FAQ

What is PmWiki?

PmWiki is a wiki-based system for collaborative creation and maintenance of websites. See PmWiki.

What can I do with it?

PmWiki pages look and act like normal web pages, except they have an "Edit" link that makes it easy to modify existing pages and add new pages into the website, using basic editing rules. You do not need to know or use any HTML or CSS. Page editing can be left open to the public or restricted to small groups of authors. Feel free to experiment with the Text Formatting Rules in the "Wiki sandbox". The website you're currently viewing is built and maintained with PmWiki.

What are the requirements?

See the PmWiki requirements page.

Where can I find documentation?

See the documentation index page.

How can I download PmWiki?

See the download page.

How do I install PmWiki?

Instructions for installation are on the installation page.

How do I get help with PmWiki?

See Mailing lists and How to get assistance.

How do you pronounce "Michaud"?

"Michaud" is french pronounced "mee show", the trailing D is silent.

How do I create a new page?

Typing [[my new page]] will create a link to the new page. There's a lot you can do with double bracket links.

Why do some new pages have a title with spaces like "Creating New Pages" and others end up with a WikiWord-like title like "CreatingNewPages"?

The default page title is simply the name of page, which is normally stored as "CreatingNewPages." However, you can override a page's title by using the (:title Creating New Pages:) directive. This is especially useful when there are special characters or capitalization that you want in the title that cannot be used in the page name.

How do I create a link that will open as a new window?

Use the %newwin% wikistyle, as in:

%newwin% https://example.com/ %%

How do I create a link that will open a new window, and configure that new window?

This requires javascript. See Cookbook:PopupWindow.

How do I place a mailing address in a page?

Use the mailto: markup, as in one of the following:

* mailto:myaddress@example.com
* [[mailto:myaddress@example.com]]
* [[mailto:myaddress@example.com | email me]]
* [[mailto:myaddress@example.com?subject=Some subject | email me]]

The markup [[mailto:me@example.com?cc=someoneelse@example.com&bcc=else@example.com&subject=Pre-set Subject&body=Pre-set body | display text]] lets you specify more parameters like the message body and more recipients (may not work in all browsers and e-mail clients).

See also Cookbook:DeObMail for information on protecting email addresses from spammers.

How can I enable links to other protocols, such as nntp:, ssh:, xmpp:, etc?

See Cookbook:Add Url schemes

How do I make a WikiWord link to an external page instead of a WikiPage?

Use link markup. There are two formats:

[[https://example.com/ | WikiWord]]
[[WikiWord -> https://example.com/]]

How do I find all of the pages that link to another page (i.e., backlinks)?

In the wiki search form, use link=Group.Page to find all pages linking to Group.Page.

Use the link= option of the (:pagelist:) directive, as in

(:pagelist link=SomePage list=all:)   -- show all links to SomePage
(:pagelist link={$FullName} list=all:)  -- show all links to the current page

Note that (with a few exceptions) includes, conditionals, pagelists, searchresults, wikitrails, and redirects are not evaluated for Wikilinks, and so any links they put on the page will not be found as backlinks. All other directives and markup, for example links brought to the page by (:pmform:), will be found.

What link schemes does PmWiki support?

See PmWiki:Link schemes

How do I open external links in a new window or mark them with an icon?

See Cookbook:External links

How can I use an image as a link?

Use [[Page| Attach:image.jpg ]] or [[ https://site | https://site/image.jpg ]] See Images#links

Why my browser does not follow local file:// links?

For security reasons, most browsers will only enable file:// links if the page containing the link is itself on the local drive. In other words, most browsers do not allow links to file:// from pages that were fetched using https:// such as in a PmWiki site. See also Cookbook:DirList for a workaround.

How links to the first existed page ? for example [[Group1.Page Group2.Page|Page]]

See ConditionalMarkup

(:if exists Group1.Page:)
   [[Group1.Page|Page]]
(:elseif exists Group2.Page:)
   [[Group2.Page|Page]]
(:ifend:)

How do I make Reference links also show up on the bottom of the page like Wikipedia? Or, how do I list all links on a page?

See Cookbook:Footnotes.

Why are some external images correctly embedded, and others aren't?

