I'm new to PmWiki, where can I find some basic help for getting started?

The Basic Editing page is a good start. From there, you can just follow the navigational links at the bottom of the page (they are called Wiki Trails) to the next pages, or to the Documentation Index page, which provides an outline style index of essential documentation pages, organized from basic to advanced.

How do I include special characters such as Copyright (©) and Trademark (® or ™) on my wiki pages?

See special characters on how to insert special characters that don't appear on your keyboard.

Why are separate lines of text in the markup combined into a single line on output?

PmWiki normally treats consecutive lines of text as being a paragraph, and merges and wraps lines together on output. This is consistent with most other wiki packages. An author can use the (:linebreaks:) directive to cause separate lines of markup text to be kept as separate lines in the output. A wiki administrator can set in config.php $HTMLPNewline = '<br/>'; to force literal new lines.

Can I just enter HTML directly?

By default (and by design), PmWiki does not support the use of HTML elements in the editable markup for wiki pages. There are a number of reasons for this described in the PmWiki Philosophy and PmWiki:Audiences. Enabling HTML markup within wiki pages in a collaborative environment may exclude some potential authors from being able to edit pages, and pose a number of display and security issues. However, a site administrator can use the Cookbook:Enable HTML recipe to enable the use of HTML markup directly in pages.

Where can I find more documentation?

See the documentation index and the markup master index pages.

How do I create a new page?

Typing [[my new page]] will create a link to the new page. There's a lot you can do with double bracket links.

Why do some new pages have a title with spaces like "Creating New Pages" and others end up with a WikiWord-like title like "CreatingNewPages"?

The default page title is simply the name of page, which is normally stored as "CreatingNewPages." However, you can override a page's title by using the (:title Creating New Pages:) markup. This is especially useful when there are special characters or capitalization that you want in the title that cannot be used in the page name.

How do I create a link that will open as a new window?

Use the %newwin% wikistyle, as in:

%newwin% http://example.com/ %%

How do I create a link that will open a new window, and configure that new window?

This requires javascript. See Cookbook:PopupWindow.

How do I place a mailing address in a page?

Use the mailto: markup, as in one of the following:

* mailto:myaddress@example.com
* [[mailto:myaddress@example.com]]
* [[mailto:myaddress@example.com | email
me]]
*
[[mailto:myaddress@example.com?subject=Some
subject | email me]]@]

The markup [[mailto:me@example.com?cc=someoneelse@example.com&bcc=else@example.com&subject=Pre-set Subject&body=Pre-set body | display text]] =] lets you specify more parameters like the message body and more recipients (may not work in all browsers and e-mail clients).

See also Cookbook:DeObMail for information on protecting email addresses from spammers.

How can I enable links to other protocols, such as nntp:, ssh:, xmpp:, etc?

See Cookbook:Add Url schemes

How do I make a WikiWord link to an external page instead of a WikiPage?

Use link markup. There are two formats:

[[http://example.com/ | WikiWord]]
[[WikiWord -> http://example.com/]]

How do I find all of the pages that link to another page (i.e., backlinks)?

In the wiki search form, use link=Group.Page to find all pages linking to Group.Page.

Use the link= option of the (:pagelist:) directive, as in

(:pagelist link=SomePage list=all:)   -- show all links to SomePage
(:pagelist link={$FullName} list=all:)  -- show all links to the current page

What link schemes does PmWiki support?

See PmWiki:Link schemes

How do I open external links in a new window or mark them with an icon?

See Cookbook:External links

How can I use an image as a link?

Use [[Page| Attach:image.jpg ]] or [[ http://site | http://site/image.jpg ]] See Images#links

Is it possible to link an image on PmWiki without using a fully qualified URL?

Yes. For images that are attachments, the general format is Attach:Groupname./image.gif. To link to an image that is on the same server, use Path:/path/to/image.gif.

Can I attach a client image file on PmWiki?

Yes, see Uploads .

How can I include a page from another group that contains an attached image?

