FS#1238 Resolve ambiguity between "foo" and "foo::start"

Backend

• 

  2007-09-05 rioki

  NOTE: I did not know if this feature request is on the corect catagory, please corect.
  
  There is a ambiguity between the page "foo" and the page "foo::start". Currenlty these are two pages but common understanding of namespaces (from programming) is that if you specify the page foo and there is a namespace foo that "foo::start" is meant, as in "foo::".
  
  If you want to have a simmilar example. Take the way servers react to the url "/foo". If there is the file "foo" they serve the file "foo", if that is a directory they serve "/foo/index.html" or build their own index. (Or do other stuff, but that is not the point.)
  
  What I am getting at, is that having the page "foo" and the namespace "foo" to be allowed to coexist is somewhat confusing. It would be nice to have this duality resolved.
  
  On the side note: Often you have pages that "grow" into namespaces. Take a manual on one page, that is split in many and put into a namespace. A "promote to namespace" button would be nice, that moves the page "foo" to "foo::start" with the history.  
• 

  2008-04-03 jugg

  I would appreciate a configuration setting that made ./inc/pageutils.php function getID() Namespace autolinking from URL implementation only use $conf['start'] and never try to guess it.  This would optionally remove all ambiguity.
  
  $conf['start']="index"
  $conf['onlystart'] = 1 // possible name of new boolean config option
  
  /?id=
  /?id=index
  /?id=index:
  /?id=index:index
  /?id=wiki
  /?id=wiki:
  /?id=wiki:index
  /?id=wiki:wiki
  
  *always* translates to:
  
  /?id=index
  /?id=index
  /?id=index:index
  /?id=index:index
  /?id=wiki
  /?id=wiki:index
  /?id=wiki:index
  /?id=wiki:wiki
  
  To implement, simply check 'onlystart' as shown below on the 3rd line:
  
   // Namespace autolinking from URL
   if(substr($id,-1) == ':' || ($conf['useslash'] && substr($id,-1) == '/')){
     if($conf['onlystart'] || page_exists($id.$conf['start'])){
       // start page inside namespace
       $id = $id.$conf['start'];
     }elseif(page_exists($id.noNS(cleanID($id)))){
       // page named like the NS inside the NS
       $id = $id.noNS(cleanID($id));
     }elseif(page_exists($id)){
       // page like namespace exists
       $id = substr($id,0,-1);
     }else{
       // fall back to default
       $id = $id.$conf['start'];
     }
     header("Location: ".wl($id,'',true));
   }
  
• 

  2008-04-04 jugg

  Unfortunately it looks like there is more than one place where links are constructed.  There will need to be a similar change to resolve_pageid().  Maybe others places to change too?
• 

  2008-10-11 andi

  This is counterproductive to a naturally growing wiki. When you create a page you might not know yet that it will grow into it's own namespace.
• 

  2008-10-13 jugg

  Pages should be moved into a namespace if it becomes a namespace.  Hacks to try to mask that only add complexity.  For me the current implementation makes keeping a consistently organized wiki more difficult.
  
  The whole namespace, start page, page with same name as namespace (inside or outside of the namespace), etc is a mess... It isn't intuitive, and simply makes for confusion.  Please at least make it an option to allow a strict content structure for people who like to be organized.  Leave it as is for the default adhoc guesswork confusion, but an option for enforcing a structure would be just wonderful.  See also FS#1248.
  
  Thanks!