History of PluginProposal-MakePage
Version 3
PluginProposal-MakePage
A DataPlugin Proposal
Created by: Lee LaMont Bell Jr., Last modification: 04 May 2005 (23:26 UTC) by Lee LaMont Bell Jr.
WARNING
This is a proposal page for the DataPlugin-MakePage Data Plugin. Any information given here is subject to change without notification.Introduction
The idea behind this plugin is to give an Admin the ability to create a lot of pages in a hurry. The page that the plugin is called from would then either be removed or used as an Index page for those pages. There are obvious security issues and problems with the latter – but they will be discussed later.So What Would It Do?
As the name implies – DataPlugin-MakePage would create a Wiki page. The parameters passed to it are as follows:{MakePage pname=’Page Name’ descr=’Snow White’ file='makepages.txt' p1=’FireFox’ p2=’dogs’}
- pname is the Name of the page to be created
- descr is the description of that page
- file is the name of a file located in the Wiki directory. It contains the contents of the page to be generated.
- The parameters p1 through p99 are used to contain text that would be placed on the page. Each and every instance of %1 in the file would be replaced by the contents of the parameter.
((Page Name )) - Snow White
How Would I Use This Plugin ?
As an example – Lets assume that an Admin needed to create 10 (or 1000) similar pages very quickly. The steps to do this are as follows:- Create an Example page that looks the way the pages should look.
- Copy the text into a Text file.
- To simplify things – create a spreadsheet to hold the data. The format would look something like this:
a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | |
1 | pname | descr | p1 | p2 | p3 | p4 | p5 | p6 | p7 | p8 | p9 |
2 | Page Name 1 | Snow White | |||||||||
3 | Page Name 2 | The 3 little pigs | |||||||||
etc |
- Examine the Example page and identify the text that needs to be replaced. Delete that text in the Text file and replace it with the % character and a number like this: %1. Each and every %1 in the Text file will be replaced with the contents of the parameter p1 in the page created.
This would not be the page that called the plugin in the first place.
Security Issues
The major security issue is that the plugin would still exist on the page and viewing that page would activate it – causing it to be ran again.Internally – this plugin is only visible to the Administrator and will only function when he views a page with the plugin on it. Further – the plugin only functions if the file specified in the file parameter exists in the Wiki directory.
Still – even with all of that – any page using this plugin should be locked.