Include the page in the normal way, ie (:include GroupName.Pagename:). In the page to be included (that contains the image) change Attach:filename.ext to Attach:{$Group}./filename.ext.

Why, if I put an image with rframe or rfloat and immediatly after that I open a new page section with ! the section title row is below the image instead of on the left side?

Because the CSS for headings such as ! contains an element clear:both which forces this behaviour. Redefine the CSS locally if you want to stop this happening, but I think the bottom border (that underlines the heading) would need further re-definition. I just use bolding for the title, and 4 dashes below ---- to separate a new section, and it saves the effort of fiddling with the core definitions.

Unlike the lframe and rframe directives, cframe does not fully honour the width setting. While the frame itself resizes to match the request, the enclosed image does not, and retains its original width. Effect is the same in IE and Fx. I've added an example beneath the standard example above.

Is it possible to disallow all images? I already disabled uploads but I also want to disallow external images from being shown on my wiki pages.

DisableMarkup('img');
$ImgExtPattern = "$^";

How can I make it so that when I place an image in a page, the block of text it is in is a <p> (paragraph) rather than a <div> (division)?

If you just want it to happen for a single image (instead of all), then try putting [==] at the beginning of the line, as in:

Having [==] at the beginning of a line forces whatever follows to be part of a paragraph.

Is there any way to use relative paths for images?

See Cookbook:RelativeLinks and $EnableLinkPageRelative.

Is there a way to attach a BMP and have it display rather than link?

Add to config.php the following line:
$ImgExtPattern = "\\.(?:gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|GIF|JPG|JPEG|PNG|BMP)";
Note that BMP images are uncompressed and quite heavy. You may wish to convert them to PNG (lossless) or JPG (lossy) format, and thus reduce 5-20 times their filesizes.

Is there a way to have a table to the left or right of an image?

Yes, see TableAndImage.

Can I define table headers using the table directive markup?

No, but you can with Cookbook:AdvancedTableDirectives. See Pm's reply to pending PITS:00535

Is it possible to do nested tables?

Yes, if you nest simple tables inside advanced tables. See also Cookbook:AdvancedTableDirectives.

Is it possible to add background images to tables and table cells?

Yes, see Cookbook:BackgroundImages.

How can I change the keyboard shortcuts for editing and saving a page?

See Customizing access keys.

What's the maximum number of includes that can exist in a page?

By default, PmWiki places a limit of 50 include directives for any given page, to prevent runaway infinite loops and other situations that might eat up server resources. (Two of these are GroupHeader and GroupFooter.) The limit can be modified by the wiki administrator via the $MaxIncludes variable.

Is there any way to include from a group of pages without specifying by exact name, e.g. between Anchor X and Y from all pages named IFClass-* ?

This can be achieved using page lists.

There appears to be a viewing issue when the included page contains the (:title:) directive.

As of version 2.2.0, the last title in the page overrides previous ones. In future versions, this may be configurable, but for the moment, best is to place your (:title :) directive at the bottom of the page, after any includes.

Is there a variable like $LastModified, but which shows me the creation time?

No, but you can create one in config.php. For instance:

# add page variable {$PageCreationDate} in format yyyy-mm-dd
$FmtPV['$PageCreationDate'] = 'strftime("%Y-%m-%d", $page["ctime"])';

If you like the same format that you define in config.php with $TimeFmt use

 $FmtPV['$Created'] = "strftime(\$GLOBALS['TimeFmt'], \$page['ctime'])";

How do I set one header for all pages/groups?

The header for each page is controlled by the $GroupHeaderFmt variable. Thus a site-wide groupheader can be added with

$GroupHeaderFmt = '(:include {$SiteGroup}.SiteHeader
                   basepage={*$FullName}:)(:nl:)' . $GroupHeaderFmt;

Note that single quotes must be used so that $Group (which is part of the default contents of $GroupHeaderFmt) will be substituted properly by PmWiki, and that this applies to all variables ending in $...Fmt. See also the Cookbook:AllGroupHeader page.

