diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/plugins/contrib')
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/plugins/contrib/comments.mdwn | 183 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/plugins/contrib/comments/discussion.mdwn | 170 |
2 files changed, 183 insertions, 170 deletions
diff --git a/doc/plugins/contrib/comments.mdwn b/doc/plugins/contrib/comments.mdwn index 1a6e7f465..ef067f4d0 100644 --- a/doc/plugins/contrib/comments.mdwn +++ b/doc/plugins/contrib/comments.mdwn @@ -5,172 +5,11 @@ This plugin adds "blog-style" comments. The intention is that on a non-wiki site (like a blog) you can lock all pages for admin-only access, then allow otherwise unprivileged (or perhaps even anonymous) users to comment on posts. -Comments are saved as internal pages, so they can never be edited through the CGI, -only by direct committers. Currently, comments are always in [[ikiwiki/markdown]]. - -> So, why do it this way, instead of using regular wiki pages in a -> namespace, such as `$page/comments/*`? Then you could use [[plugins/lockedit]] to -> limit editing of comments in more powerful ways. --[[Joey]] - ->> Er... I suppose so. I'd assumed that these pages ought to only exist as inlines ->> rather than as individual pages (same reasoning as aggregated posts), though. ->> ->> lockedit is actually somewhat insufficient, since `check_canedit()` ->> doesn't distinguish between creation and editing; I'd have to continue to use ->> some sort of odd hack to allow creation but not editing. ->> ->> I also can't think of any circumstance where you'd want a user other than ->> admins (~= git committers) and possibly the commenter (who we can't check for ->> at the moment anyway, I don't think?) to be able to edit comments - I think ->> user expectations for something that looks like ordinary blog comments are ->> likely to include "others can't put words into my mouth". ->> ->> My other objection to using a namespace is that I'm not particularly happy about ->> plugins consuming arbitrary pieces of the wiki namespace - /discussion is bad ->> enough already. Indeed, this very page would accidentally get matched by rules ->> aiming to control comment-posting... :-) --[[smcv]] - ->> Thinking about it, perhaps one way to address this would be to have the suffix ->> (e.g. whether commenting on Sandbox creates sandbox/comment1 or sandbox/c1 or ->> what) be configurable by the wiki admin, in the same way that recentchanges has ->> recentchangespage => 'recentchanges'? I'd like to see fewer hard-coded page ->> names in general, really - it seems odd to me that shortcuts and smileys ->> hard-code the name of the page to look at. Perhaps I could add ->> discussionpage => 'discussion' too? --[[smcv]] - ->> (I've now implemented this in my branch. --[[smcv]]) - ->> The best reason to keep the pages internal seems to me to be that you ->> don't want the overhead of every comment spawning its own wiki page. ->> The worst problem with it though is that you have to assume the pages ->> are mdwn (or `default_pageext`) and not support other formats. --[[Joey]] - ->> Well, you could always have `comment1._mdwn`, `comment2._creole` etc. and ->> alter the htmlize logic so that the `mdwn` hook is called for both `mdwn` ->> and `_mdwn` (assuming this is not already the case). I'm not convinced ->> that multi-format comments are a killer feature, though - part of the point ->> of this plugin, in my mind, is that it's less flexible than the full power ->> of ikiwiki and gives users fewer options. This could be construed ->> to be a feature, for people who don't care how flexible the technology is ->> and just want a simple way to leave a comment. The FormattingHelp page ->> assumes you're writing 100% Markdown in any case... ->> ->> Internal pages do too many things, perhaps: they suppress generation of ->> HTML pages, they disable editing over the web, and they have a different ->> namespace of htmlize hooks. I think the first two of those are useful ->> for this plugin, and the last is harmless; you seem to think the first ->> is useful, and the other two are harmful. --[[smcv]] - ->> By the way, I think that who can post comments should be controllable by ->> the existing plugins opendiscussion, anonok, signinedit, and lockedit. Allowing ->> posting comments w/o any login, while a nice capability, can lead to ->> spam problems. So, use `check_canedit` as at least a first-level check? ->> --[[Joey]] - ->> This plugin already uses `check_canedit`, but that function doesn't have a concept ->> of different actions. The hack I use is that when a user comments on, say, sandbox, ->> I call `check_canedit` for the pseudo-page "sandbox[postcomment]". The ->> special `postcomment(glob)` [[ikiwiki/pagespec]] returns true if the page ends with ->> "[postcomment]" and the part before (e.g. sandbox) matches the glob. So, you can ->> have postcomment(blog/*) or something. (Perhaps instead of taking a glob, postcomment ->> should take a pagespec, so you can have postcomment(link(tags/commentable))?) ->> ->> This is why `anonok_pages => 'postcomment(*)'` and `locked_pages => '!postcomment(*)'` ->> are necessary to allow anonymous and logged-in editing (respectively). ->> ->> This is ugly - one alternative would be to add `check_permission()` that takes a ->> page and a verb (create, edit, rename, remove and maybe comment are the ones I ->> can think of so far), use that, and port the plugins you mentioned to use that ->> API too. This plugin could either call `check_can("$page/comment1", 'create')` or ->> call `check_can($page, 'comment')`. ->> ->> One odd effect of the code structure I've used is that we check for the ability to ->> create the page before we actually know what page name we're going to use - when ->> posting the comment I just increment a number until I reach an unused one - so ->> either the code needs restructuring, or the permission check for 'create' would ->> always be for 'comment1' and never 'comment123'. --[[smcv]] - ->> Another possibility is to just check for permission to edit (e.g.) `sandbox/comment1`. ->> However, this makes the "comments can only be created, not edited" feature completely ->> reliant on the fact that internal pages can't be edited. Perhaps there should be a ->> `editable_pages` pagespec, defaulting to `'*'`? - When using this plugin, you should also enable [[htmlscrubber]] and either [[htmltidy]] or [[htmlbalance]]. Directives are filtered out by default, to avoid commenters slowing down the wiki by causing time-consuming processing. As long as the recommended plugins are enabled, comment authorship should hopefully be unforgeable by CGI users. -> I'm not sure that raw html should be a problem, as long as the -> htmlsanitizer and htmlbalanced plugins are enabled. I can see filtering -> out directives, as a special case. --[[Joey]] - ->> Right, if I sanitize each post individually, with htmlscrubber and either htmltidy ->> or htmlbalance turned on, then there should be no way the user can forge a comment; ->> I was initially wary of allowing meta directives, but I think those are OK, as long ->> as the comment template puts the \[[!meta author]] at the *end*. Disallowing ->> directives is more a way to avoid commenters causing expensive processing than ->> anything else, at this point. ->> ->> I've rebased the plugin on master, made it sanitize individual posts' content ->> and removed the option to disallow raw HTML. Sanitizing individual posts before ->> they've been htmlized required me to preserve whitespace in the htmlbalance ->> plugin, so I did that. Alternatively, we could htmlize immediately and always ->> save out raw HTML? --[[smcv]] - ->> There might be some use cases for other directives, such as img, in ->> comments. ->> ->> I don't know if meta is "safe" (ie, guaranteed to be inexpensive and not ->> allow users to do annoying things) or if it will continue to be in the ->> future. Hard to predict really, all that can be said with certainty is ->> all directives will contine to be inexpensive and safe enough that it's ->> sensible to allow users to (ab)use them on open wikis. ->> --[[Joey]] - -When comments have been enabled generally, you still need to mark which pages -can have comments, by including the `\[[!comments]]` directive in them. By default, -this directive expands to a "post a comment" link plus an `\[[!inline]]` with -the comments. [This requirement has now been removed --[[smcv]]] - -> I don't like this, because it's hard to explain to someone why they have -> to insert this into every post to their blog. Seems that the model used -> for discussion pages could work -- if comments are enabled, automatically -> add the comment posting form and comments to the end of each page. -> --[[Joey]] - ->> I don't think I'd want comments on *every* page (particularly, not the ->> front page). Perhaps a pagespec in the setup file, where the default is "*"? ->> Then control freaks like me could use "link(tags/comments)" and tag pages ->> as allowing comments. ->> ->>> Yes, I think a pagespec is the way to go. --[[Joey]] - ->>> Implemented --[[smcv]] - ->> ->> The model used for discussion pages does require patching the existing ->> page template, which I was trying to avoid - I'm not convinced that having ->> every