If the current page is on a secure URL with the "https://" protocol, some browsers will refuse to load pictures from insecure URLs (the other way around is allowed). Also, some webmasters configure their servers to disallow hotlinking.

Is it possible to link an image on PmWiki without using a fully qualified URL?

Yes. For images that are attachments, the general format is Attach:Groupname./image.gif. To link to an image that is on the same server, use Path:/path/to/image.gif where "Path:" replaces the server name like "https://www.example.com".

Can I attach a client image file on PmWiki?

Yes, see Uploads .

How can I include a page from another group that contains an attached image?

Include the page in the normal way, ie (:include GroupName.Pagename:). In the page to be included (that contains the image) change Attach:filename.ext to Attach:{$Group}./filename.ext.

Why, if I put an image with rframe or rfloat and immediatly after that I open a new page section with ! the section title row is below the image instead of on the left side?

Because the CSS for headings such as ! contains an element clear:both which forces this behaviour. Redefine the CSS locally if you want to stop this happening, but I think the bottom border (that underlines the heading) would need further re-definition. I just use bolding for the title, and 4 dashes below ---- to separate a new section, and it saves the effort of fiddling with the core definitions.

Unlike the lframe and rframe directives, cframe does not fully honour the width setting. While the frame itself resizes to match the request, the enclosed image does not, and retains its original width. Effect is the same in IE and Fx. I've added an example beneath the standard example above.

Is it possible to disallow all images? I already disabled uploads but I also want to disallow external images from being shown on my wiki pages.

Yes, add to config.php:

DisableMarkup('img');
$ImgExtPattern = "$^";

How can I make it so that when I place an image in a page, the block of text it is in is a <p> (paragraph) rather than a <div> (division)?

If you just want it to happen for a single image (instead of all), then try putting [==] at the beginning of the line, as in:

Having [==] at the beginning of a line forces whatever follows to be part of a paragraph.

Is there any way to use relative paths for images?

See Cookbook:RelativeLinks and $EnableLinkPageRelative.

Is there a way to attach a BMP and have it display rather than link?

Add to config.php the following line:
$ImgExtPattern = "(?:$ImgExtPattern|\\.bmp|\\.BMP)";
Note that BMP images are uncompressed and quite heavy. You may wish to convert them to PNG (lossless) or JPG (lossy) format, and thus reduce 5-20 times their filesizes.

How do I add an image type to $ImgExtPattern and yet have it include any future default image types added in PmWiki?

You can append the extensions to the $ImgExtPattern variable this way:
$ImgExtPattern = "(?:$ImgExtPattern|\\.webp|\\.WEBP)";

Is there a way to have a table to the left or right of an image?

Yes, see TableAndImage.

When I upload a file, how do I make the link look like "file.doc" instead of "Attach:file.doc Δ"?

Use parentheses, as in [[(Attach:)file.doc]]. There is also a configuration change that can eliminate the Attach: -- see Cookbook:AttachLinks.

Why can't I upload files of size more than 50kB to my newly installed PmWiki?

Out of the box PmWiki limits the size of files to be uploaded to 50kB. Add

Why does my upload exit unexpectedly with "Incomplete file received"?

You may be running out of space in a 'scratch' area, used either by PmWiki or by PHP. On *nix, check that you have sufficient free space in /tmp and /var/tmp.

How do I make it so that the upload link still allows one to make another upload (if someone wants to replace the old version of a file with a newer version, for example). Currently you only get the upload link when there is no file in the upload directory.

Use the Attach page action, and click on the delta symbol (Δ) shown against each of files listed. If you can't see the attach action either uploads are not enabled, you are not authorized to upload, or the attach action has been commented out or is missing. See also available actions.

How do I hide the "Attach:" for all attachments

See Cookbook:AttachLinks, note that this does not currently work for [[Attach:my file.ext]] .

How can I link a file that have a 4-letter file extension such like 'abc.pptx'?

See Cookbook:Upload Types

How can I prevent others from using the url's of my images on their site

See Cookbook:Prevent Hotlinking

How can I display a file that lacks a correct extension? (e.g. you are using Cookbook:LinkIcons)

A file can be displayed by addition of a "false" extension to the URL. For example, if the url is https://example.com/dox/mydoc, add a fake query string on the end with the desired extension (e.g., https://example.com/dox/mydoc?format=.docx). If query strings are unsuitable, a fragment identifier should work, e.g. https://example.com/dox/mydoc#.docx.

