The TWikiImplementations example twiki application dynamically creates a form that will create a new topic by using GMTIME. That works great until you submit from the same link more than once, in which case you stomp on a previously submitted topic. (We're using for project tracking.)

I made a small change to the edit script to allow this to be done in a mostly race-condition-free manner.

 # # Allow for dynamic topic creation if it contains a string of 10 x's XXXXXX # if ( $theTopic =~ /X{10}/o ) { $theTopic =~ s|X{10}X*|substr(int($$) . int(rand(100000)) . int(time), 0, 10)|e; } 

I'd like to see something like this in the standard twiki. It basically just does a mktemp() style replacement.

The way I did it above is just a quick hack. It might make sense to add an extra parameter to the edit script dynamicname=1 or similar, and only do the substitution if that is set.

-- NathanNeulinger - 25 Feb 2003

File::Temp allows safely create unique file names - and IIRC it's part of standard perl distro?

-- PeterMasiar - 26 Feb 2003

for our bug tracking system I use sequential numbers. so far my extremely dumb method has not shown signs of slowing down (i start at one and increment until i can't find a topic, and use that).

-- SvenDowideit - 26 Feb 2003

I have attached a diff to the current cvs that uses my sequential topic numbers. The other thing is that it test to see if the topic, or a lock for that topic exists to stop overwriting other new topic entries. (it also has my HIDETEXTAREA tag) - I like the X{10} syntax - its simpler than the extra parameter

PeterT, can we add this to the main code?

-- SvenDowideit - 19 Mar 2003

I think this is a good idea. People are likely to want different ways of doing the numbering. I would suggest:

• Introduce the above xxx form
• Add a plugin hook to allow for other forms of numbering, might want to allow for different xxx format.

-- JohnTalintyre - 13 Jan 2004

To implement a Bug tracking system using DEVELOP, this patch will need to change a so that it is done in the save script. This is because there is no locking of a topic on edit in Dakar anymore. (and It makes the topic name creation more dynamic)

I also need a way to HideTWikiEditTextArea

-- SvenDowideit - 1 May 2003

I just commited r4262 - a version of this feature that will eventually slow down your system - as I'm using it for the upcoming DevelopBranchBugTrackingSystem

-- SvenDowideit - 04 May 2005

I'm not sure if this is the official 'doc' for the implemented feature in Dakar, but I came here via the 4.0.2. feature list. I've changed the CurrentState to MergedToCore, since it's been released.

My question: I've built a small news apllication with the sequential numbering. To build a nice UI, I'd like to create links to the previous and the next news item. Is there a way to create these links in a template, i.e. without knowing the exact sequential number?

T.I.A.

-- JosMaccabiani - 13 May 2006

I was able to partly answer my own question using SpreadSheetPlugin. If your dynamic topic name is TestTopicXXXXXXXXXX, then use:

 Previous topic: TestTopic%CALC{"$SUM($VALUE(%TOPIC%),-1)"}% Next topic: TestTopic%CALC{"$SUM($VALUE(%TOPIC%),+1)"}% 

Of course, this doesn't work for the first topic, and for the last topic. For these topics, nothing should be displayed

-- JosMaccabiani - 13 May 2006

See proposed improvement at AutoIncTopicNameOnSave.

-- PeterThoeny - 19 Jul 2006