Item3510: CommentPlugin templates newline issue - doc updates needed

TWiki:TWiki04x01/TWikiReleaseNotes04x01#Template_spec_changed

After upgrading TWiki.org TWiki from 4.0.2 to 4.1 I noticed that there is an extra newline when submitting a TWiki:Plugins.TWikiExtensionAppraisal, breaking the table apart. I had to manually remove the extra newline, for example http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/rdiff/Plugins/SmartEditAddOnAppraisal

TWiki:TWiki04x01.UserCommentsTemplate has this output format defined:

%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:ExtensionAppraisalPoll}%%POS:BEFORE%| %WIKIUSERNAME% | %URLPARAM{"ideaQuality"}% | %URLPARAM{"designQuality"}% | %URLPARAM{"implementationQuality"}% | %URLPARAM{"documentationQuality"}% | %URLPARAM{"examplesQuality"}% | %URLPARAM{"installationCleanliness"}% | %URLPARAM{"sites"}% | %URLPARAM{"extensionhacked"}% | %URLPARAM{"twikihacked"}% | %URLPARAM{"Comment"}% |
%TMPL:END%

E.g. there is no way to fix this in the format.

This is a show stopper for TWiki apps that use the CommentPlugin to capture structured content.

-- PTh

Same issue happens now at TWiki:Sandbox/GenericVote and TWiki:Sandbox/EditActionItems. The latter example renders the app useless because the [Edit] link is now in the middle of the table.

-- PeterThoeny - 26 Jan 2007

I cannot make the http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/rdiff/Plugins/SmartEditAddOnAppraisal break.

I even made a local copy on my test server http://merlin.lavrsen.dk/twiki/bin/view/Myweb/CommentPlugNewline

Did not look at the others

-- KennethLavrsen - 26 Jan 2007

I tried the TWiki:Sandbox/EditActionItems example and there I see the same as Peter.

At some point the template stuff was changed so that no newlines were added or removed.

This caused a lot of pain in skins and obviously also in comment plugin templates.

The change was done in a 4.0 release. Probably 4.0.3 or 4.0.4.

I have by now edited things everywhere to the new world order. I will personally spank anyone that changes this again so I have to start all over. I am tired of the adding and removing newlines from templates. Please keep things stable now. Each time people fix something by adding or removing a new line it breaks something else.

The TWiki:Sandbox/EditActionItems problem can easily be fixed by changing the comment template to

%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:editaction_table}%%POS:BEFORE%|<!--ACTIONITEM-->| %URLPARAM{"assign"}% | %URLPARAM{"due"}% | %URLPARAM{"descr"}% | %URLPARAM{"state"}% |
%TMPL:END%

-- KennethLavrsen - 26 Jan 2007

Investigated more.

This bug was introduced in 4.1.0. In 4.0.5 it worked with the same templates on twiki.org.

Now we need to find out if this is a generic template change or a CommentTemplate only change.

-- KennethLavrsen - 26 Jan 2007

One more information.

I tried to install the 4.0.5 version of CommentPlugin in 4.1.0. That does not solve the problem. This means that someone changed the CORE template handling AGAIN.

-- KennethLavrsen - 26 Jan 2007

If I use the lib/templates.pm from 4.0.5 it works again.

Quite a lot has changed from 4.0.5 to 4.1.0

I will try and see exactly where it went wrong

-- KennethLavrsen - 27 Jan 2007

I have found the exact reason.

The change in SVN 11017 is the one where Crawford decides that templates should no longer have leading and trailing whitespace stripped.

This broke more or less all skins. We repaired PatternSkin for a long time after. For the same reason I never merged in that change in 4.0.5. I thought I eventually had but I didn't.

With 4.1 this change comes in effect. And now it breaks all the the user defined comment plugin templates around.

It is possible for all users to fix their comment templates. They simply have to remove the leading white space including the new lines between the %TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:something}% and the first content.

I am sure this is not the last bug report we get on SVN 11017 effects. People's 4.0 and Cairo tailorings on templates will break like hell.

If we revert this change then...

• We will break the Pattern, Classic and Nat skins again. You may not notice at first but they break! Somewhere some invisible little detail shows itself as an error or something not being rendered.
• The new mode of operation allows leading and trailing white space in the templates. We loose this feature again.

If we do not revert users have to fix things and we have to answer support questions.

No matter what we do it has a negative effect.

So my conclusion is that this is not something new. We have lived with this change since 14th July 2006. But only in the development community. But it is not until now in 4.1.0 that the change hits the field.

So I guess we have two choices.

• Revert Crawfords change and fix skins again. (simple code change back)
• Keep it and write a clear statement in the release note for 4.1.1 how to modified templates so that they work in 4.1.1. Also write it in the CommentPlugin topics and visible in the support FAQ.

Please do not make this into a mud fight. Let is make the best decision. And fast. We need to act for 4.1.1 and I want 4.1.1 out fast!

-- KennethLavrsen - 27 Jan 2007

The left bar fix I did the other day breaks if we revert just to give an example of something that breaks if we revert

-- KennethLavrsen - 27 Jan 2007

I have found several other things breaking if we revert. I really think we should not revert. But we should document the change better.

The example templates that ships with CommentPlugin seems to be up to date.

-- KennethLavrsen - 27 Jan 2007

Peter and I agreed that among the two evil keeping things as they are in 4.1.0 is the least bad.

Hope we can learn from this in future.

I will action the doc updates - unless someone protest against this decision.

-- KennethLavrsen - 29 Jan 2007

Which docs need to be updated?

-- TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens - 29 Jan 2007

• Release notes for 4.1.1
• Upgrade guide to tell what to change in comment plugin templates
• Comment Plugin topic - short note
• Default comment template topic also just a short note

-- TWiki:Main.KennethLavrsen - 29 Jan 2007

Sign off when the CommentPlugin topics are done so I can do the new build.

-- ArthurClemens - 29 Jan 2007

I have updated the release note, the upgrade guide, and the comment plugin topic. I regretted and did not add anything to the default comment template topic since it gets overwritten anyway.

Arthur - no need to build and release the plugin. I already did that. I have a perfect build directory for it. It is just two commands.

Done. Waiting for release.

-- KennethLavrsen - 04 Feb 2007

Cleaned "WaitingFor" field.

-- TWiki:Main.GilmarSantosJr - 10 Aug 2008