How do I create a basic table?

Tables are created via use of the double pipe character: ||. Lines beginning with this markup denote rows in a table; within such lines the double-pipe is used to delimit cells. In the examples below a border is added for illustration (the default is no border).

|| border=1 rules=rows frame=hsides
|| cell 1 || cell 2 || cell 3 ||
|| cell 1 || cell 2 || cell 3 ||

How do I create cell headers?

Header cells can be created by placing ! as the first character of a cell. Note that these are table headers, not headings, so it doesn't extend to !!, !!!, etc.

|| border=1 rules=cols frame=vsides
||! cell 1 ||! cell 2 ||! cell 3 ||
|| cell 1  ||  cell 2 ||  cell 3 ||

How do I obtain a table with thin lines and more distance to the content?

"Thin lines" is tricky and browser dependent, but the following works for Firefox and IE (Nov. 2009):

||border="1" style="border-collapse:collapse" cellpadding="5" width=66%
||!Header ||! Header || '''Header'''||
||cells   ||  with   ||      padding||
||        ||         ||             ||

How do I create an advanced table?

See table directives

My tables are by default centered. When I try to use '||align=left' they don't align left as expected.

Use ||style="margin-left:0px;" instead.

How can I specify the width of columns?

You can define the widths via custom styles, see Cookbook:FormattingTables and $TableCellAttrFmt. Add in config.php : $TableCellAttrFmt = 'class=col$TableCellCount';

table.column td.col1 { width: 120px; }
table.column td.col3 { width: 40px; }

How can I display a double pipe "||" in cell text using basic table markup?

Escape it with [=||=] to display || unchanged.

How do I apply styles to the elements of the table, like an ID to the table row, or a class/style to the TD?

See $WikiStyleApply.

Alternately, use table directives, which allow specifying styling either directly (style="...") or by a class="..." attribute for CSS.

Is there a simple way to change the table defaults? I prefer a border and I'm tired of adding it to every table.

You can set $SimpleTableDefaultClassName = 'simpletable'; and/or define your own styles in your stylesheet. The "simpletable" class is available in the core skins, and can be redefined or overridden in pub/css/local.css.

Can I define table headers using the table directive markup?

Yes, use (:head:) or (:headnr:) with PmWiki version 2.2.11 or newer. See also Cookbook:AdvancedTableDirectives.

Is it possible to do nested tables?

Yes, if you nest simple tables inside advanced tables. See also Cookbook:AdvancedTableDirectives.

Is it possible to add background images to tables and table cells?

Yes, see Cookbook:BackgroundImages.

Is it possible to apply styles to the elements of the table, like an ID to the table row, or a class/style to the TD?

Yes, see $WikiStyleApply.

Is it possible to automatically generate columns or rows in tables, i.e. without having to do a lot of counting?

Yes, this is possible with the Cookbook:CreateColumns recipe - it allows you to specify a certain number of columns, and/or to specify a certain number of items per column. Plus, someone has provided some similar markup on the TableDirectives-Talk page.

Is it possible to use table captions in table directives similar to simple tables? Tried ! Captiontext ! and (:caption:) . Didn#t work. How to do?

Yes, this is possible with the Cookbook:AdvancedTableDirectives recipe - There you will find a (:caption:) directive.

Can I get (:redirect:) to return a "moved permanently" (HTTP 301) status code?

Use (:redirect PageName status=301:).

Is there any way to prevent the "redirected from" message from showing at the top of the target page when I use (:redirect:)?

From version 2.2.1 on, set in config.php $EnableRedirectQuiet=1; and in the page (:redirect OtherPage quiet=1:) for a quiet redirect.

Is there any method for redirecting to the equivalent page in a different group, i.e. from BadGroup/thispage => GoodGroup/thispage using similar markup to (:redirect Goodgroup.{Name}:)?

How can a wiki enable linebreaks by default, i.e. without having the directive (:linebreaks:) in a page or in a GroupHeader?

Add to config.php such a line:
$HTMLPNewline = '<br/>';

What's the maximum number of includes that can exist in a page?

