments will be inserted immediately before the %COMMENT% tag
%POS:AFTER% If present, comments will be inserted immediately after the %COMMENT% tag
Note that these position tags are obviously mutually exclusive. If you define more than one, the result is undefined. If none is present, the default is taken from the plugin setting DEFAULT_TYPE

Important Note regarding Locks

The plugin checks if the page is locked for edit. When a locked page is displayed in 'view' mode, comment input is automatically disabled.

Note that if the page was read long time ago, it's possible that page was locked by another user after it was read, and the lock is still outstanding. In this case, comments cannot be saved, and you will be redirected to a "topic is locked" page. You then have two options:

  • Cancel - throw away your comment and return to viewing the page.
  • Back - WARNING some browsers might requery the page and lose your comments - so test how your browser behaves before using the Back button.

To help avoid edit conflict, a reminder to refresh the page before entering comments is the default text for a %COMMENT. When the target page is known to be locked, the PROMPT form is automatically disabled.

Settings

  • Description:
    • Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle.
  • templates; includes user templates from CommentsTmpl
    • Set TEMPLATES = comments
  • default template type (if not present, defaults to "below")
    • Set DEFAULT_TYPE = above

Plugin Installation Instructions

* Make sure you have the TWiki:Plugins/SharedCode module installed. Among other things, TWiki:Plugins/SharedCode includes a compatibility module that enables plugins to use new TWiki features with earlier TWiki releases. If you don't already have it, install it now.
  • Download the ZIP file from the Plugin web (see below)
  • Unzip CommentPlugin.zip in your twiki installation directory. Content:
    File: Description:
    data/TWiki/CommentPlugin.txt Plugin doc page (this page)
    data/TWiki/CommentsTmpl.txt Example user templates
    templates/comments.tmpl Master comment templates
    lib/TWiki/Plugins/CommentPlugin.pm Plugin Perl module
    lib/TWiki/Plugins/CommentPlugin/Comment.pm Plugin Perl module
    lib/TWiki/Plugins/CommentPlugin/Templates.pm Plugin Perl module
    lib/TWiki/Plugins/CommentPlugin/test.zip Tests
    lib/TWiki/Plugins/CommentPlugin/build.pl Build file

  • The Plugin depends on the viewauth script to authenticate the user. As described in TWikiAccessControl, copy the view script to viewauth (or better, create a symbolic link) and add viewauth to the list of authenticated scripts in the .htaccess file.

If installed correctly, you should see a %COMMENT edit box below here.

 
<--/commentPlugin-->

Plugin Info

Plugin Author: v1.0 TWiki:Main/DavidWeller v2.0 TWiki:Main/PeterMasiar v3.0 TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie
Plugin Version: 3.0
Change History:
<-- Most recent first -->
3.003 11 Apr 2004: Minor line termination problem fixed, and "security" hyphen on standard comment removed and replaced with a bulleted list.
  3.002 6 April 2004: Applied patches (thanks Peter Thoeny) for multiple comment adding, BOTTOM and TOP inside meta-data, and moved example to Sandbox.
  3.001 13 March 2004: Modified to use viewauth save technique (safer), add nonotify parameter, move templates fully into topics, with a hook for site-specifics, support %COMMENT%, internationalisation fixes
  3.000 18 Feb 2004: TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie rewrote for standard templates and other user requests. Recognition to Patrice Fournier and Sam Abrams for terrific testing and patch support.
  7 Feb 2004: TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie rewrote this page and CommentTemplates in an effort to make the plugin more user friendly. Added {TIME} variable. Also updated CVS.
  23 Sep 2003 TWiki:Main/PeterMasiar: 80% rewrite/refactor, adding templates
  15 July 2003: TWiki:Main/PeterMasiar added "reminder" parameter and feature to pass comments to oopslockedcomments.tmpl template to copy-paste later
  5 March 2002 Bug fixes, TWiki:Main/JonLambert created oopslockedcomments.tmpl template
  24 Feb 2002 added a few more user requests, made "English" text configurable
  4 Dec 2001: 1.01 release, changed name to CommentPlugin, added $button var, changed textarea WRAP setting to "soft"
  30 Nov 2001: Initial version
Dependencies:  
Perl Version: 5.0
Plugin Home: TWiki:Plugins/CommentPlugin
Feedback: TWiki:Plugins/CommentPluginDev

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins

-- TWiki:Main/DavidWeller - 05 Mar 2002
-- TWiki:Main/PeterMasiar - 15 Jul 2003, 23 Sep 2003
-- TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie - 21 May 2004

 
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