Category: Staging and Approval

Approval of staging pages: no matter wheter you choose approve or reject changes, after submit, changes are always approved.
So the only way to actually reject changes is to delete staging page.

Categories are not assigned like they are asked to in the group settings.

"Default category assigned to uncategorized objects edited by a user with this default group:"

Group chosen is not auto assigned.


Categories are also not assigned like they are asked to in the Staging and Approval settings. I will be told I am creating a staging document, it will add the prefix, etc. However, it will not move it to the chosen staging category.

I have tried this with fresh installs of 4.1 and no profile loaded during initial setup.

Contributors

In group settings, there is an option to set a default category for any uncategorized objects edited by the object. This feature does not work.

When I evaluated the software for my project, I was very happy when the documentation said that it was possible to create a workflow with categories, transitions and watches. But I realized that watching a category only triggered a mail notification when the transition was made in the tiki-admin_categories.php page. It was useless for me!! :-((

It seems to be an error only by the first settings (creation) of a wiki page, maybe depending on the staging and approval system:

* Every time a new wiki page is created initially in the staging version the creators name is correctly shown under "created by" and "creator" (in the listing of the wiki pages and below the page in the collaborative-listing of creator and contributors).

* Then after approval

** the page description disappears (I mentioned this in another posting before) and

** the creator of the page is changed, I mean: __instead of the user's name (who created the page)__ now __there is shown the IP of the approver__.

* So

** below the page and in the page listing the IP (of the approver) is shown as creator,

** and in the history the "user" of the page and the "comment" are changed.

Please see the screenshots I attached, for better explanation of this. The page in the three screenshot was created by admin and approved by admin. But it's the same, if created by an user:

__Always the name of the creator of a wiki page is not correctly shown in each area (wiki page listing, below the page and in the history).__

* By edit of an existing page, this doesn't occure! - You see in the screenshot, that in the second and third version of the page there are correctly shown the "user" with his name and "comment" with an comment, that the page was approved by named approver.

Features Classification

Using Tiki 6.0, I have encountered the following problems with staging and approval process:
* Staging copies are not deleted upon approval, when the __Delete staging pages at approval __ option is enabled.
* Impossible to create a brand new wiki page when using staging and approval.
* If a staged edit is rejected, Tiki still approves the page.

I have another problem on TikiWiki 2.0RC2:

I have two similar TikiWiki-installations. One just for testing on my Linux-Server and the second on a WinNT-Server. The Windows-Server is the one we want to/have to use for our Wiki :-(

On my Linux-Server works everything without problems.

On the Win-Server don’t work "approve+staging".

If I wont approve changes it shows me this error:

An error occured in a database query!

Context:
File tiki-approve_staging_page.php
Url tiki-approve_staging_page.php?page=Baustelle_Test
Query:
update `tiki_pages` set `description`=? `data`=? `comment`=? `lastModif`=? `version`=? `user`=? `ip`=? `page_size`=? `is_html`=? `wysiwyg`=? `wiki_authors_style`=? `flag`=? `lockedby`=? where `pageName`=?
Values:
0
1 <p>Test</p>
2 [approved by ottonormal]
3 1217330865
4 6
5 ottonormal
6 10.40.153.101
7 225
8 1
9
10 NULL
11
12
13 Test
Message:

Built query was probably:
update `tiki_pages` set `description`='' `data`='<p>Test</p>' `comment`=' [approved by ottonormal]' `lastModif`='1217330865' `version`='6' `user`='ottonormal' `ip`='10.40.153.101' `page_size`='225' `is_html`='1' `wysiwyg`='' `wiki_authors_style`=NULL `flag`='' `lockedby`='' where `pageName`='Test'

I'm using staging and approving wiki pages and recognized, that the page description disappears under some conditions. I tried to find out this "some conditions" and hope to give sufficient informations:

* First a user or admin creates a new (wiki) page with description.

* The page is saved as staging page with the description.

* If the page is edited before approval (by user or admin), the description remains in the field.

* If the page is approved by an approver (= user with permission), the description remains in the field, too.

* If the page is approved by admin, the description is away.

* If the approved page with a description (equal, if approved by an approver or by admin with rewriting of the description) is reopened for edit, the page description field is blank.