Any form of markup is valid in $GroupHeaderFmt, thus one can do

Would this then work for site footers?

$GroupFooterFmt = '(:include {$SiteGroup}.SiteFooter
                   basepage={*$FullName}:)(:nl:)' . $GroupFooterFmt;

Is there a way to remove page history from page files?

1. Administrators can clean page histories using the Cookbook:ExpireDiff recipe.

2. Administrators with FTP file access can download individual pages from the wiki.d directory, open them in a text editor, manually remove history, and re-upload the files to wiki.d/ directory. Care must be exercised, when manually editing a page file, to preserve the minimum required elements of the page and avoid corrupting its contents. See PageFileFormat#creating.

3. Edit the page. Select all the contents of the edit text area and cut them to the clipboard. Enter delete into the text area and click on the save and edit button. Select all the contents of the edit text area and paste the contents of the clipboard over them. Click on the save button. This will remove all of the page's history up to the final save in which the pasted material is re-added.

How can I restrict viewing the page history (?action=diff) to people with edit permission?

In the local/config.php file, set

In case of this restriction is set up on a farm, and you want to allow it on a particular wiki, set in your local/config.php :

Deleting Wiki Groups & Categories: Once I create a Group or Category, how can I get rid of that group or category?

An admin can just remove the unwanted pages from wiki.d/ . Normally, doing it via the wiki doesn't resolve the problem, since it counts as an "update" which causes the Recent Changes page to be re-created, but it is possible to modify the site's configuration to allow deletion of the group's RecentChanges page -- see Cookbook:RecentChangesDeletion.

Are InterMap names case sensitive?

Yes, thus eAdmin: is a different InterMap link than EAdmin:.

How can I achieve a localmap.txt mapping with the effect of Pics: Path:/somepathto/pics/?

Use the following:

How can I define an InterMap in PHP?

Use the following:

      $LinkFunctions['PmWikiHome:'] = 'LinkIMap';
      $IMap['PmWikiHome:'] = 'http://pmwiki.org/wiki/$1';

If my wiki is internationalized by config.php, how do I revert a specific group to English?

Use $XLLangs = array('en'); in the group's group customization file.

If my wiki is in English and I want just one page, or group, in Spanish do I say XLPage('es','PmWikiEs.XLPage'); in the group or page configuration file?

Yes, that is usually the best method. If you were doing this with many scattered pages, or with several languages, you might find it easier to maintain if you load the translations all in config.php like this:

   XLPage('es','PmWikiEs.XLPage');
   XLPage('fr','PmWikiFr.XLPage');
   XLPage('ru','PmWikiRu.XLPage');
   $XLLangs = array('en');

Then in each group or page configuration file, you'd just use $XLLangs = array('es'); to set the language to use (in this case, Spanish). Note that though this method is easier to maintain, its somewhat slower because it loads all the dictionaries for each page view, even if they won't be used.

What does the first parameter of this function stand for? How can it be used?

The XLPage mechanism allows multiple sets of translations to be loaded, and the first parameter is used to distinguish them.

For example, suppose I want to have translations for both normal French and "Canadian" French. Rather than maintain two entirely separate sets of pages, I could do:

    XLPage('fr', 'PmWikiFr.XLPage');
    XLPage('fr-ca', 'PmWikiFrCa.XLPage');

PmWikiFr.XLPage would contain all of the standard French translations, while PmWikiFrCA.XLPage would only need to contain "Canada-specific" translations -- i.e., those that are different from the ones in the French page.

The first parameter distinguishes the two sets of translations. In addition, a config.php script can use the $XLLangs variable to adjust the order of translation, so if there was a group or page where I only wanted the standard French translation, I can set

    $XLLangs = array('fr', 'en');

and PmWiki will use only the 'fr' and 'en' translations (in that order), no matter how many translations have been loaded with XLPage().

Tools for PmWiki Localization

You can help to localize PmWiki in your language in the original site:

• Localization
• Translation Portal

How can I apply CSS styles to a particular group or page?

