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#Hierarchical_Webs.

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 https://twiki.example.com/cgi-bin/view/AaAa/DdDd led to the "This topic does not exist" page. But now it causes redirecttion to https://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, https://twiki.example.com/cgi-bin/view/AaAa/BbBb shows AaAa.BbBb topic while https://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