By default, PmWiki places a limit of 50 include directives for any given page, to prevent runaway infinite loops and other situations that might eat up server resources. (Two of these are GroupHeader and GroupFooter.) The limit can be modified by the wiki administrator via the $MaxIncludes variable.

Is there any way to include from a group of pages without specifying by exact name, e.g. between Anchor X and Y from all pages named IFClass-* ?

This can be achieved using page lists.

There appears to be a viewing issue when the included page contains the (:title:) directive.

In a default installation, the last title in the page overrides previous ones so you can place your (:title :) directive at the bottom of the page, after any includes. See also $EnablePageTitlePriority.

How to test to see if the page is part of another page?

(:if ! name {PmWiki.IncludeOtherPages$FullName}:) 
%comment% name of this page is not the same as the page this text was sourced from
->[[{PmWiki.IncludeOtherPages$FullName}#anchor | more ...]]
(:ifend:)

Is there any way to include (chapters of) pages which are protected (authuser.php)?

You can achieve this the other way around: have the public sections in a public page (passwdread=@nopass or @_site_read) and include those into both the protected page, and the public page.

Note that it is strongly recommended to NOT hide sensitive content inside a conditional in an unprotected page.

Are InterMap names case sensitive?

Yes, thus eAdmin: is a different InterMap link than EAdmin:.

How can I achieve a localmap.txt mapping with the effect of Pics: Path:/somepathto/pics/?

Use the following:

How can I define an InterMap in PHP?

Use the following:

      $LinkFunctions['PmWikiHome:'] = 'LinkIMap';
      $IMap['PmWikiHome:'] = 'https://pmwiki.org/wiki/$1';

How can I define an InterMap link that lets me refer to files at the server "root"?

From the page https://example.org/index.php/Main/HomePage I want to create a relative link to a directory at the "root" level of the site. The fully qualified URL is https://example.org/commoninfo/infoaboutu.php. I want to do this because the domain name will change, which would break an absolute link.

 Root    /

 Root:commoninfo/infoaboutu.php

Or, you can use the predefined "Path:" prefix, as in Path:/commoninfo/infoaboutu.php.

Is there a variable like $LastModified, but which shows me the creation time?

No, but you can create one in config.php. For instance:

# add page variable [={$PageCreationDate}=] in format yyyy-mm-dd

$FmtPV['$PageCreationDate'] = '[[PmWiki/Functions#PSFT|PSFT]]("[=%Y-%m-%d=]", $page["ctime"])';

How can I test if a variable is set and/or not empty?

Use [=(:if ! equal "{$Variable}" "":) $Variable is not empty. (:ifend:)=]. Note that undefined/inexistent variables appear as empty ones.

Categories: PmWiki Developer

How do I set the same header or footer for all pages/groups?

The header and footer for each page are controlled by the variables $GroupHeaderFmt and $GroupFooterFmt. If your site-wide header and footer pages are Site.SiteHeader and Site.SiteFooter, you can add this in config.php:

### If you use Site.SiteHeader and Group.GroupHeader
$GroupHeaderFmt = '(:include {$SiteGroup}.SiteHeader'
  . ' basepage={*$FullName}:)(:nl:)' . $GroupHeaderFmt;

### If you use Site.SiteHeader instead of Group.GroupHeader
$GroupHeaderFmt = '(:include {$SiteGroup}.SiteHeader'
  . ' basepage={*$FullName}:)(:nl:)';

### If you use Site.SiteFooter and Group.GroupFooter
$GroupFooterFmt .= '(:nl:)(:include {$SiteGroup}.SiteFooter'
  . ' basepage={*$FullName}:)';

### If you use Site.SiteFooter instead of Group.GroupFooter
$GroupFooterFmt = '(:nl:)(:include {$SiteGroup}.SiteFooter'
  . ' basepage={*$FullName}:)';

Note that single quotes must be used in the lines above.

See also the Cookbook:AllGroupHeader recipe.

Instead of using an additional page, you could set any wiki text in $GroupHeaderFmt, for example:

What's the difference between a PageList and a WikiTrail?

