AdminActions:Wikka

Administration of Actions

See also:
- UsingActions
- DescribeActions
- CategoryDevelopmentActions

This is the development page for the action administration module.

Main goals of this module

allow finegrained access control on actions (preferably based on ACLs)

make the "intranet" directory obsolete

allow WikkaEdit to retrieve the list of installed actions and for each action its description, parameters...

Needed metadata

action short name = tag name (eg : "files")

action name (eg : "File upload form")

action description (eg : "Display a form with file attachments to the current page.")

parameter 1 short name (eg : "download")

parameter 1 description (eg : "prints a link to the file specified in the string")

parameter 1 mandatory (or optional) (boolean)

Where metadata are stored

header in action file

For each action in "/action" directory, the header of the action file is read (eg : "/action/image/image.php")
Action file header contains all the required metadata, prefixed by a specific tag.

separate data file (best method?)

Each action directory contains an additional file "actionname.inc.php".

Data formats :
1) PHP array (best method?)

<?php
$action_infos = array(
'category' => 'hidden',
'tag' => 'image',
'title' => 'Image',
'summary' => 'Display an image.',
'usage' => '',
'params' => array(
'url' => array(
'default_value' => 'url',
'description' => 'Image URL. Can be relative (images/img.png) or external (http://example.com/example.jpg)',
'importance' => 2
),
'title' => array(
'default_value' => 'text',
'description' => 'Image title',
'importance' => 1
),
'alt' => array(
'default_value' => 'text',
'description' => 'Alternate text when image can\'t be displayed',
'importance' => 1
),
'class' => array(
'default_value' => 'className',
'description' => 'Class name (defined in the CSS file)'
),
'link' => array(
'default_value' => 'url',
'description' => 'Add a link to the image'
)
)
);
?>

+ fastest
- may introduce some errors (especially with comma or parentheses)

2) INI-file

[action]
category=hidden
tag=image
title=Image
summary=Display an image.
usage=

[url]
default_value=url
description=Image URL. Can be relative (images/img.png) or external (http://example.com/example.jpg)
importance=2

[title]
default_value=text
description=Image title
importance=1

[alt]
default_value=text
description=Alternate text when image can't be displayed
importance=1

[class]
default_value=className
description=Class name (defined in the CSS file)

[link]
default_value=url
description=Image title

+ easiest to read and write
- no hierarchical structure (action and parameters data are mixed together)

3) XML

<action>
<category>hidden</category>
<tag>image</tag>
<title>Image</title>
<summary>Display an image.</summary>
<usage></usage>
<params>
<url>
<default_value>url</default_value>
<description>Image URL. Can be relative (images/img.png) or external (http://example.com/example.jpg)</description>
<importance>2</importance>
</url>
<title>
<default_value>text</default_value>
<description>Image title</description>
<importance>1</importance>
</title>
<alt>
<default_value>text</default_value>
<description>Alternate text when image can't be displayed</description>
<importance>1</importance>
</alt>
<class>
<default_value>className</default_value>
<description>Class name (defined in the CSS file)</description>
</class>
<link>
<default_value>url</default_value>
<description>Image title</description>
</link>
</params>
</action>

- give headaches to read or write
- slow to parse

Caching metadata

Parsing the "/action" directory on each request is too slow. Moreover, additional data like action ACLs can't be stored in the file itself.

Solution : add to the database two tables : "wikka_actions" and "wikka_action_params"

CREATE TABLE `wikka_actions` (
`tag` VARCHAR(75) NOT NULL,
`title` VARCHAR(75) NOT NULL,
`summary` VARCHAR(200) NOT NULL,
`usage_infos` VARCHAR(400) NOT NULL,
`category` VARCHAR(75) NOT NULL,
`acl` text NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`tag`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM;

CREATE TABLE `wikka_action_params` (
`action_tag` VARCHAR(75) NOT NULL,
`name` VARCHAR(75) NOT NULL,
`description` VARCHAR(400) NOT NULL,
`default_value` VARCHAR(75) NOT NULL,
`importance` tinyint(1) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`action_tag`,`name`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM;

Field "importance" :
- it is only used by WikkaEdit
- values : 0=none, 1=default, 2=mandatory
- when adding an action, the "mandatory" and "default" parameters are added automatically. If a "mandatory" parameter is removed, the editor will display a warning.

When metadata cache is updated ?

These databases are currently updated each time AdminAction is called (an "update action list" link may be a better solution)

User interface

The UI is based on UserAdmin and PageAdmin style.
The ACLs are currently not used (see following chapiter "Actions ACLs")

Actions Administration

Filter view: Search action:
Show records per page
Records (28): 1-15 | 16-28
Sorted by: tag, asc

Action Tag	Action Title	ACLS
adminpages	Pages administration	JohnDoe	edit
adminusers	Users administration	*	edit
backlinks	Backlinks	*	edit
calendar	Calendar	*	edit
category	Category	*	edit
checkversion	Version checker	*	edit
color	Text color	*	edit
contact	Administrator email address	*	edit
countcomments	Count comments	*	edit
countowned	Count owned	*	edit
countpages	Count pages	*	edit
countusers	Count users	*	edit
emailpassword	Lost password form	*	edit
image	Image	*	edit
usersettings	My user settings	*	edit

Actions ACLs

The main idea of ACLs is to allow the admin to disable non-safe actions like "files" or "iframe", or allow only some users to use them.
For basic actions, these ACLs are really useless (eg: "color", "image", "table"...)

Ideas :
- ACLs could be used to replace the hardcoded "if ($this->IsAdmin($this->GetUser()))" in some actions

Problems :
- "wikka_actions" and "wikka_action_params" tables are not always up-to-date (only updated when the AdminActions action is called)
- the ACLs are currently ignored by the core (and can't be added due to the 1st problem)

CategoryDevelopment

Wikka : AdminActions

Actions Administration