Group Customizations

One of the purposes of Wiki Groups is to allow a Wiki Administrator to customize the features of PmWiki on a per-group basis. Here is where per group customizations come into play.

Group-specific PHP and CSS

The local/ subdirectory is used to hold local configuration files.

The pub/css/ subdirectory is used to hold local css files.

To perform local customizations for a particular WikiGroup,

• place the customizations in a file called "<groupname>.php" (where <groupname> is the actual name of the page group in question) in the local/ subdirectory
• place the CSS customizations in a file called "<groupname>.css" (where <groupname> is the actual name of the page group in question) in the pub/css/ subdirectory.

These files will be automatically processed after processing any local customizations in the config.php and local.css files.

For example, to change the image displayed in the upper-left corner of pages in the "GroupName?" WikiGroup, one could create GroupName?.php containing

<?php
  $PageLogoUrl = "/myimages/chess.gif";

The example's effect would cause all pages in the GroupName? Wiki Group to use "/myimages/chess.gif" as the logo image instead of the default.

To add markup to the beginning or end of each page in a wiki group, see Group headers.

Per-page customizations

PmWiki also allows per-page customizations; simply use the full name of the page to be customized instead of the group. For example, one can use the file local/Chess.HomePage.php to set local customizations for Chess.HomePage.

Almost any customization that would be placed in config.php can be used as a per-group or per-page customization.

An important exception to this is setting per-group or per-page customizations for recipe scripts included in config.php. Most recipe scripts would need any customization variables defined before the script is included. Instead of using a per-group or per-page customization php file, use a per-group or per-page conditional statement in config.php, before including the recipe script. Example:

## Inclusion of per-page and per-group local php scripts
$pagename = ResolvePageName($pagename);
include_once("$FarmD/scripts/pgcust.php");

$page = PageVar($pagename, '$FullName');
$group = PageVar($pagename, '$Group');
//per-group customizations:
if($group=='GroupName') {
   $RecipeVariable = 'valueA';
   etc. ...
}
//per-page customizations:
if($page=='GroupName.PageName') {
   $RecipeVariable = 'valueB';
   etc. ...
}
//include recipe after variables are set:
include_once('cookbook/recipescript.php');

Required reading: Order of the commands in config.php.

Note that this method cannot be used to set $DefaultPasswords, you should use Group or Page attributes. See Passwords and PasswordsAdmin for more information.

Processing order

For all local customizations, PmWiki first processes the local/config.php file, and then looks for a per-page customization file in the local/ subdirectory to process, followed by any per-group customization file. If no per-page or per-group customizations are loaded, then PmWiki loads local/default.php. If a per-page customization wants to have the per-group customizations loaded first, it can do so directly by using PHP's include_once() function. For more information see wiki cascades.

Custom CSS styles per group or per-page

To apply CSS styles to pages of a specific group named Group Name?, create a file named GroupName?.css in the pub/css/ directory and add the CSS style rules there. To apply styles to a specific page, create a file GroupName.PageName?.css in this directory with your style rules. Any CSS rules to be applied for all wiki pages can be put into pub/css/local.css.

  body { background: #F4C4B4; }

See also $WikiPageCSSFmt and Cookbook:LocalCSS.

Preventing group-Level configurations

Any customization file can set $EnablePGCust=0; to prevent later page/group/default customizations from being automatically loaded. If a per-page customization needs to have the per-group customizations loaded first, it can do so directly by using PHP's include_once() function.

Authentication

Any passwords required for a group should be set in the group's Group Attributes? page (see Passwords Administration) and not in a group customization file.

Consider Wiki Farms

Wiki Groups are an easy way to host multiple sites in a single PmWiki installation by giving each site its own group. Another approach is to use Wiki Farms, which allows each site to have its own set of Wiki Group and local customization files.

If you are looking for nested group levels, you may want to consider Pm's design considerations on hierarchical groups.

FAQ