Item5439: Proposal to have chapter editing off by default

Currently EditChapterPlugin is enabled for all headings by default. In fact, it is impossible to completely disable it even if one sets EDITCHAPTERPLUGIN_ENABLED to off in TWikiPreferences. The reason is that some cases, such as INCLUDED topics or heading defined in DBQUERY formats do not respect the plugin preference setting. In some cases, these edit links may be simply undesired but in other cases they do not work at all (producing unexpected results).

This introduces a high degree of unpredictability in the plugin's use.

I would make case that it would be more desirable to have it not render heading edit links by default. Then this functionality could be enabled for specific situations as desired, or the administrator could turn it on for entire site by setting the EDITCHAPTERPLUGIN_ENABLED to on in TWikiPreferences and accept the compromises this might present. This would be a more conservative approach that reduces the incidence of problems/errors. At present, there is no option but to deal with these complications across the entire site and with existing applications, even if one only wants this functionality only in a few places.

The approach I'm advocating is that followed by earlier similar plugins such as SectionalEditPlugin. That is, if one wanted to apply this to the entire site, one had to explicitly enable it. Otherwise, it was only applied where specifically enabled.

To address the concern that users would install the plugin and wonder why nothing happens, simply include notes at the end of installation instructions about enabling the plugin in a topic, web or site-wide.

-- LynnwoodBrown - 13 Mar 2008

Which "complications" exactly are these? The latest EditChapterPlugin has been written with a lower impact on the html markup to add the edit behavior to the headings. So chances a good you simply don't get these "complications" anymore. Furthermore, enabling/disabling a plugin using preferences is a standard feature isn't it. That way you should be able to switch the plugin on and off selectively.

There might be a technical problem that might have motivated this report. That aside, I don't agree with the above proposal because users now really expect this feature to be enabled with no additional configuration steps required. In general, a plugin should just work as soon as installed. Even having to configure it further more outside of configure, that is having to tinker with SitePreferences, is a burden too much to get it up and running.

Therefore I strongly tend to reject this proposal as is, but we might have a look at the more technical aspects that might be buried underneath. Could be there's a plain error somewhere around disabling/enabling chapter edit. For now I am closing this report. Please feel free to reopen it and put me on the WaitingFor list in case you want this to be investigated any further.

-- MichaelDaum - 26 Aug 2011