-For one type of plugin, see [[todo/PluggableRenderers]].
+Suggestions of ideas for plugins:
-A plugin system should ideally support things like:
+* enable editable, non-htmlized files
-* [[todo/lists]] of pages, of mising pages / broken links, of registered users, etc
-* a [[todo/link_map]]
-* [[todo/sigs]]
-* [[pageindexes]]
-* Wiki stats, such as the total number of pages, total number of links, most linked to pages, etc, etc.
-* etc
+ Some months ago, before upgrading my wiki, I used svn to check in an XML file
+ and a companion XSL file for client-side styling. That was cool, ikiwiki
+ copied them over unchanged and the file could be linked to as `\[[foo|foo.xml]]`.
-Considering ikiwiki plugins, one idea I have is to make the [[PreProcessorDirective]]s be a plugin. A setting in the config file would enable various plusins, which are perl modules, that each provide one or more preprocessor directives.
+ I even had the XSL produce an `Edit` link at the top, because I wanted a simple
+ way for a web user to edit the XML. But I had to hack stuff to make the edit CGI
+ not say `foo.xml is not an editable page`.
-Since preprocessing happens before htmlization but after a page is loaded and linkified, it should be possible to use it to create something like a link map or lists, or a page index. Page inlining and rss generation is already done via preprocessor directives and seems a natureal as a plugin too.
+ I did that in a kind of slash-and-burn way, and apparently that's the one change
+ that was uncommitted when I upgraded ikiwiki, so now it's in the same place
+ as the wikiwyg project. On the bright side, that's a chance to think about how to
+ do it better.
-Note that things like a link map or a broken link list page would need to be updated whenever a set (or all) pages change; the %inlinepages hash already allows for pages to register this, although it might need to be renamed.
+ Any suggestions for appropriate uses of existing plugins, or the plugin API,
+ to selectively add to the set of files in the working copy that the edit CGI
+ will consider editable? --ChapmanFlack 17July2008
-I need to look at the range of things that other wikis use their plugin systems for, but preprocessor directives as plugins certianly seems useful, even if it's not a complete solution.
\ No newline at end of file
+ > It looks like 80% of the job would be accomplished by hooking `htmlize` for
+ > the `.xml` extension. That would satisfy the `pagetype` test that causes
+ > the edit CGI to say `not an editable page`. (That happens too early for a
+ > `canedit` hook.) The `htmlize` hook could just
+ > copy in to out unchanged (this is an internal wiki, I'm not thinking hard
+ > about evil XML content right now). For extra credit, an `editcontent` hook
+ > could validate the XML. (Can an `editcontent` hook signal a content error?)
+
+ > The tricky bit seems to be to register the fact that the target file should
+ > have extension `.xml` and not `.html`. Maybe what's needed is a generalized
+ > notion of an `htmlize` hook, one that specifies its output extension as well
+ > as its input, and isn't assumed to produce html? --ChapmanFlack 17July2008
+
+ > Belay that, there's nothing good about trying to use `htmlize` for this; too
+ > many html-specific assumptions follow. For now I'm back to an embarrassing quick
+ > hack that allows editing my xml file. But here's the larger generalization I
+ > think this is driving at:
+
+ > IkiWiki is currently a tool that can compile a wiki by doing two things:
+ > 1. Process files of various input types _foo_ into a single output type, html, by
+ > finding suitable _foo_->html plugins, applying various useful transformations
+ > along the way.
+ > 1. Process files of other input types by copying them with no useful transformations at all.
+
+ > What it could be: a tool that compiles a wiki by doing this:
+ > 1. Process files of various input types _foo_ into various output types _bar_, by
+ > finding suitable _foo_->_bar_ plugins, applying various useful transformations along
+ > the way, but only those that apply to the _foo_->_bar_ conversion.
+ > 1. The second case above is now just a special case of 1 where _foo_->_foo_ for any
+ > unknown _foo_ is just a copy, and no other transformations apply.
+
+ > In some ways this seems like an easy and natural generalization. `%renderedfiles`
+ > is already mostly there, keeping the actual names of rendered files without assuming
+ > an html extension. There isn't a mechanism yet to say which transformations for
+ > linkification, preprocessing, etc., apply to which in/out types, but it could be
+ > easily added without a flag day. Right now, they _all_ apply to any input type for
+ > which an `htmlize` hook exists, and _none_ otherwise. That rule could be retained
+ > with an optional hook parameter available to override it.
+
+ > The hard part is just that right now the assumption of html as the one destination
+ > type is in the code a lot. --ChapmanFlack
+
+ >> Readers who bought this also liked: [[format_escape]], [[multiple_output_formats]]
+ >> --[[JeremieKoenig]]
+
+* list of registered users - tricky because it sorta calls for a way to rebuild the page when a new user is registered. Might be better as a cgi?
+> At best, this could only show the users who have logged in, not all
+> permitted by the current auth plugin(s). HTTP auth would need
+> web-server-specific code to list all users, and openid can't feasibly do so
+> at all. --[[JoshTriplett]]
+
+* For PlaceWiki I want to be able to do some custom plugins, including one
+ that links together subpages about the same place created by different
+ users. This seems to call for a plugin that applies to every page w/o any
+ specific marker being used, and pre-or-post-processes the full page
+ content. It also needs to update pages when related pages are added,
+ so it needs to register dependencies pre-emptively between pages,
+ or something. It's possible that this is a special case of backlinks and
+ is best implemented by making backlinks a plugin somehow. --[[Joey]]
+
+* random page (cgi plugin; how to link to it easily?)
+
+* How about an event calendar. Events could be sub-pages with an embedded
+ code to detail recurrance and/or event date/time
+
+* rcs plugin ([[JeremyReed]] has one he has been using for over a month with over 850 web commits with 13 users with over ten commits each.)
+
+* asciidoc or txt2tags format plugins
+
+ Should be quite easy to write, the otl plugin is a good example of a
+ similar formatter.
+
+>>Isn't there a conflict between ikiwiki using \[\[ \]\] and asciidoc using the same?
+>>There is a start of an asciidoc plugin at <http://www.mail-archive.com/asciidoc-discuss@metaperl.com/msg00120.html>
+>>-- KarlMW
+
+* manpage plugin: convert **"ls(1)"** style content into Markdown like **\[ls(1)\]\(http://example.org/man.cgi?name=ls§=1\)** or into HTML directly.
+
+> With a full installation of groff available, man offers HTML output. Might
+> take some fiddling to make it fit into the ikiwiki templates, and you might
+> or might not want to convert pages in the SEE ALSO as
+> well. --[[JoshTriplett]]
+
+* As I couldn't find another place to ask, I'll try here. I would like to install some contributed plugins, but can not find anywhere to downlod them.
+
+ > Not sure what you mean, the [[plugins/contrib]] page lists contributed plugins, and each of their pages tells where to download the plugin from.. --[[Joey]]
+
+* I wrote a very crude wrapper around tex4ht to render TeX files. I hesitate to give it a contrib/plugins page in its current state, but if someone wants to play, [here](http://www.cs.unb.ca/~bremner/wiki/software/ikiwiki/tex4ht.pm) it is.--[[DavidBremner]]
+
+* Setting default values for the meta plugin in the setup file, particularly author, license, and copyright, would be useful
+There is work in progress at
+[[plugins/contrib/default_content_for___42__copyright__42___and___42__license__42__]]
+-- [[DavidBremner]]
+
+* Would it make sense to have a hook to set the page name? This would solve a problem I see with
+[[source_code_highlighting|plugins/contrib/sourcehighlight]]
+-- [[DavidBremner]]