UseMod Wiki: UseModWiki/UseModFAQ

: This is a great page. Within a few hours, you can incorporate it into an existing Wiki by doing simple edits on the page to reflect my site & modifications to add some extras to the page. If you test with a Preview and you find that not all functions on this page are valid in that Wiki, you should note that the functions can be enabled by allowing HTML in the UseMod Wiki configuration on that site:

: There is also a very good Intro and Tour series of pages that one of our colleagues created. It's lurking around here somewhere, either on UseMod Wiki, or MeatBall.

2.2. Q: How do I completely delete an existing page, so that further links to it will show up with the little "?" symbol? Or is that a silly thing to do?

: A: Place DeletedPage on a line by itself at the top of the page. This will flag the page for deletion after 60 days. If you really need a page deleted immediately, make a note of it in the change summary, and a WikiAdmin? can delete the page immediately if they concur that it should be deleted without delay.

2.3. Q: How do I create a new page from scratch without creating a reference to it on an existing page?

: A1: Simply replace the WikiWord after the ? in the URL (in the browser's address field) with the name of the new page. But note that some Wiki sites frown upon the creation of orphan pages.

: A2: Another way is to edit any page to create a reference, but click the Preview button instead of saving your changes. On the preview page you can then click the '?' link to the new page, and edit it as usual.

Note: new page creation is one of the really weak features of usemodwiki, as it is not intuitive for non-techies.

2.4. Q: How can one block the editing of one page?

: A: Take a look at the AdminFeatures.

2.5. Q: How can I add pictures to a page as easy as adding text? E.g. mark image position and then HTTP upload a GIF or JPEG file?

: A1: In current version (0.92), you can easily present an image already available via an URL by adding a link to a picture. See TextFormattingRules/WikiImages. The WikiPatches/ImageTags patch gives more control, but still no image upload function?

: A2: You should also take a look at [cwick], a collaboration server largely based on the Use Mod code. It allows editors to upload images, which are associated with a specific page. Placing the image on the page is as easy as image:center:caption:imagename.jpg -- you can also left or right justify images.

2.6. Q2: I tried to access the cwick site referred to above -- it is no longer available for viewing. Do you have another resource with the same information?

: A: UseModWiki 1.0 supports adding images two ways: using upload: with any uploaded file that has a .gif .png or .jpg extension. The other way is to write a link to the image with no additional markup, like http://example.com/wiki/upload/something.gif.

2.7. Q: How can I create one word links instead of using WikiWords?

: A: Take a look at Free Links.

2.8. Q: I am using a wiki on my work intranet. What I want to understand is how to link to documents/ images/ databases /etc. on hard drives. Is this possible?

: A1: If you change the $LimitFileUrl? setting to 0, you can use links like "file://server_name/directory/path/file.txt" to point to files on a nearby server. I think you can also do something like file:///C|/directory/path/file.txt to point to local files. You may want to set up InterMap entries to point to commonly-used directories. --CliffordAdams

: A2: You might find the upload feature (see /NewFeatures for some starting documentation) in 1.0 useful. Note that on MS-Windows you need to apply a very minor patch to the wiki before uploading will work properly (the previous link has details, or email me). --CliffordAdams

2.9. Q: How to create links to a point inside the same page?

: I would like to create a link from a page to a different point in the same page. The page itself is linked with the Free Links notation .e.g. [[My Page]]. I saw something about anchors in TextFormattingRules but I didn't get it. I hoped I could link to an anchor with something like this: [[My Page#anchor myanchor]] but that's wrong.

2.10. Q: Why don't my character returns get processed?

: Everything I see here, including your text formating rules, says that character returns are significant in formatting text. But if I just type out a few lines of text using character returns to separat it, it all ends up on the same line.

3. Administration

3.1. Q: Is there a list of administration functions?

: A: Yes, see AdminFeatures for a detailed description and System for a useful page to copy to your own wiki.

3.2. Q: What does the maintenance administration action do?

: A: It removes expired MeatBall:KeptPages, which is crucial for a healthy wiki. Also, administrator-level page deletions and page renames are done through the maintainance action. In the future, it will also process vetoable actions like MeatBall:PageDeletion, and maybe MeatBall:FileReplacement.

