Good news, everybody! You can now mark categories as private, on public sites. This feature is available for all wikis (free and pro). Note that you can't make the default category private, mainly because that would just give you a private wiki, which is still a pro feature.
This is still a basic version, and members of a site can easily break the privacy by e.g. using ListPages or includes. However it lets you create private spaces for the members of a site to work together on parts of a project.
You can still rant today, of course. :-)
ugh, its 33 degress (F) and raining! one more degree and we could have had another day off school
Private wiki categories… sweet. Now if only I could remember what I had planned for those. xD I seem to recall making impassioned pleas for them, but why I could not tell you.
You know what sucks, having the memory of a 75 year old while I'm still in my prime. It's not quite as bad as having the memory of a 75 year old before I even got to my prime, but it still sucks.
In tests this morning the private categories worked very well. Many thanks to everyone. Now I can implement a combination of public web site and private intranet in a single site which has been a requested quite a lot over the last few months. It has worked well with 2 sites up to now but this makes it a bit easier.
Now for a rantlet. Logically we should be able to search for documents attached to the site. That is of course what the Files module does using some javascript. But it is limited in that it only displays the files on the current page. Google custom search does not bring back any results which I find very strange as the files are stored on the wdfiles server somewhere and are retrievable so a list should be as well of all attached files across the site.
Stacey Dyer raised this problem in a post here but there has been no response. Some would argue that attached files are not really what a wiki is about, but for sites like Stacey's, Brunhilda's and one I am developing where there is a lot of attached content, the inability to search across the site for attachments and list where they are is quite a problem. I thought this had been requested before couldn't see it on the weneeds so I thought I'd raise it as a small rant. I suppose I'd better add it to the weneeds.
Rob Elliott - Strathpeffer, Scotland - Wikidot first line support & community admin team.
Just a little note: my site has no problem in searching the attached files, since there is only one picture per page, and all pages are in one category, named "slika" (which stands for picture in Serbian). Therefore, I can do with pictures all that I can do with any other category of pages. The problem, I suppose, comes when there are a lot of files attached to only one page….
Oh, yes. Great news, private categories. Is there any instruction page on how to use them, how to make a private category, etc…?
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegan. - Paul McCartney
Yes that was the scenario I was thinking of, I hadn't realised you only had one image per page. I have a situation where there can be lots of files attached to a page.
Rob Elliott - Strathpeffer, Scotland - Wikidot first line support & community admin team.
Go to site manager -> permissions. Highlight one of the categories that is not the _default category. You will then see that there is an extra line of boxes called view. To make the category private make sure the boxes in the "anonymous" and "registered at wikidot" columns are not checked. It will then only allow site members to see pages in that category. If others go to a page in that category the page will display a message saying that the content is protected.
If you really want to make a category private so that only you as the creator of the page/site admin can view it, perhaps for notes of things to do on the site, then also delete the check in the site member column.
Rob Elliott - Strathpeffer, Scotland - Wikidot first line support & community admin team.
Thanks, Rob. I tried it out, and it works exacly as I wanted. I made my infobox pages invisible, but they still can be seen when included in articles.
I was wondering if there is a possibility not to show a page title in a page that gives info that "this page is protected… Also, if this page can be changed by CSS… It is pretty basic design, I would like to make it prettier…
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegan. - Paul McCartney
No I have not found any way to hide the title, change the text or redesign the page. I think it has been put there by javascript after the permissions have been checked. The "This page is protected" title for example is just an h1 rule, so altering that will of course change it everywhere else it is used on the site.
Rob Elliott - Strathpeffer, Scotland - Wikidot first line support & community admin team.
Maybe it would not be bad if we could chose the landing page for hidden pages… Or, maybe, when someone clicks to a hidden page, the system redirects him to a page that he is viewing….
Actual landing page is so… ugly. I would really like to have the possibility to change it.
PS: This would be my rant for today…. :D
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegan. - Paul McCartney
But
I think the interface is confusing there. if you uncheck all the boxes… it gave me the impression that no-one could see the page. I would find it more logical if there would be a remark or info saying that the owner and the admins would always be able to see that page… maybe a greyed-out checkbox… meaning this is checked and you can not uncheck this so relax you will always see the page you (owner) made.

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is this an assumption of you ( or Rob) that the creator can see his own page?
We are all admins of our sites and it would be interesting , if this note from Rob is true fro Site members and not admins- to see his/her own pages !
Service is my success. My webtips:www.blender.org (Open source), Wikidot-Handbook.
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My understanding is that admins will always be able to see the pages. That would be logical as that is how the other permissions are configured. The page creator will also always be able to see the page they have created.
Rob Elliott - Strathpeffer, Scotland - Wikidot first line support & community admin team.
I made a comment there…
http://projects.wikidot.com/thread:273#post-690557
A - S I M P L E - P L A N by ARTiZEN a startingpoint for simple wikidot solutions.
I would like to provide a private page to my members where they could create a personal practise program that only they (and admins) can access to.
I tested this using an another account. I created a category and a testpage (username:testpage). Then I logged out, signed in with my own account and went to the permissions menu at admin:manage. I found out that you can't tick "view" at "page creator/owner" because there isn't a box for it. Why is that?
Edit: @Rob:
I just tested this and as I described above, it doesn't work this way. Please correct me if I have not understood something.
___TTT___/ http://www.trumpetexercises.net
(_|||_) \ - Janne
You can't tick view for page creator/owner because it makes no sense to not tick view. The UI could be improved. Right now, creator/owner can always view a page they make.
Portfolio
Ok, then it seems that there's a bug. I logged again with the account I created the category and the page with and it still says "This category is protected".
___TTT___/ http://www.trumpetexercises.net
(_|||_) \ - Janne
OK, I expect a few bugs in new code. Could you please file a bug report at http://bugs.wikidot.com and provide us with the name of the site, and the user name, etc. so we can reproduce the problem?
Thanks.
Portfolio
Will do that.
Btw, you might want to update the "report a bug" link (at the bottom of each page), currently it leads to community forum, not to the Bug Tracker -site.
___TTT___/ http://www.trumpetexercises.net
(_|||_) \ - Janne
Done, thanks for the suggestion.
Portfolio