The pagelist directive dynamically generates a list of pages. There are many ways to generate the list, including using a WikiTrail as the source.
The pagelist directive then displays the pages that match the criteria using an optional template - for example displaying each page name on a separate line as a link or including the entire content.
The pagelist directive currently does not have built-in navigation markup that you can put on the pages in the list.
By contrast, WikiTrails are simply specified via links on an "index" page and you can put previous-next navigation markup on each page. The two serve very different purposes. WikiTrails are useful for specifying the pages in web feeds, for creating a "tour" through a predefined set of pages, and many other things.

Is there a way to remove page history from page files?

1. Administrators can clean page histories using the Cookbook:ExpireDiff recipe.

2. Administrators with FTP file access can download individual pages from the wiki.d directory, open them in a text editor, manually remove history, and re-upload the files to wiki.d/ directory. Care must be exercised, when manually editing a page file, to preserve the minimum required elements of the page and avoid corrupting its contents. See PageFileFormat#creating.

3. Edit the page. Select all the contents of the edit text area and cut them to the clipboard. Enter delete into the text area and click on the save and edit button. Select all the contents of the edit text area and paste the contents of the clipboard over them. Click on the save button. This will remove all of the page's history up to the final save in which the pasted material is re-added.

How can I restrict viewing the page history (?action=diff) to people with edit permission?

In the local/config.php file, set

In case of this restriction is set up on a farm, and you want to allow it on a particular wiki, set in your local/config.php:

How can I password protect all the pages and groups on my site? Do I really have to set passwords page by page, or group by group?

Administrators can set passwords for the entire site by editing the config.php file; they don't have to set passwords for each page or group. For example, to set the entire site to be editable only by those who know an "edit" password, an administrator can add a line like the following to local/config.php:

For more information about the password options that are available only to administrators, see PasswordsAdmin.

I get http error 500 "Internal Server Error" when I try to log in. What's wrong?

This can happen if the encrypted passwords are not created on the web server that hosts the PmWiki.
The PHP crypt() function changed during the PHP development, e.g. a password encrypted with PHP 5.2 can not be decrypted in PHP 5.1, but PHP 5.2 can decrypt passwords created by PHP 5.1.
This situation normally happens if you prepare everything on your local machine with the latest PHP version and you upload the passwords to a webserver which is running an older version.
The same error occurs when you add encrypted passwords to local/config.php.

Solution: Create the passwords on the system with the oldest PHP version and use them on all other systems.

How can I create private groups for users, so that each user can edit pages in their group, but no one else (other than the admin) can?

Modify the edit attribute for each group to id:username, e.g. set the edit attribute in JaneDoe.GroupAttributes to id:JaneDoe.

There is a more automatic solution, but it's probably not a good idea for most wikis. Administrators can use the AuthUser recipe and add the following few lines to their local/config.php file to set this up:

$group = FmtPageName('$Group', $pagename);
$DefaultPasswords['edit'] = 'id:'.$group;
include_once("$FarmD/scripts/authuser.php"); 

This automatically gives edit rights to a group to every user who has the same user name as the group name. Unfortunately it also gives edit rights to such a user who is visiting a same-named group not just for pages in that group, but for any page on the wiki that relies on the site's default edit password. This can create security holes.

How come when I switch to another wiki within a farm, I keep my same authorization?

PmWiki uses PHP sessions to keep track of authentication/authorization information, and by default PHP sets things up such that all interactions with the same server are considered part of the same session.
For security considerations about shared session pools, see the "Session injection" chapter in Cookbook:SessionSecurityAdvice.
To fix the browser-side convenience issue, one easy way is to make sure each wiki uses a different cookie name for its session identifier. Near the top of one of the wiki's local/config.php files, before calling authuser or any other recipes, add a line like:

You can pick any alphanumeric name for XYZSESSID; for example, for the cs559-1 wiki you might choose

This will keep the two wikis' session cookies independent of each other.

Is it possible to test the password level for display and/or if condition? Example: * (:if WriterPassword:) (display Edit link) (:ifend:)

You can use (:if auth edit:). See ConditionalMarkup.

Can I use (:if …:) to hide secrets in a wiki page?