3.3. Q: Is there a way to link to, or copy HTML pages on the same web server so they don't have to be manually copied into Wiki pages? I've tried various methods of relative references as I would do in standard HTML in conjunction with what I understand of the text formatting rules, but nothing seems to quite work.

3.4. Q: How do I make .htaccess RewriteRule rules that make wiki.pl handle all requests to a server or directory?

: A: Something like this will work:

RewriteRule ^$ /HomePage [L]
RewriteRule ^(.[^/]*)$ /cgi-bin/wiki.pl?$1 [L,PT]

3.5. Q: How do I make UseMod make links to host.domain/PageName? instead of host.domain/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?PageName??

: A: The easiest way is to wait for 1.0 in September 2003 which has this as an option ($SlashLinks). If you don't want to wait, email usemod@usemod.com for a copy of the beta-testing code which contains this feature.

3.6. Q: Is there an automatic external link checker? This could be useful to automatically mark dead links.

: A: A general purpose link checker can be found under http://validator.w3.org/checklink. But I don't think that it can be integrated with the wiki-software, if that is what you are asking for.

3.7. Q: I would like to make the background black and the text white is this posible? I know you can make the background black in the admin setting but how do you make the text white?

Sorry if this is in the wronge spot.

: A: If I get you right. You can do this simply by adopting the stylesheet which comes with UseMod. Simply insert something like

body {
  background-color: black;
  color: white;
}

3.8. Q: How do I get a zip file with my wiki as html files for offline usage?

: A I haven't found such a feature in the UseModWiki/NewFeatures or UseModWiki/Features, but I rigged up a solution with the following bash lines, which can be easily adopted to another site, put into a shell script and run hourly by a cron job. (Actually, I intended to use http://www.usemod.com as an example, but with over 1300 pages I picked a different site from the SiteList.)

# get all pages from the wiki's usemodwiki index; ignore action and back links; 
# no folder for the hostname and the first hierarchy level "cgi-bin"
wget --quiet -r -l 1 -np -nH --cut-dirs=1 -R "*action=*","*back=*" http://nearlythere.com/cgi-bin/design/wiki.cgi?action=index
# rename the files, rename the links in the files
cd design
for i in wiki.cgi*; do mv "$i" "${i#wiki.cgi?}.html"; done
perl -pi -e 's/"wiki\.cgi\?([^"=]+)"/"$1.html"/g' *.html
# try out the result (you don't have to use lynx, you may use FireFox ;-)
lynx Visual_Design_Tutorial.html
# zip the folder
cd ..
zip -r Visual_Design_Tutorial.zip design
# move it to a place accessible from the wiki
mv Visual_Design_Tutorial.zip /path/to/wiki/upload/area

4. User Authentication, Security

4.1. Q: In the config file, what exactly does setting `$AdminPass` control?

: A: It allows one to enter the $AdminPass password on the Preferences page, which then allows you to run various admin "Actions" on the site. See AdminFeatures for more details.

4.2. Q: What exactly does `$EditPass` control?

: A: See EditPass.

4.3. Q: If I want to be the only user who can edit my wiki, should I just toggle `$EditAllowed`, leaving it set to 1 only when I need to make edits?

: A: No. You should set up an $AdminPass password. Then, if you want to lock the whole site, log in as an admin (using the Preferences page), go to any wiki page, and hit the "Lock site" link at the bottom right of the page.

4.4. Q: What exactly does `$AdminDelete` control?

: A: See UseModWiki/Settings.

4.5. Q: Is the login password authentication working? I could easily login with a different password

: A: The login password does not do what you think it does. The only purpose it has is to store up your preferences so if you regularly go in from several sites (like maybe you use internet cafés a lot) you can get wiki to remember your preferences. How you use it is as follows

When you set preferences, add a password and remember your user number
later to retrieve those preference use Login (not preferences) and just enter your number and password. Your name and all your preferences come back.
Any time you want to change your password, use preferences again to set the new one

: This was puzzling me, too. There is no login to be found. It seems it has to be set by someone like this: [Login]

4.6. Q: How difficult would it be the to set up a "real" authentication system?

: A: The degree of difficulty is calculated by dividing your motivation by your skill level and dividing again by your attention span.

4.7. Q: Fine. How do you set up a "real" authentication system?

: A1: Researching things like htpasswd and https might reveal some results at a system level. For a technically complicated WikiClone? that has authentication built into it (using htpasswd, https, windows authentication or corporate intranet (e.g. SiteMinder?), see [Twiki].

