Subweb and topic names - conflicts, view URLs, and links

If your TWiki installation has the hierarchical webs feature turned on, you face subtle issues about subweb (web inside a web) and topic names. If you are unfamiliar with subwebs, please read ManagingWebs.

TWiki 5.1.2 has introduced measures to take care of those issues. As such, in this topic "in the past" means 5.1.1 and earler; "now" means 5.1.2 and later.

Avoiding conflicts of subweb and topic names

If the topic AaAa.BbB exists, the subweb AaAa/BbBb must not exist. If they co-exist, when the topic AaAa.BbBb is moved, all topics of the AaAa/BbBb subweb lose all attachments. This is because AaAa.BbBb topic's attachments are stored in the directory .../pub/AaAa/BbBb/ while AaAa/BbBb subweb's topics have their attachments in the directory .../pub/AaAa/BbBb/TOPIC/. When AaAa.BbBb topic is renamed to AaAa.CcCc, .../pub/AaAa/BbBb directory is renamed to .../pub/AaAa/CcCc, which causes AaAa/BbBb subweb to lose its all attachments.

In the past there was no mechanism to avoid clash of subweb and topic names. But now you cannot create a subweb whose name clashes with an existing topic name and vice versa. Renaming of topics and webs have name clash detection and avoidance logics.

View URLs

Let's say there is a subweb named AaAa/DdDd. In the past http://twiki.example.com/cgi-bin/view/AaAa/DdDd led to the "This topic does not exist" page. But now it causes redirecttion to http://twiki.example.com/cgi-bin/view/AaAa/DdDd/WebHome.

Even now, AaAa.BbBb topic and AaAa/BbBb subweb may co-exist as a legcy from an old version. In that case, http://twiki.example.com/cgi-bin/view/AaAa/BbBb shows AaAa.BbBb topic while http://twiki.example.com/cgi-bin/view/AaAa/BbBb/ shows the home page of the AaAa/BbBb subweb.

Links on topics

TopicName, WebName.TopicName, [[TopicName][...]], and [[WebName.TopicName][...]] become links to the specified topics. If TopicName is actually a subweb name rather than a topic name, those links point to WebHome of the subweb.

This may sound strange to a long term TWiki user. If a subweb AaAa/DdDd exists, on the topic AaAa.EeEe, DdDd and [[DdDd]] become links to AaAa/DdDd.WebHome. You can link to a subweb in a relative manner.

The old behavior was to make a link to create the "missing topic" AaAa.DdDd. This is wrong for sure. And they have to become links - otherwise the label in [[link][label]] goes nowhere. If so, there is no other link destination than WebHome of the subweb.

Related Topics: AdminDocumentationCategory