You can, but usually that's not secure. The recommended strategy is to put secrets in a separate page and restrict all read-related¹ access permissions to those users who are allowed to read the secrets. To display the secrets in another page, you can include (parts of) the secrets page: Users with read access to the secrets will readily see them, whereas other users see nothing or (at your choosing) some other text, e.g. a login link.

The reason why Conditional Markup isn't suitable for access control is that it only applies for rendering wikitext as a web page, and that's just one of many ways to access a page's text. In order to rely on Conditional Markup for protection of secrets, you'd have to restrict all access methods that can circumvent it. To do so, you'd need to keep track of all methods available. In a default installation of PmWiki, some of the easy methods include: Editing a page, viewing its edit history, its source, or including fragments of it into the edit preview of another page. (Preview: To avoid traces in RecentChanges.) However, this list is far from exhaustive, and could easily grow with Recipes? or future versions of PmWiki.

Should I rename pmwiki.php to index.php?

Renaming pmwiki.php is not recommended. Instead, create an index.php file that contains this single line

How do I make pmwiki.php the default page for a website?

Create an index.php file that runs PmWiki from a subdirectory (pmwiki/ for example) and place it in the site's web document root (the main directory for the website).

Note: You will also need to explicitly set the $PubDirUrl variable (e.g. to "https://example.com/pmwiki/pub") in local/config.php .

How do I enable "Clean URLs" that are shorter and look like paths to my wiki pages? Why does pmwiki.org appear to have a directory structure rather than "?n=pagename" in URLs?

See Cookbook:CleanUrls.

How can I run PmWiki on a standalone (offline, portable) machine ?

See Cookbook:Standalone or Cookbook:WikiOnAStick.

How can I embed JavaScript into a page's output?

There are several ways to do this. The Cookbook:JavaScript recipe describes a simple means for embedding static JavaScript into web pages using custom markup. For editing JavaScript directly in wiki pages (which can pose various security risks), see the JavaScript-Editable recipe. For JavaScript that is to appear in headers or footers of pages, the skin template can be modified directly, or <script> statements can be inserted using the $HTMLHeaderFmt array.

How would I create a markup ((:nodiscussion:)) that will set a page variable ({$HideDiscussion}) which can be used by (:if enabled HideDiscussion:) in .PageActions?

Add the following section of code to your config.php

SDV($HideDiscussion, 0); 	#define var name
Markup('hideDiscussion', '<{$var}',
 '/\\(:nodiscussion:\\)/', 'setHideDiscussion'); 
function setHideDiscussion() { 
  global $HideDiscussion; 
  $HideDiscussion = true;
} 

This will enable the (:if enabled HideDiscussion:) markup to be used. If you want to print the current value of {$HideDiscussion} (for testing purposes) on the page, you'll also need to add the line:
$FmtPV['$HideDiscussion'] = '$GLOBALS["HideDiscussion"]';

It appears that (.*?) does not match newlines in these functions, making the above example inoperable if the text to be wrappen in <em> contains new lines.

If you include the "s" modifier on the regular expression then the dot (.) will match newlines. Thus your regular expression will be "/STUFF(.*?)/s". That s at the very end is what you are looking for. If you start getting into multi-line regexes you may be forced to look at the m option as well - let's anchors (^ and $) match not begin/end of strings but also begin/end of lines (i.e., right before/after a newline). Also make sure your markup is executed during the fulltext phase.

How can the text returned by my markup function be re-processed by the markup engine?

If the result of your markup contains more markup that should be processed, you have two options. First is to select a "when" argument that is processed earlier than the markup in your result. For example, if your markup may return [[links]], your "when" argument could be "<links" and your markup will be processed before the links markup. The second option is to call the PRR() function in your markup definition or inside your markup function. In this case, after your markup is processed, PmWiki will restart all markups from the beginning.

How do I get started writing recipes and creating my own custom markup?

(alternate) Introduction to custom markup for Beginners

How do I make a rule that runs once at the end of all other rule processing?

Use this statement instead of the usual Markup() call:

$MarkupFrameBase['posteval']['myfooter'] = "\$out = onetimerule(\$out);";

Category: Markup

If my wiki is internationalized by config.php, how do I revert a specific group to English?

Use $XLLangs = array('en'); in the group's group customization file.

If my wiki is in English and I want just one page, or group, in Spanish do I say XLPage('es','PmWikiEs.XLPage'); in the group or page configuration file?

