Creating WikiPageProperties

Wiki properties are created simply by typing a property name and a colon at the start of a line. The value is everything else on the line. Look, for example, at the top of this page. There's a property called Summary and it's got a value of WikiPageProperties are an easy way...

For properties with multiple values (e.g., Keyword), the convention is to use commas to separate the values. For example:

        Keywords: Wiki, Properties

What are WikiPageProperties used for?

• TopicTips - hovering over a topic will show the Summary property for that topic so you can have a preview of what it's about
• IndexingWikiContent - the Summary property is automatically made available to search engines indexing the wiki
• WikiNewsletters - a newsletter is defined in a wiki topic with a few fields like Topics and Subscribers
• building glossaries and other things you might want to build; then they are sliced out using the WikiBlade
• AutomaticRedirect - allows a page visitor to be redirected somewhere else
• Defining a WikiBase1's properties (e.g., title, description, etc.)

What might properties be useful for someday?

• PagePropertyReferences
• A typing system for pages as objects?

Rules for property names

Property names must start with an uppercase letter or an underscore. After that, they can container upper and lowercase letters and underscores.

Hidden Properties

[Hidden properties were added in build 1567]

Sometimes you want a page to have a property, but don't want to "clutter" the page with the property. To do this, prefix the property name with a colon (:). This will still set the value of the property for the topic, but the topic will not be displayed in the page.

For example,

 Summary: this page is about DogFood

is a conventional use of a WikiPageProperty. However, using that form always causes the property to show up formatted in the topic page. To hide the property, add the colon prefix:

 :Summary: this page is about DogFood

This will cause the property to not be displayed. Other than being hidden when the topic is displayed, the ':' has no other effect.

Multiline property values

You can create multi-line page properties like this:

 PropertyName:[ This is a very long property definition.


 It is useful to be able to do this for multiple paragraph properties
 ]

which produces:

The end of a multi-line property is marked by a single right-bracket on a line by itself.

Including properties in another page

Sometimes (as in a WikiSpec) you may want to include only a WikiPageProperty rather than the entire page (as you get with WikiIncludes). How do you do this? Use the format

  wiki://PageName#PropertyName

For example:

ExamplePropertyPage - A summary property will be displayed in the tooltips of any page in this wiki linking to this page. For example ExamplePropertyPage. Also used as HTML meta-tag in the header.

-

(See how this compares to when the ExamplePropertyPage topic appears in a more conventional form as in this sentence.)

-

ExamplePropertyPage

Using WikiTalk to list Pages containing specific WikiPageProperties:

The following WikiTalk displays a list of pages that use the "Keywords" WikiPageProperties:

 @@
 [
        "||{!}'''Page'''||{!}'''Keywords'''||{!}'''Summary'''||",
        Newline,
        namespace.Topics.Select
        {  
                each | 
                   each.HasProperty("Keywords") 
        }.Collect
        { 
                e | 
                [ "||", e.Name, " ||",e.GetProperty("Keywords")," ||",e.GetProperty("Summary"),"||", Newline ]
        }
 ] 
 @@

Here is the actual list generated by that WikiTalk code:

A summary property will be displayed in the tooltips of any page in this wiki linking to this page. For example ExamplePropertyPage. Also used as HTML meta-tag in the header.

22/04/2007 14:20:38 - -80.242.32.51

A summary property will be displayed in the tooltips of any page in this wiki linking to this page. For example ExamplePropertyPage. Also used as HTML meta-tag in the header.

22/04/2007 14:20:38 - -80.242.32.51

Page	Keywords	Summary
ExamplePropertyPage	Used for meta-tag information for the HTML page header, helps with search engines.	A summary property will be displayed in the tooltips of any page in this wiki linking to this page. For example ExamplePropertyPage. Also used as HTML meta-tag in the header.