Simply create a pub/css/Group.css or pub/css/Group.Page.css file containing the custom CSS styles for that group or page.

Why shouldn't passwords be set in group (or page) customization files?

The reason for this advice is that per-group customization files are only loaded for the current page. So, if $DefaultPasswords['read'] is set in local/GroupA.php, then someone could use a page in another group to view the contents of pages in GroupA. For example, Main.WikiSandbox could contain:

(:include GroupA.SomePage:)

and because the GroupA.php file wasn't loaded (we're looking at Main.WikiSandbox --> local/Main.php), there's no read password set.

The same is true for page customization files.

Isn't that processing order strange? Why not load per page configuration last (that is after global configuration an per group configuration)?

Many times what we want to do is to enable a certain capability for a group of pages, but disable it on a specific page, as if it was never enabled. If the per-group config file is processed first, then it becomes very difficult/tedious for the per-page one to "undo" the effects of the per-group page. So, we load the per-page file before the per-group.

If a per-page customization wants the per-group customizations to be performed first, it can use the techniques given in PmWiki.GroupCustomizations (using include_once() or setting $EnablePGCust = 0).

How do I change the Wiki's default name in the upper left corner of the Main Page?

Put the following config.php

The docs/sample-config.php file has an example of changing the title.

How can I embed PmWiki pages inside a web page?

Source them through a PHP page, or place them in a frame.

How do I change the font or background color of the hints block on the Edit Page?

Add a CSS style to pub/css/local.css: .quickref {background:...; color:... }. The hints are provided by the Site.EditQuickReference page, which is in the PmWiki or Site wikigroup. Edit that page, and change the "bgcolor" or specify the font "color" to get the contrast you need.

I get http error 500 "Internal Server Error" when I try to log in. What's wrong?

This can happen if the encrypted passwords are not created on the web server that hosts the PmWiki. The crypt function changed during the PHP development, e.g. a password encrypted with PHP 5.2 can not be decrypted in PHP 5.1, but PHP 5.2 can decrypt passwords created by PHP 5.1. This situation normally happens if you prepare everything on your local machine with the latest PHP version and you upload the passwords to a webserver which is running an older version. The same error occurs when you add encrypted passwords to local/config.php.

Solution: Create the passwords on the system with the oldest PHP version and use them on all other systems.

Can I specify authorization group memberships from with local/config.php?

Yes -- put the group definition into the $AuthUser array (in config.php):

        $AuthUser['@editors'] = array('alice', 'carol', 'bob');

I'm running multiple wikis under the same domain name, and logins from one wiki are appearing on other wikis. Shouldn't they be independent?

This is caused by the way that PHP treats sessions. See PmWiki.AuthUser#sessions for more details.

Is there any way to record the time of the last login for each user when using AuthUser? I need a way to look for stale accounts.

See Cookbook:UserLastAction.

Though every settings seem correct, authentication against LDAP is not working, and there is nothing in ldap log. What's wrong ?

Be sure ldap php module is installed ( on debian apt-get install php(4|5)-ldap ; apache(2)ctl graceful )

The login form asks for username and password, but only password matters.

Make sure you are not entering the admin password when testing the account because, if the password is equal to the admin password, it will authenticate directly through the config.php file and skip any other system.

Do note that even with AuthUser activated you can still log in with a blank username and only entering the password. In that case any password you enter will be "accepted" but only passwords which authenticate in the given context will actually give you any authorization rights. Using this capability AuthUser comfortably coexists with the default password-based system.

If you want to require both username and password, then you need to set an admin id before including authuser.php:

## Define usernames and passwords.
$AuthUser['carol'] = '$1$CknC8zAs$dC8z2vu3UvnIXMfOcGDON0';

## Enable authentication based on username.
include_once('scripts/authuser.php');

# $DefaultPasswords['admin'] = crypt('secret');
$DefaultPasswords['admin'] = 'id:carol';

A username and password will then be required before login is successful.

