A place for deleted pages
This is based on the Macintosh trash, which proved itself for the last 20 years as a good design. The Trash on Mac OS X in 2004 is not very different from the trash of System 6 of 1985.
The system will work like that:
- When you delete a page, it will be renamed to Trash/PageName. Technically, the page directory will be renamed
- You can not edit or revert pages in the trash - they are freezed in the state they were trashed.
does this remove SoftSecurity from the delete operation?
- No, you can just rename the page out of the trash and then continue to edit/revert. But in the trash the page is locked, so we don't have to watch this page in RC.
- You can remove pages from the trash by rename - but if the old name is not available, you will have to use a new name.
- The admin(s) can empty the trash in one operation, which will destroy all pages in the trash.
- You can not change the trash content or pages, just put things in and get out.
- Trash contents will not show on page lists, unless you ask for it, when it makes sense.
- When you delete a page, it name is available for new pages. If you create a new page, it will not revert deleted pages and will not have its history, it's a completely new page.
- less confusing than now, but also better?
- Isn't less confusing always better?
If somebody writes a page about OpenLDAP that gets deleted later (for whatever reason) and somebody later creates the page again, isn't it interesting what was there before about that topic? Isn't that history of that topic although it was deleted in between?
- Maybe its interesting, by then why the page was deleted? probably because the wiki users decided that its not. As an admin I don't want to waste my time and space on backup of such pages. Its an interesting question though.
- Isn't less confusing always better?
- less confusing than now, but also better?
- We can add an option for the admin only, to delete a page in one click - without sending it to the trash.
- First release can show trashed page in all list, just like regular pages, if we'll see thats too annoying, we can filter those pages.
page. Maybe there should be a hint in the page info which notifies the user that there is a trashed version of the page.
- the page `Trash' itself will display the contents of the trash (simply via the sub-pages macro).
Here is an example of the TrashCan page:
'''Deleted pages''' These pages were deleted from this wiki. To undelete a page, rename it out of the trash. ## This macro will show a list of page names, date deleted, sorted by name or date [[SubPages()]]
Discussion
- RC info icon should either be disabled for trashed pages or point to the page in the trashcan
- need for Untrash action (using renamepage internally)
Reverting pages
Reverting page contents is not as easy as it is now because you need to find the trashed page and revert there and not in the normal
A deleted page "MoinTrash/PageName" and a new page "PageName" are not the same page, and there is no need to get an old version from the trashed page into the new page, just like there is not need to get an old version of "FindPage" into "HelpContents"
There is a reason why the page was deleted - either it contained no content, created by mistake, or wiki users thought it does not belong to the wiki. The page is in the trash only as a security measure, so we can always redo.
When one creates the same page again, he can see the trashed version. If he wants to un trash the page, he simply rename it out of the trash, and continue with the old content of that page. But if he decided to create a new page with that name, he start from scrach.
We can show this message, when one create a page with the same name as a trashed page (default Create New Page):
JoeDoe is in the wiki trash. Do you want to create a new page or un-trash the existing page? [Un Trash Existing] [[ Create New Page ]]
I'm not sure this is realy needed though.