Yes, that is usually the best method. If you were doing this with many scattered pages, or with several languages, you might find it easier to maintain if you load the translations all in config.php like this:

   XLPage('es','PmWikiEs.XLPage');
   XLPage('fr','PmWikiFr.XLPage');
   XLPage('ru','PmWikiRu.XLPage');
   $XLLangs = array('en');

Then in each group or page configuration file, you'd just use $XLLangs = array('es'); to set the language to use (in this case, Spanish). Note that though this method is easier to maintain, its somewhat slower because it loads all the dictionaries for each page view, even if they won't be used.

What does the first parameter of this function stand for? How can it be used?

The XLPage mechanism allows multiple sets of translations to be loaded, and the first parameter is used to distinguish them.

For example, suppose I want to have translations for both normal French and "Canadian" French. Rather than maintain two entirely separate sets of pages, I could do:

    XLPage('fr-ca', 'PmWikiFrCa.XLPage');
    XLPage('fr', 'PmWikiFr.XLPage');

PmWikiFr.XLPage would contain all of the standard French translations, while PmWikiFrCA.XLPage would only need to contain "Canada-specific" translations -- i.e., those that are different from the ones in the French page.

The first parameter distinguishes the two sets of translations. In addition, a config.php script can use the $XLLangs variable to adjust the order of translation, so if there was a group or page where I only wanted the standard French translation, I can set

and PmWiki will use only the 'fr' and 'en' translations (in that order), no matter how many translations have been loaded with XLPage().

How can I add a translation for an individual string in a PHP file?

Use the XLSDV() function to provide a translation for a specific (English) string. For instance, with this in config.php

any instance of the variable expression $[my English expression] in wiki mark-up will be displayed as my English expression in default (English) context, but as mijn Nederlandse uitdrukking in Dutch (nl) context, i.e. when XLPage('nl',...) has been called for that page in config.php or a cookbook recipe.

If you need to get a translation in a PHP file, use the XL() function:

But beware: XLPage() uses XLSDV() internally for its translation pairs, too, and only the first definition is accepted! Thus, if the Dutch XLPage already contains a translation and you want to override that, you need to use your XLSDV('nl',...) before calling the correspondent XLPage('nl',...). Otherwise, by using XLSDV() after XLPage() - e.g. within a recipe that is included later in config.php - your translation will only work as long nobody defines 'my English expression' in that XLPage.

There's no "config.php"; it's not even clear what a "local customisation file" is!

The "sample-config.php" file in the "docs" folder, is given as an example. Copy it to the "local" folder and rename it to "config.php". You can then remove the "#" symbols or add other commands shown in the documentation. See also Group Customizations.

Can I change the default page something other than Main.HomePage ($DefaultPage)?

Yes, just set the $DefaultPage variable to the name of the page you want to be the default. You might also look at the $DefaultGroup and $DefaultName configuration variables.

Note the recommendations in $DefaultName and the need to set $PagePathFmt as well if you are changing the default startup page for groups.

How do I get the group / page name in a local configuration file (e.g. local/config.php)?

Use the following markup in pmwiki-2.1.beta21 or newer:

## Get the group and page name
$pagename = ResolvePageName($pagename);
$page = PageVar($pagename, '$FullName');
$group = PageVar($pagename, '$Group');
$name = PageVar($pagename, '$Name');

Note the importance of the order of customizations in config.php above to avoid caching problems.

If you need the verbatim group and page name (from the request) early in config.php, $pagename is guaranteed to be set to

1. Any value of ?n= if it's set, or
2. Any value of ?pagename= if it's set, or
3. The "path info" information from REQUEST_URI (whatever follows SCRIPT_NAME), or
4. Blank otherwise

according to this posting

Can I remove items from the wikilib.d folder on my site?

The files named Site.* and SiteAdmin.* contain parts of the interface and the configuration and they should not be removed. The other files named PmWiki* contain the documentation and could be removed.

How do I customize my own 404 error page for non-existent pages?

To change the text of the message, try editing the Site.PageNotFound page.

Is the order of customizations in config.php important? Are there certain things that should come before or after others in that file?

Yes, see Order of the commands in config.php.

