--- /dev/null
+[[!tag patch wishlist]]I quite often find myself repeating a boiler-plate
+pagespec chunk, e.g.
+
+ and !*.png and !*.jpg...
+
+it would be quite nice if I could conveniently bundle them together into a
+pagespec "alias", and instead write
+
+ and !image()...
+
+I wrote the following plugin to achieve this:
+
+ commit f3a9dd113338fe5d2b717de1dc69679ff74e2f8d
+ Author: Jon Dowland <jmtd@debian.org>
+ Date: Tue May 3 17:40:16 2011 +0100
+
+ new plugin: alias.pm - pagespec aliases
+
+ diff --git a/IkiWiki/Plugin/alias.pm b/IkiWiki/Plugin/alias.pm
+ new file mode 100644
+ index 0000000..b8d4574
+ --- /dev/null
+ +++ b/IkiWiki/Plugin/alias.pm
+ @@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+ +package IkiWiki::Plugin::alias;
+ +
+ +use warnings;
+ +use strict;
+ +use IkiWiki '3.00';
+ +
+ +sub import {
+ + hook(type => "getsetup", id=> "alias", call => \&getsetup);
+ + hook(type => "checkconfig", id=> "alias", call => \&checkconfig);
+ +}
+ +
+ +sub getsetup () {
+ + return
+ + plugin => {
+ + description => "allows the definition of pagespec aliases",
+ + safe => 1,
+ + rebuild => 1,
+ + section => "misc",
+ + },
+ + pagespec_aliases => {
+ + type => "string",
+ + example => {"image" => "*jpg or *jpeg or *png or *gif or *ico" },
+ + description => "a set of mappings from alias name to pagespec",
+ + safe => 1,
+ + rebuild => 0,
+ + },
+ +}
+ +
+ +sub checkconfig () {
+ + no strict 'refs';
+ + no warnings 'redefine';
+ +
+ + if ($config{pagespec_aliases}) {
+ + foreach my $key (keys %{$config{pagespec_aliases}}) {
+ + my $value = ${$config{pagespec_aliases}}{$key};
+ + # XXX: validate key?
+ + my $subname = "IkiWiki::PageSpec::match_$key";
+ + *{ $subname } = sub {
+ + my $path = shift;
+ + return IkiWiki::pagespec_match($path, $value);
+ + }
+ + }
+ + }
+ +}
+ +
+ +1;
+
+I need to reflect on this a bit more before I send a pull request. In
+particular I imagine the strict/warnings stuff will make you puke. Also, I'm
+not sure whether I should name-grab 'alias' since [[todo/alias_directive]] is
+an existing wishlist item.
+
+Here's an example setup chunk:
+
+ pagespec_aliases:
+ image: "*.png or *.jpg or *.jpeg or *.gif or *.ico"
+ helper: "*.css or *.js"
+ boring: "image() or helper()"
+
+The above demonstrates self-referential dynamic pagespec aliases. It doesn't work,
+however, to add ' or internal()' to `boring`, for some reason.
+
+-- [[Jon]]