[[!template id=plugin name=aggregate author="[[Joey]]"]]
-[[!tag type/useful]]
+[[!tag type/special-purpose]]
This plugin allows content from other feeds to be aggregated into the
wiki. To specify feeds to aggregate, use the
[[ikiwiki/directive/aggregate]] [[ikiwiki/directive]].
-New users of aggregate should enable the `aggregateinternal => 1` option in the
-.setup file. If you don't do so, you will need to enable the [[html]] plugin
-as well as aggregate itself, since feed entries will be stored as HTML.
+## requirements
-The [[meta]] and [[tag]] plugins are also recommended. Either the
-[[htmltidy]] or [[htmlbalance]] plugin is suggested, since feeds can easily
-contain html problems, some of which these plugins can fix.
+The [[meta]] and [[tag]] plugins are also recommended to be used with this
+one. Either the [[htmltidy]] or [[htmlbalance]] plugin is suggested, since
+feeds can easily contain html problems, some of which these plugins can fix.
+
+## triggering aggregation
You will need to run ikiwiki periodically from a cron job, passing it the
--aggregate parameter, to make it check for new posts. Here's an example
*/15 * * * * ikiwiki --setup my.wiki --aggregate --refresh
+The plugin updates a file `.ikiwiki/aggregatetime` with the unix time stamp
+when the next aggregation run could occur. (The file may be empty, if no
+aggregation is required.) This can be integrated into more complex cron
+jobs or systems to trigger aggregation only when needed.
+
Alternatively, you can allow `ikiwiki.cgi` to trigger the aggregation. You
should only need this if for some reason you cannot use cron, and instead
want to use a service such as [WebCron](http://webcron.org). To enable
can visit the url to trigger an aggregation run, but it will only check
each feed if its `updateinterval` has passed.
-## internal pages and `aggregateinternal`
+## aggregated pages
This plugin creates a page for each aggregated item.
If the `aggregateinternal` option is enabled in the setup file (which is
-recommended), aggregated pages are stored in the source directory with a
+the default), aggregated pages are stored in the source directory with a
"._aggregated" extension. These pages cannot be edited by web users, and
do not generate first-class wiki pages. They can still be inlined into a
blog, but you have to use `internal` in [[PageSpecs|IkiWiki/PageSpec]],
like `internal(blog/*)`.
-For backward compatibility, the default is that these pages have the
-".html" extension, and are first-class wiki pages -- each one generates
-a separate HTML page in the output, and they can even be edited.
-
-That turns out to not be ideal for aggregated content, because publishing
-files for each of those pages is a waste of disk space and CPU, and you
-probably don't want to allow them to be edited. So, there is an alternative
-method that can be used (and is recommended), turned on by the
-`aggregateinternal` option in the setup file.
-
-If you are already using aggregate and want to enable `aggregateinternal`,
-you should follow this process:
-
-1. Update all [[PageSpecs|ikiwiki/PageSpec]] that refer to the aggregated
- pages -- such as those in inlines. Put "internal()" around globs
- in those PageSpecs. For example, if the PageSpec was `foo/*`, it should
- be changed to `internal(foo/*)`. This has to be done because internal
- pages are not matched by regular globs.
-2. Turn on `aggregateinternal` in the setup file.
-3. Use [[ikiwiki-transition]] to rename all existing aggregated `.html`
- files in the srcdir. The command to run is
- `ikiwiki-transition aggregateinternal $setupfile`,
-4. Refresh the wiki. (`ikiwiki -setup your.setup -refresh`)
+If `aggregateinternal` is disabled, you will need to enable the [[html]]
+plugin as well as aggregate itself, since feed entries will be stored as
+HTML, and as first-class wiki pages -- each one generates
+a separate HTML page in the output, and they can even be edited. This
+option is provided only for backwards compatability.