[pmwiki-users] Pre-announcing 2.2.0 non-beta release, new release manager

[The Editor]

On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 1:18 AM, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 08:39:53PM +0100, jdd wrote:
>> > Priority Checklist :
>>
>> one thing is probably very important: have some way to install major
>> cookbooks from a drop down list or checkbox
>
> This isn't likely to happen (the drop-down list or checkbox part),
> because we don't want the webserver to have write permission to
> the cookbook/ directory.
>
> This is also why PmWiki doesn't come with a web-based "installer" --
> it means that the files all get the wrong ownerships and permissions
> if done that way.

Though I admit I'm not a Linux guy or an expert on file ownerships,
there are possibly some work arounds. In BoltWire for example, desired
plugins are simply dropped in a specified folder, via ftp so the
permissions/ownerships are set as desired. Then an installer script
(essentially a page list) allows you to select (or theoretically
check) any available plugin, and then on submit writes a small line to
a central site.config page (like enableMyPlugin or enableMyPlugin:
Group1,Group2...). This page is scanned in constructing the page along
with any other system wide config variables I want to set on it, and
then includes the appropriate plugins via php. It also has a way to
extract and import zipped up wiki pages used by the recipe at the same
time if needed.  The end result to the user is one click installation
of even rather complex applications.

The discussions here has triggered my thinking (as always),
particularly by the idea of including enough optional plugins in the
core distribution to allow users to be able to easily turn on all
needed functions for most common types of sites. It might be nice for
PmWiki to have something similar, as it proves quite convenient. The
problem for PmWiki, of course--as other have noted--is that there are
so many recipes to choose between, it would be hard to decide which
ones to include!

Cheers,
Dan