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 WikiBase's properties (e.g., title, description, etc.)
• Using the ToDoProperty to leave ToDo items in the wiki content
• CustomBorders - Use properties to define CustomBorders
• TopicTitle - Use a property to set the title of the property (e.g, as appears in the browser title bar)
• Anchors/Bookmarks - From build 1661 onwards all WikiPageProperties are marked as anchors in the topic that can be referenced like this: WikiPageProperty#PropertyName. Note: you must have a space after the closing colon for this to work.

What might properties be useful for someday?

• PagePropertyReferences
• A typing system for pages as objects?
• Yes, this might work well. See ProWiki for an example of how this might be used. -- MarkWaks [9/30/04]

Rules for property names

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

Note that a property name written in PascalCase is itself be a link to a TopicName and can be clicked, however the formatting is a little unclear, e.g.

 ""Escape:"" Just double double-quotes

Escape: Just double double-quotes

        PrimaryKey: ENTITYID

        ""PrimaryKey"": ENTITYID

Hidden Properties

[Hidden properties were added in build 1.0.0.1567]

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.

Note that you must have at least one space after the trailing colon for FlexWiki to recognize the property and actaully hide it. -- XtopherBrandt, 2007-02-19

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.

Due to formatting limitations it is recommended that the content for a muti-line property starts on the second line:

 FormattedProperty:[
 !!!Formatted heading
 Normal text, '''bold''', ''italic''
 ]

Which produces:

Instead of:

 FormattedProperty:[ !!!Formatted heading
 Normal text, '''bold''', ''italic''
 ]

Which produces:

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: