Introduction

Have you ever wondered why we have so many pages in the main distribution? Mostly because we do not have a format to deliver the help pages in one file. Or why installing a theme is not easy because you do not always know where to put the files?

The package installer is a scripting framework for MoinMoin which simplifies installing and delivering extensions for MoinMoin very much. It has been already available since DesktopEdition 1.3.4 and MoinMoin 1.5.

You could use this system to bundle specific templates which e.g. enhance your MoinMoin to be a CRM system. Or you could make your plugins/themes easier installable. Hopefully we will be able to separate the system pages depending on their languages and just offer the languages you like.

Installing a package

Some superuser (i.e. a user name contained in cfg.superuser list in the configuration) of the wiki will download your package file from somewhere, upload it to the wiki and then click install in the attached files view. Additionally, he could install the package using the command line (MoinMoin/packages.py i package.zip).

Creating packages

There are multiple possibilities to create a package. You can use the PackagePages action in order to build a package automatically.

Or you can do it manually: you create a zip file which contains your files and a special file MOIN_PACKAGE, the installation script. The script contains one command (sounds complicated but is not really, look at the examples below) per line and gets executed from top to bottom.

Example script:

MoinMoinPackage|1
ReplaceUnderlay|mypage.txt|HelpContents
AddRevision|mypage2.txt|FrontPage
InstallPlugin|myparser.py|global|parser|myparser.py

• The first line simply marks the file as a script file and sets the revision of the used language. For now, it will be 1.

• The second line replaces the underlay version of the page HelpContents with the file mypage.txt.

• The third line adds a new revision to the page FrontPage, i.e. changes it.

• The fourth line installs a new parser.

Implemented commands

Note that the commands are not case-sensitive.

• Print|text

  • Prints the text into the script output, the user will see it afterwards.

• IgnoreExceptions|boolean

  • Sets the ignore exceptions setting. If exceptions are ignored, the script does not stop if one is encountered.

• SetThemeName|themename

  • Sets the name of the theme which will be altered next.

• CopyThemeFile|filename|type|target

  • Copies a theme-related file (CSS, PNG, etc.) into a directory of the current theme.

  • Currently just supported on standalone-like servers.

  • Example: CopyThemeFile|screen.css|css|screen.css

• InstallPlugin|filename|visibility|plugintype|target

  • Copies a plugin file from filename to target. Visibility may be local which selects the plugin folder of the current wiki or global will selects the folder of the MoinMoin python package. plugintype could be parser, macro, etc.

  • Example: InstallPlugin|myparser.py|global|parser|myparser.py

• AddRevision|filename|pagename|author|comment|trivial

  • Adds a revision (read from the file filename) to the page pagename. author specifies the name of the editor and is optional. comment specifies the comment of the revision and is optional. trivial specifies if the revision was a trivial edit and is optional.

  • Example (installs new template files):

    AddRevision|cust.tpl|CustomerTemplate
    AddRevision|phone.tpl|PhoneTemplate
    

• DeletePage|pagename|comment

  • Deletes the page pagename, optionally setting comment.

  • Example: DeletePage|FrontPage

• ReplaceUnderlay|filename|pagename

  • Replaces the underlay version of the page. It can be used to install underlay pages or update them.

• EnsureVersion|version|lines

  • Aborts the script or skips lines if the version criteria is not met and lines is specified.

  • This example supplies to different parsers and installs the correct one:

    EnsureVersion|1.3.3|2
    InstallPlugin|myparser.py_3|global|parser|myparser.py
    Exit
    EnsureVersion|1.3.2
    InstallPlugin|myparser.py_2|global|parser|myparser.py
    

• Exit

  • Stops the script.

• InstallPackage|Pagename|Filename

  • Installs another package which has to be an attachment called Filename of the page Pagename.

  • Example: InstallPackage|FrontPage|MyCoolPlugin.zip