TWiki Plugins

Overview

• add virtually unlimited features while keeping the main TWiki code compact and efficient;
• heavily customize an installation and still do clean updates to new versions of TWiki;
• rapidly develop new TWiki functions in Perl using the Plugin API.

Preinstalled Plugins

TWiki comes with three Plugins as part of the standard installation.

Installing Plugins

• • Test Plugins and other new features in the Test installation until you're satisfied.
  • Copy the modified files to the Production installation. You can update a live TWiki installation and users won't even notice.

Managing Plugins

Setting Preferences

• The %PLUGINDESCRIPTIONS% variable displays a bullet list with a one-line description of each active Plugins. This variable is based on the %<plugin>_SHORTDESCRIPTION% Preferences variables of individual topics and is shown in TextFormattingRules.

• SpreadSheetPlugin (any TWiki, $Rev: 18078 (02 Sep 2009) $): Add spreadsheet calculation like "$SUM( $ABOVE() )" to TWiki tables and other topic text
• BreadCrumbsPlugin (v2.01, $Rev: 17469 (12 Dec 2008) $): A flexible way to display breadcrumbs navigation
• CommentPlugin (03 Aug 2008, $Rev: 17791 (02 Sep 2009) $): Allows users to quickly post comments to a page without an edit/preview/save cycle
• EditTablePlugin (4.9.1, $Rev: 18014 (02 Sep 2009) $): Edit TWiki tables using edit fields, date pickers and drop down boxes
• FilterPlugin (1.51, $Rev: 16970 (03 Jul 2008) $): Substitute and extract information from content by using regular expressions
• FlexWebListPlugin (v1.23, $Rev: 16971 (12 Dec 2008) $): Flexible way to display hierarchical weblists
• GluePlugin (2.00, $Rev: 15708 (12 Dec 2008) $): Enable markup to span multiple lines
• HeadlinesPlugin (2.3, $Rev: 18123 (02 Sep 2009) $): Show headline news in TWiki pages based on RSS and ATOM news feeds from external sites
• IfDefinedPlugin (v1.02, $Rev: 16972 (11 Dec 2008) $): Render content conditionally
• InterwikiPlugin (28 Feb 2009, $Rev: 14913 (17 Sep 2007) $): Link ExternalSite:Page text to external sites based on aliases defined in a rules topic
• JQueryPlugin (0.80, $Rev: 17031 (12 Dec 2008) $): jQuery JavaScript library for TWiki
• JQueryTwistyPlugin (1.2, $Rev: 16736 (03 Jul 2008) $): Twisty section JavaScript library to open/close content dynamically
• NatSkinPlugin (3.00-pre20, $Rev: 16978 (12 Dec 2008) $): Theming engine for NatSkin
• PreferencesPlugin (TWiki-4.3, $Rev: 18016 (02 Sep 2009) $): Allows editing of preferences using fields predefined in a form
• RedDotPlugin (1.40, $Rev: 16137 (12 Dec 2008) $): Renders edit-links as little red dots
• RenderListPlugin (2.0, $Rev: 16235 (02 Sep 2009) $): Render bullet lists in a variety of formats
• SlideShowPlugin (02 Aug 2008, $Rev: 17260 (02 Sep 2009) $): Create web based presentations based on topics with headings.
• SmiliesPlugin (Dakar, $Rev: 16049 (02 Sep 2009) $): Render smilies as icons, like for  :-) or for  :eek:
• TWikiNetSkinPlugin: (disabled)
• TablePlugin (1.036, $Rev: 17769 (02 Sep 2009) $): Control attributes of tables and sorting of table columns
• TinyMCEPlugin (03 Aug 2008, $Rev: 18146 (02 Sep 2009) $): Integration of TinyMCE with WysiwygPlugin
• TwistyPlugin (1.4.12, $Rev: 15653 (19 Nov 2007) $): Twisty section JavaScript library to open/close content dynamically
• WysiwygPlugin (18 Apr 2009, $Rev: 18020 (18 Apr 2009) $): Translator framework for Wysiwyg editors

The DefaultPlugin Alternative

• DefaultPlugin can handle some outdated TWiki variables, found, for example, in sites recently updated from an old version. Settings are in DefaultPlugin topic. You can also add your own simple custom processing rules here, though in all but very simple cases, writing a new Plugin is preferable.