Wiki source code of Migration Guide To Nested Pages
Version 4.1 by Guillaume Delhumeau on 2016/02/25
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| author | version | line-number | content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | {{toc /}} | ||
| 2 | |||
| 3 | = A bit of history = | ||
| 4 | |||
| 5 | Before the introduction of the Nested Pages concept (in 7.2), the content in a wiki was organized like this: | ||
| 6 | * we had some **Spaces**, that you can see as "folder" | ||
| 7 | * inside these spaces, we had **Pages**, where you were able to write some texts or store applications entries. | ||
| 8 | |||
| 9 | In that time, we cannot have spaces inside spaces, so all pages were placed inside a one-level space. The pages were identified like this: ##NameOfTheSpace.NameOfThePage##. | ||
| 10 | |||
| 11 | Some pages were a bit special. They were the "home" page of a space. Every time a user wanted to reach a space without specifying a precise page name, she was redirected to that space home page. These pages were called "WebHome" (because at the very beginning of XWiki, "spaces" were called "web"). | ||
| 12 | |||
| 13 | == Parent/Child relationship == | ||
| 14 | |||
| 15 | The user was able to specify a **parent** page for each page she had created. This parent could have been any page, for example the page ##Movies.ItsAWonderfulLife## could have ##Directors.FrankCapra## as parent. Then ##ItsAWonderfulLife## was listed as ##Child## of ##FrankCapra##. This relationship was displayed in the //breadcrumb// at the top of each page. The user was able to navigate through this //hierarchy//. | ||
| 16 | |||
| 17 | Some applications used this parent/child relationship to organized their data. For them, this relationship is crucial. | ||
| 18 | |||
| 19 | == The introduction of the Nested Pages concept == | ||
| 20 | |||
| 21 | In XWiki 7.2, due to frequent users demands, we have introduced the ability to create spaces under some other spaces. It's the **Nested Spaces** concept. We suddenly had the ability to create a hierarchy of spaces to organize our content. | ||
| 22 | |||
| 23 | But we have also found some issues. What if a space hold the same name then a page? Which entry should we render to the user when she reach an URL where 2 entities are matching? Moreover, does it make sense to have a difference between a space and a page? Why the pages cannot have sub-pages inside of them? | ||
| 24 | |||
| 25 | Then we have decided to switch to the **Nested Pages** concept. In theory, a page should now be able to have some sub-pages, because we don't need to have a distinct between a page and a space like we have between a file and a folder. | ||
| 26 | |||
| 27 | But this change was not possible to make on the API side because it would have required too much work that we could not afford at this time. So the decision was made to stick on the **Nested Spaces** implementation on the API (for now), but to propose **Nested Pages** in the UI. | ||
| 28 | |||
| 29 | How does it work? | ||
| 30 | |||
| 31 | Each time a user creates a page from the XWiki UI, she now actually creates a space (without knowing it ;)) with its ##WebHome## page. It means that any user-created page is called ##WebHome##. | ||
| 32 | |||
| 33 | Then, when the user wants to create a sub-page ##FrankCapra## in the page ##Directors.WebHome##, she actually creates a new space inside the space ##Directors## with its ##WebHome## page: ##Directors.FrankCapra.WebHome##. **That's the trick!** | ||
| 34 | |||
| 35 | The notion of space have been removed from the UI. It's not mentioned anywhere, anymore. Everything seems to work as if we were really creating sub-pages, even if we have created sub-spaces behind the scene. | ||
| 36 | |||
| 37 | {{info}} | ||
| 38 | That tricks should be temporary. When we will able the opportunity to rewrite the core model of XWiki, we will really implement the Nested Pages concept in the API. | ||
| 39 | {{/info}} | ||
| 40 | |||
| 41 | Note that the user has still the ability to create pages that does not have the ##WebHome## name. As a consequence, such pages (that are not the WebHome of their space) cannot have sub-pages. That is why we call them **Terminal Pages**. | ||
| 42 | |||
| 43 | == Issue with the Parent/Child relationship == | ||
| 44 | |||
| 45 | Now, it is clear that we have 2 different hierarchies in the wiki. One, made of sub-pages (sub-spaces in the reality), and one made with the old parent/child relationship. Then, clearly, it becomes confusing for the user. Which hierarchy should be displayed in the breadcrumb? What is the parent of page, the "container" page or the parent set in the field? | ||
| 46 | |||
| 47 | The choice have been made to drop the notion of parent/child relationship, since we can now really have children pages, implemented as sub-pages (with inherited rights, preferences, etc...). | ||
| 48 | |||
| 49 | It means that when the user wants to change the parent of a page, she actually needs to **move** this page under the new parent. | ||
| 50 | |||
| 51 | This concept are good in theory. But, how can we handle existing content when an XWiki upgrade is made? | ||
| 52 | |||
| 53 | = Principle = | ||
| 54 | |||
| 55 | The idea is not convert existing pages (which most of them are terminal) to ##WebHome## pages under their own space. We call this "convert terminal pages to nested pages". This allows you to create sub-pages under any converted pages, which is impossible while they were terminal. | ||
| 56 | |||
| 57 | But that would be a shame to lose the parent/child relationships that the user have created between its pages. The user might want to preserve its hierarchies. She might still want to have ##FrankCapra## as parent of ##ItsAWonderfulLife##. | ||
| 58 | |||
| 59 | To keep this information, the principle is to **move all the pages under their parents**, so the parent/child links **becomes a real hierarchy between pages**. | ||
| 60 | |||
| 61 | To perform this conversion, we have developed an application called [[Nested Pages Migrator Application>>extensions:Extension.Nested Pages Migrator Application]]. | ||
| 62 | |||
| 63 | = Fix the hierarchy = | ||
| 64 | |||
| 65 | However, the current hierarchy may be messy. For example, so pages inside the space ##Proposal## could have ##Main.WebHome## as parent instead of ##Proposal.WebHome## which would be more logical. It happens when the user is invited to create pages in the space ##Proposal## directly from the main page (ex: http://design.xwiki.org/). | ||
| 66 | |||
| 67 | It's important to identify such a case before applying the migration tool, because the tool won't be able to detect this kind of unwanted hierarchies. | ||
| 68 | |||
| 69 | In the previous example, the solution was to put manually the parent of all pages of the ##Proposal## space that had ##Main.WebHome## as parent, to ##Proposal.WebHome##. The following script have been used to migrate (ex: http://design.xwiki.org/): | ||
| 70 | |||
| 71 | {{code language="velocity"}} | ||
| 72 | #set ($xwql = "where doc.space in ('Proposal', 'Design', 'Improvements') and doc.parent = 'Main.WebHome'") | ||
| 73 | #foreach($r in $services.query.xwql($xwql).execute()) | ||
| 74 | #set ($d = $xwiki.getDocument($r)) | ||
| 75 | #set ($discard = $d.setParent('Proposal.WebHome')) | ||
| 76 | #set ($discard = $d.save()) | ||
| 77 | * $r updated | ||
| 78 | #end | ||
| 79 | {{/code}} | ||
| 80 | |||
| 81 | = Install Nested Pages Migrator Application = | ||
| 82 | |||
| 83 | Go to the Extension Manager, and install [[Nested Pages Migrator Application>>extensions:Extension.Nested Pages Migrator Application]]. Then go to the page ##NestedPagesMigration.WebHome##. |
