ListPages Module

The ListPages module is a general-purpose and widely-used tool that selects and display pages within a site.
The previous version of this documentation is still available.

To use ListPages, you decide some or all of:

• what pages to select (from the site, from categories, by parent, by tags, by date, etc.)
• how to order the pages (ascending, descending)
• how to break the output into blocks (pagination)
• how to display the results as Wikidot text (templating)
• how to export the results as an RSS feed

The general syntax for ListPages is:

[[module ListPages arguments...]]
template
[[/module]]

By default, ListPages will show all visible pages in the current category, from newest to oldest.

Example

This example lists the pages in the current category, along with details of who created the page, and when:

[[module ListPages separate="no" limit="5"]]
%%title_linked%% - [[user %%created_by%%]] - %%created_at%%
[[/module]]

In action:

Join Module - pieterh - 1255435376|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
Categories Module - pieterh - 1253617337|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
ListPages Module - pieterh - 1253267937|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
Clone Module - pieterh - 1252336859|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
The Thumbnails service - pieterh - 1249665491|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Naming conventions

Older argument names are inMixedCase. Newer argument names are in_lower_case, and this style will be used more systematically in Wikidot. Dates are always something_at and user names are always someone_by. Linked fields are always somefield_linked.

Selecting pages

Specify one or more of these selectors to refine the set of pages you select. Each selector adds additional constraints:

Argument	Meaning
category	Select by category
tags	Select by tags
parent	Select by parent page
created_at	Select by date of creation
created_by	Select by original author
pagetype	Select by type of page
offset	Select by offset
rating	Select by rating
range	Select a range of pages

Category selector:

• "." means current category (default)
• "*" means all categories
• else, a list of space/comma delimited categories
• categories are by default additive (category OR category OR category)
• "-category" means exclude pages in this category (AND NOT)

Tags selector:

• "-" means pages with no tags, visible or invisible
• "=" means pages with any of the same visible tags as this page
• "==" means pages with the exact same visible tags as this page
• else, a list of space/comma delimited tags
• tags are by default additive (tag OR tag OR tag)
• "-tag" means pages without the tag (AND NOT)
• "+tag" means pages with the tag (AND)

Parent page selector:

• "-" means pages with no parent page
• "=" means siblings of current page (same parent)
• "-=" means with different parent than current page
• "." means children of current page (parent is this page)
• else specifies a single full page name

Creation date selector:

• "=" means created on same day as current page
• "yyyy" means specified year
• "yyyy.mm" means specified year and month
• "last n unit" where 'n' is a count (defaults to 1) and unit is "day", "week", or "month"
• optionally prefixed by ">", "<", "=", "<=", ">=", "<>" (default is "=")
• dates are not site-local but currently all UTC (GMT)

Author selector:

• "=" means by created by author of current page
• "-=" means by not created by author of current page
• else, a single user name

Page type selector:

• "normal" means pages without underscore in name (default)
• "hidden" means pages starting with underscore
• "*" means all pages, with or without underscores

Offset selector:

• "n" means do not show the first n pages (default is 0)

Rating selector:

• "n" means pages with rating equal to n
• "=" means pages with same rating as current page
• optionally prefixed by ">", "<", "=", "<=", ">=", "<>" (default is "=")

Range selector:

• "." means current page
• "before" means pages up to but not including current (in order after sorting)
• "after" means pages after current page (in order after sorting)
• "others" means pages except current page

Ordering pages

To order the pages, use:

Argument	Meaning
order	Specify order criteria

Order criteria:

• "property" means "ascending by this property"
• optionally followed by " desc" meaning "descending"
• optionally followed by " desc desc" meaning "ascending", which makes "desc" safe to add after any sort order
• default is "created_at desc"

Property	Meaning
name	Order by page name
fullname	Order by category and page name
title	Order by page title
created_by	Order by author screen name
created_at	Order by date created
updated_at	Order by date updated
size	Order by number of characters in page
rating	Order by rating
revisions	Order by number of revisions
comments	Order by number of comments
random	Order randomly, cached for 60 seconds

For example to order by rating in descending order:

order="rating desc"

Note that "property asc" is not allowed and unknown order criteria give you the default order, which is "created_at desc".