possible feature hard-coded there really scales (and obviously it's ->> rather annoying while this plugin is on a branch). --[[smcv]] - ->>> Using the template would allow customising the html around the comments ->>> which seems like a good thing? --[[Joey]] - ->>> The \[[!comments]] directive is already template-friendly - it expands to ->>> the contents of the template `comments_embed.tmpl`, possibly with the ->>> result of an \[[!inline]] appended. I should change `comments_embed.tmpl` ->>> so it uses a template variable `INLINE` for the inline result rather than ->>> having the perl code concatenate it, which would allow a bit more ->>> customization (whether the "post" link was before or after the inline). ->>> Even if you want comments in page.tmpl, keeping the separate comments_embed.tmpl ->>> and having a `COMMENTS` variable in page.tmpl might be the way forward, ->>> since the smaller each templates is, the easier it will be for users ->>> to maintain a patched set of templates. (I think so, anyway, based on what happens ->>> with dpkg prompts in Debian packages with monolithic vs split ->>> conffiles.) --[[smcv]] - ->>> I've switched my branch to use page.tmpl instead; see what you think? --[[smcv]] - The plugin adds a new [[ikiwiki/PageSpec]] match type, `postcomment`, for use with `anonok_pagespec` from the [[plugins/anonok]] plugin or `locked_pages` from the [[plugins/lockedit]] plugin. Typical usage would be something like: @@ -183,20 +22,17 @@ to allow non-admin users to comment on pages, but not edit anything. You can als to allow anonymous comments (the IP address will be used as the "author"). -> This is still called postcomment, although I've renamed the rest of the plugin -> to comments as suggested on #ikiwiki --[[smcv]] - There are some global options for the setup file: -* comments_shown_pagespec: pages where comments will be displayed inline, e.g. `blog/*` +* `comments_shown_pagespec`: pages where comments will be displayed inline, e.g. `blog/*` or `*/discussion`. -* comments_open_pagespec: pages where new comments can be posted, e.g. +* `comments_open_pagespec`: pages where new comments can be posted, e.g. `blog/* and created_after(close_old_comments)` or `*/discussion` -* comments_pagename: if this is e.g. `comment_` (the default), then comments on the +* `comments_pagename`: if this is e.g. `comment_` (the default), then comments on the [[sandbox]] will be called something like `sandbox/comment_12` -* comments_allowdirectives: if true (default false), comments may contain IkiWiki +* `comments_allowdirectives`: if true (default false), comments may contain IkiWiki directives -* comments_commit: if true (default true), comments will be committed to the version +* `comments_commit`: if true (default true), comments will be committed to the version control system This plugin aims to close the [[todo]] item "[[todo/supporting_comments_via_disussion_pages]]", @@ -207,9 +43,10 @@ and is currently available from [[smcv]]'s git repository on git.pseudorandom.co Known issues: * Needs code review -* The access control via postcomment() is rather strange +* The access control via postcomment() is rather strange (see [[discussion]] for more details) * There is some common code cargo-culted from other plugins (notably inline and editpage) which should probably be shared +* Joey doesn't think it should necessarily use internal pages (see [[discussion]]) > I haven't done a detailed code review, but I will say I'm pleased you > avoided re-implementing inline! --[[Joey]] @@ -222,3 +59,9 @@ Wishlist: as someone else (even if anonymous comments are allowed, it'd be nice to be able to choose to log in with a username or OpenID, like in Livejournal); perhaps editpage needs this too + +Fixed issues: + +* Joey didn't think the `\[[!comments]]` directive was appropriate; comments now appear + on pages selected with a [[ikiwiki/pagespec]] +* Joey thought that raw HTML should always be allowed; it now is diff --git a/doc/plugins/contrib/comments/discussion.mdwn b/doc/plugins/contrib/comments/discussion.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 000000000..a054dd55d --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/plugins/contrib/comments/discussion.