summary

at times it is useful to have a guided tour or trail through a subset of the pages of a wiki; in pmwiki, this is implemented as wikitrails.

i'm working on a python xmlrpc plugin for ikiwiki to support wikitrails, both as a navigation feature (have "forward" and "back" links based on a sequence) and a modified inline that includes all pages in the trail with appropriate modifications (suitable for printing if necessary).

the current status is published on git://github.com/github076986099/ikiwiki-plugins.git; as of now, i don't have a public demo of it.

feedback on both the concept and the code is very much appreciated by discussion or email.

usage

two preprocessor commands are provided:

[[!trail index="my_indexpage"]]

embeds a navigation object with forward and back links as well as an indicator of the current position in the trail.

if index is not specified, a suitable page up the path is used.

this works very well together with the sidebar plugin if the pages in a directory are roughly the same as the pages in the trail and the index is directory index page; just put the [[!trail]] in the sidebar.

[[!trailinclude index="my_indexpage"]]

all pages linked from the index page are included in the same way as [[!inline]] does, but in the proper sequence, with headings according to the indent in the source page and adoptions for the headings inside the page (a level 2 heading in a page that is a sub-sub-chapter in the whole trail will become a level 5 heading when trailincluded).

the index page

the index page is parsed as markdown; numbered lists and "*" bulleted lists are discovered.

current issues

• rebuilding --- currently, there is no propper rebuilding of pages (will use will_render and add_depends). care has to be taken of how not yet created pages play into this.
• inline recursion --- there is simply no guard yet
• navigation layout --- has to be both flexible and usable-by-default
• heading shifting
  • currently only works for markdown
  • can break the limit of html's six heading levels
• search for index page is currently next to hardcoded
• reading the index --- markdown syntax parsing is currently on a it-can-use-what-i-produce level; maybe integrate with existing mdwn parser
• uses undocumented titlepage command

  Don't worry about that, titlepage isn't going anywhere, and will probably before a formal part of the api next time I consider api changes. --Joey