Pagination

To control how many items (wiki pages) will be shown in total, and how these are paginated (confusingly, also into 'pages'), use either or both of:

Argument	Meaning
limit	Limit total items
perPage	Limit per pagination
reverse	Show pages in reversed order

Total limit:

• "number" - means limit the total number of selected pages.
• default and maximum is 250.

Pagination limit:

• "number" - means limit the number of page items shown on per pagination.
• default is 20.

Reversed display:

• "yes" - means show pages from last to first. If you do not use the 'range' selector, this is equivalent to inverting the sort order (adding or removing 'desc' from the 'order' argument).

Templating

The body of the module provides a template that you write to specify how page properties and content is formatted. To control this formatting, you can use these module arguments:

Argument	Meaning
separate	Separation specifier
prependLine	Header specifier
appendLine	Footer specifier

Separation specifier:

• "yes" means place each page item into a separate container (divs).
• "no" means put all items into one container, so they can become a single list, for example.
• default is "yes".

Header specifier:

• "text" means output this text at the start of the list of pages, only if the separation specifier is false.

Footer specifier:

• "text" means output this text at the end of the list of pages, only if the separation specifier is false.

The template consists of wiki text mixed with variables specified as %%variable-name%%. You can use these page properties:

Property	Meaning
Page lifecycle
%%created_at%%	Date page was created
%%created_by%%	User who created page
%%created_by_linked%%	Icon and link to user who created page
%%updated_at%%	Date page was updated (edited, tagged, parented)
%%updated_by%%	User who updated page
%%updated_by_linked%%	Icon and link to user who updated page
%%commented_at%%	Date of last comment
%%commented_by%%	User who made last comment
%%commented_by_linked%%	Icon and link to user who made last comment
Page structure
%%name%%	Page name without category
%%category%%	Page category if any
%%fullname%%	Page name with category if any
%%title%%	Page title
%%title_linked%%	Link to page showing title as text
%%parent_name%%	Parent page name without category
%%parent_category%%	Parent page category if any
%%parent_fullname%%	Parent page name with category if any
%%parent_title%%	Parent page title
%%parent_title_linked%%	Link to Parent page showing title as text
%%link%%	URL pointing to page
%%content%%	Page content
%%content{n}%%	Numbered content section
%%preview%%	First 200 characters of the page
%%preview(n)%%	First n characters of the page
%%summary%%	Summary of content
%%first_paragraph%%	The first paragraph of the page
%%tags%%	Page visible tags (not starting with underscore)
%%tags_linked%%	Page visible tags linked to system:page-tags/tag/{tag}
%%tags_linked|link_prefix%%	Page visible tags linked to link_prefix{tag}
%%_tags%%	Page hidden tags (starting with underscore)
%%_tags_linked%%	Page hidden tags linked to system:page-tags/tag/{tag}
%%_tags_linked|link_prefix%%	Page hidden tags linked to link_prefix{tag}
Page reporting
%%children%%	Number of child pages
%%comments%%	Number of comments on page
%%size%%	Number of characters in page
%%rating%%	Page rating value
%%revisions%%	Number of revisions to page
%%index%%	Page index in ListPages output + offset (1 to %%total%%)
%%total%%	Total number of pages in ListPages output (highest %%index%%)
Current context
%%site_title%%	Title of current site
%%site_name%%	Wikidot Unix name for site
%%site_domain%%	Active domain name of current site

Date formatting:

• All _at fields are dates and allow a custom format via the |format specifier.

Most tokens from PHP's strftime are accepted. You may find the howto contributed by community useful.

Editor's note: this section needs expanding with the most useful formatting options.