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,170 @@ +## Why internal pages? (unresolved) + +Comments are saved as internal pages, so they can never be edited through the CGI, +only by direct committers. Currently, comments are always in [[ikiwiki/markdown]]. + +> So, why do it this way, instead of using regular wiki pages in a +> namespace, such as `$page/comments/*`? Then you could use [[plugins/lockedit]] to +> limit editing of comments in more powerful ways. --[[Joey]] + +>> Er... I suppose so. I'd assumed that these pages ought to only exist as inlines +>> rather than as individual pages (same reasoning as aggregated posts), though. +>> +>> lockedit is actually somewhat insufficient, since `check_canedit()` +>> doesn't distinguish between creation and editing; I'd have to continue to use +>> some sort of odd hack to allow creation but not editing. +>> +>> I also can't think of any circumstance where you'd want a user other than +>> admins (~= git committers) and possibly the commenter (who we can't check for +>> at the moment anyway, I don't think?) to be able to edit comments - I think +>> user expectations for something that looks like ordinary blog comments are +>> likely to include "others can't put words into my mouth". +>> +>> My other objection to using a namespace is that I'm not particularly happy about +>> plugins consuming arbitrary pieces of the wiki namespace - /discussion is bad +>> enough already. Indeed, this very page would accidentally get matched by rules +>> aiming to control comment-posting... :-) --[[smcv]] + +>>> Thinking about it, perhaps one way to address this would be to have the suffix +>>> (e.g. whether commenting on Sandbox creates sandbox/comment1 or sandbox/c1 or +>>> what) be configurable by the wiki admin, in the same way that recentchanges has +>>> recentchangespage => 'recentchanges'? I'd like to see fewer hard-coded page +>>> names in general, really - it seems odd to me that shortcuts and smileys +>>> hard-code the name of the page to look at. Perhaps I could add +>>> discussionpage => 'discussion' too? --[[smcv]] + +>>> (I've now implemented this in my branch. --[[smcv]]) + +>> The best reason to keep the pages internal seems to me to be that you +>> don't want the overhead of every comment spawning its own wiki page. +>> The worst problem with it though is that you have to assume the pages +>> are mdwn (or `default_pageext`) and not support other formats. --[[Joey]] + +>>> Well, you could always have `comment1._mdwn`, `comment2._creole` etc. and +>>> alter the htmlize logic so that the `mdwn` hook is called for both `mdwn` +>>> and `_mdwn` (assuming this is not already the case). I'm not convinced +>>> that multi-format comments are a killer feature, though - part of the point +>>> of this plugin, in my mind, is that it's less flexible than the full power +>>> of ikiwiki and gives users fewer options. This could be construed +>>> to be a feature, for people who don't care how flexible the technology is +>>> and just want a simple way to leave a comment. The FormattingHelp page +>>> assumes you're writing 100% Markdown in any case... +>>> +>>> Internal pages do too many things, perhaps: they suppress generation of +>>> HTML pages, they disable editing over the web, and they have a different +>>> namespace of htmlize hooks. I think the first two of those are useful +>>> for this plugin, and the last is harmless; you seem to think the first +>>> is useful, and the other two are harmful. --[[smcv]] + +## Access control (unresolved?) + +By the way, I think that who can post comments should be controllable by +the existing plugins opendiscussion, anonok, signinedit, and lockedit. Allowing +posting comments w/o any login, while a nice capability, can lead to +spam problems. So, use `check_canedit` as at least a first-level check? +--[[Joey]] + +> This plugin already uses `check_canedit`, but that function doesn't have a concept +> of different actions. The hack I use is that when a user comments on, say, sandbox, +> I call `check_canedit` for the pseudo-page "sandbox[postcomment]". The +> special `postcomment(glob)` [[ikiwiki/pagespec]] returns true if the page ends with +> "[postcomment]" and the part before (e.g. sandbox) matches the glob. So, you can +> have postcomment(blog/*) or something. (Perhaps instead of taking a glob, postcomment +> should take a pagespec, so you can have postcomment(link(tags/commentable))?) +> +> This is why `anonok_pages => 'postcomment(*)'` and `locked_pages => '!postcomment(*)'` +> are necessary to allow anonymous and logged-in editing (respectively). +> +> This is ugly - one alternative would be to add `check_permission()` that takes a +> page and a verb (create, edit, rename, remove and maybe comment are the ones I +> can think of so far), use that, and port the plugins you mentioned to use that +> API too. This plugin could either call `check_can("$page/comment1", 'create')` or +> call `check_can($page, 'comment')`. +> +> One odd effect of the code structure I've used is that we check for the ability to +> create the