[Gnumed-devel] Bug and workaround identified (was: anyone noticed wiki problems)

[J Busser]

At 9:24 AM +1100 2/27/05, catmat wrote:
> > The timeout for save apparently is sent to 3600 seconds
> > in twiki conf .  ( presuming this includes signalling the 
> > application that a user wants to
> > edit, the user typing , and then pressing save).

The above is partly correct. It provides the means to prevent any 
other user editing that particular wiki page for at least one hour 
after an initial user has edited that page (to reduce the chance of 
conflicts) EXCEPT that a user can release the lock manually, for 
example if they think someone else may want to work on the page and 
do not themselves mind being locked out of editing for an hour. 
During that hour, TWiki considers all edits by that user part of the 
same "revision" in order to reduce the amount of versioning required 
to be tracked.

The bug arises in Firefox, Safari, and presumably/possibly other 
browsers (like Konqueror - consider any reference herein to Safari to 
possibly apply to you), while tabbed browsing is enabled. It is a 
more severe problem with Safari (and presumably Konqueror) however it 
is possible in all cases to work around it, if it is desired to 
continue to use tabbed browsing. Note to Mac users using Firefox: you 
must upgrade from Firefox 1.0 Preview Release to Firefox 1.0.

Safari permits the option of disabling tabbed browsing. I "quit" and 
reloaded Safari which does maintain the prior annoying habit of 
prompting for user credentials even just to view a page. Even with 
tabbed browsing disabled I could not straightaway edit and save a 
large or complex page like DevelopmentReference and I think that even 
such an attempt prevents success during the rest of that browser 
session (i.e. you would have to quit and restart the app). I had to 
first Edit and Save a small simple topic like WikiWorkaround, which I 
created for this purpose. Then, I could edit and save even 
DevelopmentReference and Liz's PathologyTests page without any 
trouble.

For browsers that use tabbed browsing (and in Firefox, I think there 
is no way to disable it) the following procedure is required:

- you must AVOID submitting your wiki credentials through your 
browser's "first" or default tab
   (therefore Safari users must open to a page OTHER THAN one at the wiki)
- make a new (second) tab and within *that* tab, load a wiki page
   -->Safari users should "Jump" to WikiWorkaround or another 
suitably small page
- Edit, Preview (mandatory for Safari) and Save the wiki page from 
*inside* this second browser tab.

Once credentials have been submitted AND a wiki page has been Edited, 
[Previewed] *and* Saved, then  it appears you can Edit and Save any 
wiki page even in your browser's main (first) tab and it becomes no 
longer necessary in Safari to Preview before saving.