Interwiki Plugin

Link ExternalSite:Page text to external sites based on aliases defined in a rules topic

The InterwikiPlugin links ExternalSite:Page text to external sites based on aliases defined in the InterWikis topic. This plugin is inspired by UseMod Wiki's inter-wiki links, http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?InterWiki.

Link Syntax Rules

• Enter ExternalSite:Page to create a link that points to the Page on the ExternalSite server.
  • If Page contains spaces, it can be enclosed in single or double quotes. Example: MySite:'My Photo.jpg'. Special characters contained within the quotes are URL encoded.
• Enter [[ExternalSite:Page][any label]] to specify a custom label.
• All ExternalSite aliases are defined in the InterWikis topic or as specified by the INTERWIKIPLUGIN_RULESTOPIC topic list.

Definition Syntax Rules

Add and edit aliases in InterWikis.

• Each entry must be three or four columns, using the following format:
  | External site alias | URL | Tooltip help text | Optional INTERLINKFORMAT override |.
• The Alias must start with an upper case letter and may contain alphanumeric characters.
• The URL and Tooltip Text may contain optional $page formatting tokens; the token gets expanded to the page name.
• The URL may contain Foswiki macros. They are expanded when the URL is rendered.
• The Tooltip Text must not contain:
  • any HTML tags (including <nop> escape code)
  • any internal WikiWord links
  • any external links
  • Hint: Escape 'WikiWords' and '$page'.
  • If the link format override is provided, it overrides the INTERWIKIPLUGIN_INTERLINKFORMAT for just that entry.

Note that Interwiki links do not properly resolve when part of an INCLUDEd page name. e.g. %INCLUDE{"Interwiki:link"}%

For Foswiki and TWiki sites, both the web and the topic have to be specified: Foswiki:Webname/SomePage Foswiki:Extensions/InterwikiPlugin or Foswiki:Extensions.InterwikiPlugin

For links with parentheses you will need to write as [[Wikipedia:Fork_(software_development)]], or quoted, as Wikipedia:'Fork_(software_development)' as the plugin will not include the closing parenthesis as part of the link.

InterwikiPlugin Settings

You can override the default settings using preferences. These preferences can be set in your SitePreferences, or in any WebPreferences, or in individual topics.

The INTERWIKIPLUGIN_INTERLINKFORMAT supports a number of formatting tokens:

Installation Instructions

You do not need to install anything in the browser to use this extension. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the extension on the server.

Open configure, and open the "Extensions" section. "Extensions Operation and Maintenance" Tab -> "Install, Update or Remove extensions" Tab. Click the "Search for Extensions" button. Enter part of the extension name or description and press search. Select the desired extension(s) and click install. If an extension is already installed, it will not show up in the search results.

You can also install from the shell by running the extension installer as the web server user: (Be sure to run as the webserver user, not as root!)

cd /path/to/foswiki
perl tools/extension_installer <NameOfExtension> install

If you have any problems, or if the extension isn't available in configure, then you can still install manually from the command-line. See https://foswiki.org/Support/ManuallyInstallingExtensions for more help.

• Test: If the Plugin is correctly installed, this Wiki:InterWiki link should point to http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?InterWiki topic - try it out.

Change History