Is there any way to hide IP addresses once someone has logged in so that registered users can keep their IP addresses invisible to everyone except administrators? - X 1/18/07

Not yet.

Is there a way that people could self-register through AuthUser?

You can see Cookbook:AuthUserSignup for a recipe about this problem.

I would like it that after I have AuthUser turned and a user is authenticated to get on my site, that if I have a password put on a particular page or group that they don't get the AuthUser form to show up (username and password), but only the typical field for password?

See this thread of the mailing list.

There seems to be a default password. What is it?

There isn't any valid password until you set one. Passwords admin describes how to set one.

PmWiki comes "out of the box" with $DefaultPasswords['admin'] set to '*'. This doesn't mean the password is an asterisk, it means that default admin password has to be something that encrypts to an asterisk. Since it's impossible for the crypt() function to ever return a 1-character encrypted value, the admin password is effectively locked until the admin sets one in config.php.

How do I use passwd-formatted files (like .htpasswd) for authentication?

See AuthUser, Cookbook:HtpasswdForm or Cookbook:UserAuth.

Is there anything I can enter in a GroupAttributes field to say 'same as the admin password'? If not, is there anything I can put into the config.php file to have the same effect?

Enter '@lock' in GroupAttributes?action=attr to require an admin password for that group.

How do I edit protect, say, all RecentChanges pages?

see Security#wikivandalism.

How can I read password protect all pages in a group except the HomePage using configuration files?

As described in PmWiki.GroupCustomizations per-group or per-page configuration files should not be used for defining passwords. The reason is that per-group (or per-page) customization files are only loaded for the current page. So, if $DefaultPasswords['read'] is set in local/GroupA.php, then someone could use a page in another group to view the contents of pages in GroupA. For example, Main.WikiSandbox could contain:

(:include GroupA.SomePage:)

and because the GroupA.php file wasn't loaded (we're looking at Main.WikiSandbox --> local/Main.php), there's no read password set.

How can I password protect the creation of new pages?

See Cookbook:LimitWikiGroups, Cookbook:NewGroupWarning, Cookbook:LimitNewPagesInWikiGroups.

How do I change the password prompt screen?

If your question is about how to make changes to that page... edit Site.AuthForm. If your question is about how to change which page you are sent to when prompted for a password, you might check out the Cookbook:CustomAuthForm for help.

How do I change the prompt on the attributes (?action=attr) screen?

Simply create a new page at Site.AttrForm?, and add the following line of code to config.php:

$PageAttrFmt = 'page:Site.AttrForm';

Note that this only changes the text above the password inputs on the attributes page, but doesn't change the inputs themselves - the inputs have to be dealt with separately. See Cookbook:CustomAttrForm for more info.

I get http error 500 "Internal Server Error" when I try to log in. What's wrong?

This can happen if the encrypted passwords are not created on the web server that hosts the PmWiki.
The crypt function changed during the PHP development, e.g. a password encrypted with PHP 5.2 can not be decrypted in PHP 5.1, but PHP 5.2 can decrypt passwords created by PHP 5.1.
This situation normally happens if you prepare everything on your local machine with the latest PHP version and you upload the passwords to a webserver which is running an older version.
The same error occurs when you add encrypted passwords to local/config.php.

Solution: Create the passwords on the system with the oldest PHP version and use them on all other systems.

I only want users to have to create an 'edit' password, which is automatically used for their 'upload' & 'attr' passwords (without them having to set those independently). How do I do this?

By setting $HandleAuth like so:

      $HandleAuth['upload'] = 'edit';
      // And to prevent a WikiSandbox from having it's 'attr' permissions changed 
      // except by the admin (but allowing editors to change it on their own pages/group)
      if(($group=="Site") || ($group=="Main") || ($group=="Category") || 
             ($group=="SiteAdmin") || ($group=="PmWiki") ) {
	$HandleAuth['attr'] = 'admin';  // for all main admin pages, set 'attr' to 'admin' password
      } else { 
	$HandleAuth['attr'] = 'edit';  // if you can edit, then you can set attr
      }