: A2: One approach is as follows

put the script into a part of your site that is password protected (this is where .htpasswd comes in if your ISP uses Apache, or a site with Apache-like passwords). Then everybody needs to log in to use the system, but that login proces is done by the webservr and their browser.
change the part of the wiki.pl code where admin/edit passwords are checked. (sub IsAdmin?). Instead of comparing the cookie value against $AdminPass?, now compare the logged-in username against $AdminPass?. Put a list of admin users into the $AdminPass? variable instead of a list of admin passwords (I suppose good practice would be to rename variable $AdminPass?)
likewise Edit.
make sure that users (and you!) understand that the username they use to log on is not necessarily the one they need set in preferences - one defines their access rights and the other is what will be displayed in RecentChanges if they edit something.
if you still want readonly access to the public,

use a script in a different directory, not password protected, but set up so that EditAllowed=0.
read the .htpassword documentation and find out whther you can have a "anyone" logon which does not require a password [''and then tell us all here!!].
publish the password for username "readonly"/"guest"/etc.

: I have read elsewhere on this site that something like this approach has worked for others, but I have maybe got the precise details wrong [feel free to correct me if so] --RiVer

: A3: WikiPatches/LoginAndPasswordsFromApache

4.8. Q: Has anybody ever successfully used this authentication scheme with lynx or any other text browser? I can't seem to be able to create a user or login. Although I actually accept the cookie that's sent to me, I always end up receiving a message telling me I have an invalid ID. Any pointer?

: A: lynx is very strict if it comes to cookies, and usemod doesn't set the path. Find the line $cookie .= ";expires=Fri, 08-Sep-2013 19:48:23 GMT";, and add the following after it: $cookie .= ";path=/;domain=.your-domain.tld";. That should be fixed in the code I guess. The question is: In usemod's or in lynx's code? :) -- JorgenSchaefer?

: Fix Usemod or fix Lynx? How long has each been around? Lynx by many years. So fix UseMod is the only answer that stands a chance.

4.9. Q: Has anyone successfully run usemod-wiki under an SSL protected environment? I've been trying, but it seems that the SSL gets in the way of cookies and/or params. Running on a non-SSL site works just fine, however

-- PaulL?'''

: A: For me it works with Apache 2 and SSL... think we need more Details on your specific configuration to reproduce it and find the error --absi

4.10. Q: Some wiki servers give the feature of showing the visited links trail. So the vistor has some idea of context and is not lost. The problem with most hyper-texted system is visitor easily loses context and gets lost. Does UseModWiki support that feature or are there plans in future for that -?

-- Valli

: A: There is no such patch, yet. There are other patches that ease navigation, such as WikiPatches/HierarchicalUsemodWiki

5. Development

5.1. Q: Link Bar. How can I have a new Link on a link Bar? Could anyone write the example how do i change the variable $UserGotoBar? Is it possible to have different text colours?

Haven't check it with patches :-( Thank you in advance'''

: A: Check the variables $UserGotoBar and $StyleSheet. -- UngarPeter

5.2. Q: Where do I submit bugs?

: A: WikiBugs.

5.3. Q: How do I (understand/change/improve) the UseModWiki script?

: A: Try /DeveloperQuestions or /Documentation.

5.4. Q: Will there be another version? When will the next version (1.1?) be released?

: A: See NextRelease. --JuanmaMP

5.5. Q: Is usemodwiki orphanware?

: A1: Probably yes. It has not changed much since 2003.

: A2: I took over the UseModWiki project in July 2007. At first I primarly focused on fixing bugs. It takes some time to understand the code. If you have WikiSuggestions on the script, feel free to post it there -- MarkusLude

6. Runtime Environments

6.1. Q: Does UseModWiki run (faster) under Mod_Perl?

-- Jim

: A: A lot. The speedup is most apparent for machines with slower CPU's, but faster servers also benefit. -- UngarPeter

UseModWiki/UseModFAQ

Overview

1. Wiki

1.1. Q: What is a Wiki?

1.2. Q: What is different/novel/exciting about UseModWiki (compared to the other wiki implementations)?

2. Editing

2.1. Q: Where do I find instructions on how to edit pages?