I have an online hosted wiki, and a local copy on my home computer. How can I differentiate in config.php whether I'm online or on the local computer? So that I don't have to maintain the config.php twice.

You can try something like the following:

if($_SERVER['SERVER_ADDR'] == '127.0.0.1') {
  # Home wiki

}
else {
  # Online wiki

}

You can add $EnableDiag = 1; to config.php for both servers, and look at ?action=diag.

The $_SERVER variable will have different values on the different servers, notably 'SERVER_ADDR' or 'SERVER_NAME'. You can configure the different wikis based on the different values.

How can I apply CSS styles to a particular group or page?

Simply create a pub/css/Group.css or pub/css/Group.Page.css file containing the custom CSS styles for that group or page. See also Cookbook:LocalCSS.

Why shouldn't passwords be set in group (or page) customization files? Why shouldn't group or page passwords be set in config.php?

The reason for this advice is that per-group customization files are only loaded for the current page. So, if $DefaultPasswords['read'] is set in local/GroupA.php, then someone could use a page in another group to view the contents of pages in GroupA. For example, Main.WikiSandbox could contain:

(:include GroupA.SomePage:)

and because the GroupA.php file wasn't loaded (we're looking at Main.WikiSandbox --> local/Main.php), there's no read password set.

The same is true for page customization files.

Isn't that processing order strange? Why not load per page configuration last (that is after global configuration an per group configuration)?

Many times what we want to do is to enable a certain capability for a group of pages, but disable it on a specific page, as if it was never enabled. If the per-group config file is processed first, then it becomes very difficult/tedious for the per-page one to "undo" the effects of the per-group page. So, we load the per-page file before the per-group.

If a per-page customization wants the per-group customizations to be performed first, it can use the techniques given above (using include_once() or setting $EnablePGCust = 0;).

How do I change the Wiki's default name in the upper left corner of the Main Page?

Put the following config.php

The docs/sample-config.php file has an example of changing the title.

How can I embed PmWiki pages inside a web page?

Source them through a PHP page, or place them in a frame.

How do I change the font or background color of the hints block on the Edit Page?

Add a CSS style to pub/css/local.css: .quickref {background:...; color:... }. The hints are provided by the Site.EditQuickReference page, which is in the PmWiki or Site wikigroup. Edit that page, and change the "bgcolor" or specify the font "color" to get the contrast you need.

How do I customize the CSS styling of my PmWiki layout?

See Skins for how to change the default PmWiki skin. See also Skins?, where you will find pre-made templates you can use to customize the appearance of your site. You can also create a file called local.css in the pub/css/ directory and add CSS selectors there (this file gets automatically loaded if it exists). Or, styles can be added directly into a local customization file by using something like:

Where can the mentioned "translation table" be found for adding translated phrases?

See Internationalizations.

Is it possible to have the edit form in full page width, with no sidebar?

If the sidebar is marked with <!--PageLeftFmt-->, adding (:noleft:) to Site.EditForm will hide it when a page is edited.

Can I easily hide the Home Page title from the homepage?

Yes, you can use in the wiki page either (:title Some other title:) to change it or (:notitle:) to hide it.

Is it possible to hide the Search-Bar in the default PmWiki Skin?

Yes, please see Cookbook:HideSearchBar.

Why doesn't PmWiki use hierarchical / nested groups?

It essentially comes down to figuring out how to handle page links between nested groups; if someone can figure out an obvious, intuitive way for authors to do that, then nested groups become plausible. See Design Notes and PmWiki:Hierarchical Groups.

Why don't PmWiki's scripts have a closing ?> tag?

All of PmWiki's scripts now omit the closing ?> tag. The tag is not required, and it avoids problems with unnoticed spaces or blank lines at the end of the file. Also, some file transfer protocols may change the newline character(s) in the file, which can also cause problems. See also the Instruction separation page in the PHP manual.

Does PmWiki support WYSIWYG editing (or something like the FCKEditor)?

Short answer: PmWiki provides GUI buttons in a toolbar for common markups, but otherwise does not have WYSIWYG editing. For the reasons why, see PmWiki:WYSIWYG. See also Cookbook:Worse and Cookbook:PmSyntax.

Categories: PmWiki Developer