TWikiTerminologyMap

As part of our rebranding process we have to eliminate use of the T* word in topics. If we had a new name, we might be tempted to simply global-replace "TWiki" with "new name" but that would be too easy. Many TWiki terms originated because the author couldn't think of anything better at the time, and this is a great opportunity to fix some of those horrors. The following table gives a "TWiki term" and a corresponding "New term" that should be used in place of it.

Note that this terminology needs to be consistent with the TopicNameMappingTable.

TWiki term	New term	Notes
TWiki variable	Macro	What TWiki has are macros - see the wikipedia article. Variables is plain wrong (see the wikipedia article).
preference(s) variable	preference setting, or macro when referring to expansion of same	e.g. "you can change the FLOON preference setting", "use the %WEBBGCOLOR% macro to get the current web background colour"
variable when used in format parameter	formatting token	e.g. $topic, $page. These are not variables, they are mostly simple substitution tokens.
variable when used to refer to a HTML form input field	input field
variable when used to refer to a configure setting	configure setting
variable when used to refer to a meta-data entry	meta-datum
variable when used to refer to a template directive	template directive	e.g.TMPL:DEF, TMPL:P
TWiki form	Data form
TWiki Plugin	Plugin
TWiki Template	Skin Template	.tmpl files, and VIEW_TEMPLATE/EDIT_TEMPLATE topics. These are used in the generation of HTML.
Topic Template	Template Topic	This refers to a topic that is also usable as a templates for new topics. The term has to be quite distinct from Skin Templates.
TWiki Markup Language (TML)	Topic Markup Language (TML)	Can the abbreviation TML still be used or is it a no-no for copyright reasons? -- SebastianKlus i see no issues; besides, we've created a backronym -- WillNorris - 19 Nov 2008 - 08:53
TWiki Application	Wiki Application	A Wiki Application is any combination of Foswiki topics, macros, plugins or contribs that together implement new "end user" applications. These applications can be as simple as a single page with some macros on it, or sophisticated, fully-featured applications that integrate data (e.g. from an external database) or entire applications (what other projects call "mash-ups") from multiple external sources. (From TechnicalOverview)

Please make any comments you have in the 'Notes' column of the table

Please bear in mind that a lot of work is going on to rename topics, and that this terminology has a direct bearing on it. Don't change any of the rows above lightly; people will expect you to fix the topics that you break as a result!