[pmwiki-users] Farm Testing -- reflect a field across the farm

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Fri, Apr 01, 2005 at 09:44:46AM -1000, Sivakatirswami wrote:
> Some questions:
> 
> 1. Is it possible to to do a full installation of PMWiki in another 
> directory and "play with it" while in another directory another 
> complete installation is also running, will there be any conflict when 
> users start access both wikis at the same?

There's no conflict.

> 2. Once one has  a farm configuration functional, if you are interested 
> in simply reflecting the configuration of one field across all the 
> others, where  one is not interested in variant designs across multiple 
> fields and would like to limit development to one field... how to do 
> it?

Well, normally we think of farm-wide configurations as taking place
in the local/farmconfig.php file of the main (farm) installation of
PmWiki.  Anything placed in here is executed prior to any fields'
local/config.php files.

> We see this in the docs... but I expected the path the local/config.php 
> to be outside the farm directory
> 
> ====
> [snip] "however, the farm administrator can override some 
> field-customizations by explicitly calling the field's config.php files 
> (this effects all fields), as in:
>   <?php
>     # Settings performed before field-customizations
>     $FarmPubDirUrl = 'http://www.example.com/pmwiki/pub';
>     $Skin = 'pmwiki-farm';
> 
>     # load the field's global and per-group customizations
>     include_once('local/config.php'); ## this doesn't make sense

Sure it does -- just remember that when PmWiki executes, the field's
directory is the current directory (and not the farm's directory).
Thus 'local/config.php' refers to the field's config.php, even
from the farmconfig.php file that is in the farm's local/ directory.

> The goal being to be able to generate "minifields" quickly, set them up 
> in other directories with .htaccess user-password log ins for certain 
> kinds of collaboration where you need just not let those people see 
> what is happening in other fields, but where there is no need for any 
> local customization in such "minifields" which are purely utilitarian. 

Yes, this is exactly what WikiFarms are supposed to do.  To create
a field (or as you call it, a "minifield"), you simply:

 - Create a directory for the minifield (say, /var/html/field)
 - Create a pmwiki.php file in the directory containing
      <?php include('/path/to/farm/pmwiki/pmwiki.php'); ?>

Access the field's installation via http://yourserver.com/field/pmwiki.php

If you want farm-wide configuration settings, you then place them
in /path/to/farm/pmwiki/local/farmconfig.php , but any paths
that appear there are still relative to the field's location.

Pm