Tag linking:

• If no link_prefix is specified, tags link to system:page-tags/tag/name-of-tag
• If link_prefix is specified, tags link to link_prefixname-of-tag (colors irrelevant)
• Examples

if syntax is:	"shiny" tag will link to:
%%tags_linked%%	/system:page-tags/tag/shiny
%%tags_linked|system:page-tags/tag/%%	/system:page-tags/tag/shiny
%%tags_linked|interesting-list/category/%%	/interesting-list/category/shiny
%%tags_linked|player:%%	/player:shiny
%%tags_linked|very_%%	/very_shiny
%%tags_linked|http://myothersite.wikidot.com/see-also/tag/%%	http://myothersite.wikidot.com/see-also/tag/shiny

RSS feeds

You can export any ListPages result as an RSS feed. Use these arguments to control the RSS feed generation:

Argument	Meaning
rss	feed title
rssDescription	feed description
rssHome	feed homepage

Feed title:

• "text" means use this text for the RSS feed title.
• Default is to not generate any RSS feed.

Feed description:

• "text" means use this text for the RSS feed description.

Feed homepage:

• "pagename" means tell RSS clients this is the home page for the feed.
• Default is http://your-site.wikidot.com

Advanced Use

This section describes additional functionality that will be useful for advanced users.

Passing arguments via URL

ListPages lets you create variations of a single list using specially constructed links, consisting of the page URL (link) followed by arguments and values. These are mainly useful to invoke new selectors, and change the ordering or display.

You can pass any arguments in the URL by specifying argument="@URL|default-value" as the argument value and then appending "/name/value" to the URL used to invoke the page. If the URL does not contain a value for the argument, the default is used. Arguments that do not have @URL in their value cannot be set via the URL. The default value is optional: if you use only argument="@URL" and do not provide a value on the URL, then the argument behaves as if it was not set.

The two main ways of using arguments-by-URL are (a) to create links to a page explicitly, on another page and (b) to generate links within the ListPages itself, so it will reshow itself with different configurations. Here is a simple example:

[[module ListPages category="@URL|design"]]
%%name%% in category %%category%%
[[/module]]

Another example shows how to select blog entries by created_at date:

[[module ListPages category="blog" created_at="@URL"]]

and the module will read the created_at argument from the properly-constructed URL, e.g.

http://www.wikidot.com/blog/created_at/2008.07

You can specify multiple arguments like this:

http://www.wikidot.com/blog/created_at/2008.07/order/rating desc/limit/3

You can create the URLs manually or within ListPages itself. Some modules also generate compatible URLs.

Editor's note: list of modules that produce compatible URLs should be documented here.

More than one module in the page

Since some of the arguments can be passed in the URL of the request there might be conflict when more than one ListPages module is present in the page. One most likely conflict can occur when both modules use pagination — clicking "next" on one of them would also affect the other.

To prevent such conflicts use the urlAttrPrefix argument. This prepends a text (unique for each of the modules) to the argument names in the URL. So the …/created_at/2008.7 would become …/prefix_created_at/2008.07. If you can set unique prefixes for each of the ListPages instances you would avoid any conflicts.

Deprecated functionality

These arguments and variables can still be used but are disrecommended. You should when possible use the modern replacements. At some future date, deprecated functionality may be removed.

Instead of this	Use this
skipCurrent="yes"	range="others"
categories=	category=
tag=	tags=
tagTarget="pagename"	%%tags_linked|/pagename/tag/%%
date=	created_at=
order="dateCreatedAsc"	order="created_at"
order="dateCreatedDesc"	order="created_at desc"
order="dateEditedAsc"	order="updated_at"
order="dateEditedDesc"	order="updated_at desc"
order="titleAsc"	order="title"
order="titleDesc"	order="title desc"
order="ratingAsc"	order="rating"
order="ratingDesc"	order="rating desc"
order="pageLengthAsc"	order="size"
order="pageLengthDesc"	order="size desc"
rssTitle=	rss=
%%linked_title%%	%%title_linked%%
%%page_unix_name%%	%%fullname%%
%%full_page_name%%	%%fullname%%
%%page_name%%	%%name%%
%%author%%	%%created_by%%
%%author_edited%%	%%updated_by%%
%%user_edited	%%updated_by%%
%%date%%	%%created_at%%
%%date_edited%%	%%updated_at%%
%%description%%	%%summary%%
%%short%%	%%summary%%
%%text%%	%%content%%
%%long%%	%%content%%
%%body%%	%%content%%

ListPages supports a 'default format', where you do not specify any module body and no [[/module]]. This functionality is deprecated and you should avoid using it.