page before we actually know what page name we're going to use - when +> posting the comment I just increment a number until I reach an unused one - so +> either the code needs restructuring, or the permission check for 'create' would +> always be for 'comment1' and never 'comment123'. + +> Another possibility is to just check for permission to edit (e.g.) `sandbox/comment1`. +> However, this makes the "comments can only be created, not edited" feature completely +> reliant on the fact that internal pages can't be edited. Perhaps there should be a +> `editable_pages` pagespec, defaulting to `'*'`? --[[smcv]] + +## comments directive vs global setting (resolved?) + +When comments have been enabled generally, you still need to mark which pages +can have comments, by including the `\[[!comments]]` directive in them. By default, +this directive expands to a "post a comment" link plus an `\[[!inline]]` with +the comments. [This requirement has now been removed --[[smcv]]] + +> I don't like this, because it's hard to explain to someone why they have +> to insert this into every post to their blog. Seems that the model used +> for discussion pages could work -- if comments are enabled, automatically +> add the comment posting form and comments to the end of each page. +> --[[Joey]] + +>> I don't think I'd want comments on *every* page (particularly, not the +>> front page). Perhaps a pagespec in the setup file, where the default is "*"? +>> Then control freaks like me could use "link(tags/comments)" and tag pages +>> as allowing comments. +>> +>>> Yes, I think a pagespec is the way to go. --[[Joey]] + +>>>> Implemented --[[smcv]] + +>> +>> The model used for discussion pages does require patching the existing +>> page template, which I was trying to avoid - I'm not convinced that having +>> every possible feature hard-coded there really scales (and obviously it's +>> rather annoying while this plugin is on a branch). --[[smcv]] + +>>> Using the template would allow customising the html around the comments +>>> which seems like a good thing? --[[Joey]] + +>>>> The \[[!comments]] directive is already template-friendly - it expands to +>>>> the contents of the template `comments_embed.tmpl`, possibly with the +>>>> result of an \[[!inline]] appended. I should change `comments_embed.tmpl` +>>>> so it uses a template variable `INLINE` for the inline result rather than +>>>> having the perl code concatenate it, which would allow a bit more +>>>> customization (whether the "post" link was before or after the inline). +>>>> Even if you want comments in page.tmpl, keeping the separate comments_embed.tmpl +>>>> and having a `COMMENTS` variable in page.tmpl might be the way forward, +>>>> since the smaller each templates is, the easier it will be for users +>>>> to maintain a patched set of templates. (I think so, anyway, based on what happens +>>>> with dpkg prompts in Debian packages with monolithic vs split +>>>> conffiles.) --[[smcv]] + +>>>>> I've switched my branch to use page.tmpl instead; see what you think? --[[smcv]] + +## Raw HTML (resolved?) + +Raw HTML was not initially allowed by default (this was configurable). + +> I'm not sure that raw html should be a problem, as long as the +> htmlsanitizer and htmlbalanced plugins are enabled. I can see filtering +> out directives, as a special case. --[[Joey]] + +>> Right, if I sanitize each post individually, with htmlscrubber and either htmltidy +>> or htmlbalance turned on, then there should be no way the user can forge a comment; +>> I was initially wary of allowing meta directives, but I think those are OK, as long +>> as the comment template puts the \[[!meta author]] at the *end*. Disallowing +>> directives is more a way to avoid commenters causing expensive processing than +>> anything else, at this point. +>> +>> I've rebased the plugin on master, made it sanitize individual posts' content +>> and removed the option to disallow raw HTML. Sanitizing individual posts before +>> they've been htmlized required me to preserve whitespace in the htmlbalance +>> plugin, so I did that. Alternatively, we could htmlize immediately and always +>> save out raw HTML? --[[smcv]] + +>>> There might be some use cases for other directives, such as img, in +>>> comments. +>>> +>>> I don't know if meta is "safe" (ie, guaranteed to be inexpensive and not +>>> allow users to do annoying things) or if it will continue to be in the +>>> future. Hard to predict really, all that can be said with certainty is +>>> all directives will contine to be inexpensive and safe enough that it's +>>> sensible to allow users to (ab)use them on open wikis. +>>> --[[Joey]] |