With "page description disappears" I mean, that

a) the description is not saved when approving the page by admin and

b) the description field prior filled with a description is then blank, when the page is opened for editing (after approval).


__TikiWiki version:__

* 2.1 new installation

__Staging and approval settings:__

__Group permissions:__

Anonymous

tiki_p_view
tiki_p_view_categorized

Registered

tiki_p_wiki_view_history
tiki_p_wiki_view_source

Editors

tiki_p_view_categories
tiki_p_lock
tiki_p_minor

Approvers

tiki_p_rename
tiki_p_rollback

__Category permissions:__

Staging

Registered : tiki_p_view_categorized
Registered : tiki_p_edit_categorized
Editors : tiki_p_view_categories

Approved

Anonymous : tiki_p_view_categorized
Editors : tiki_p_view_categories
Approvers : tiki_p_edit_categorized

__Wiki staging settings:__

Use wiki page staging and approval : yes
Category for staging pages : Staging
Category for approved pages : Approved
Category for pages out of sync : none (see group settings above)
Force bounce of editing of approved pages to staging : yes
Delete staging pages at approval : yes
If not in the group, edit is always redirected to the staging page edit : Approvers

__Group settings:__

Default category assigned to uncategorized objects edited by a user with this default group :

Registered : Staging
Editors : Staging
Approvers : Approved

__Other Wiki settings:__

Page description: activated/checked
History only for data, description, comment change: not checked
Individual cache: I tried with and without activating/checking - no difference

Staging & Approval fails if incorrect $edit_minor parameter type is supplied to the function update_page. This is the case in Tiki 6.3

This causes the whole staging & approval mechanism to fail.

No UI checkbox for the following.

INSERT INTO `tiki_preferences` (`name`, `value`) VALUES
('wiki_validate_plugin', 'n');

When using the "Wiki Page Staging and Approval" feature... I would like the "Category for approved pages" option to include a new selection: "Prompt for category"

This would allow users to select a category when they approve the page, allowing approvers to select a different category for pages, rather then selecting a single, overall, "approved" category.

If staging & approval is enabled then staging pages are marked with * however even after saving the staging pages no link for approval of page is shown. one has to approve staging page only by manually calling tiki-approve.php

With Staging and Approval, you are required to setup a category for Staging, and one for Approval.

My site has other categories, lets call them A and B. I have things setup fairly tight so only people in group A can view/edit Category A content. I also want to restrict the approval process to only a few people in group C.

If someone in group A modifies a page in Category A, it gets assigned to the staging category.

<Enter the bug>

Once I Approve that change, the page now belongs to Category A AND the approval category. Since not all users have view/edit rights to the approval category, they are now unable to edit that page any further.

Dear All

There is a problem with wiki staging and approval on Tiki 3.0 namely that practically it can not be switched off once it was turned on.

Description:

The issue is that if I switch the feature off than edit an approved page than upon save all content of a wiki page gets duplicated. If I save again, it duplicates again and there is no escape. ("Preview" shows ok but "minor edit" makes the mistake too).

The same thing happens if staging and approval is switched on with the following setting:

''__Force bounce of editing of approved pages to staging__'' is NOT marked (preference wikiapproval block editapproved disabled)

Workaround: if a page gets messed up as described above, switch on staging and approval again, enable ''preference wikiapproval block editapproved'', make an edit of the page, deleted the duplicated content, approve and the official page will be fine again

Some more notes: I was working as admin, the site was on TW2.4 before, it was upgraded with the official 3.0 release only, Staging and approval was switch on the first time, it was __not__ used with 2.4 version

Please resolve this if possible,
Many thanks,
Gezza

---
Update:

actually it happens now also when we edit a staging page twice. If I edit once, than approve, all is fine. If I edit twice the staging copy content starts to get duplicated :(

When the system is set up to use staging & approval and the Structures are turned on, pages/topics created using the Add Page feature included with Structures get created with a staging name. The structure fails/disappears when the page is approved (fails in that the structure loses the staging name and does NOT substitute in the page without the staging name).

How about a true staging capability for TikiWiki?

That would include that all content can be scheduled. In essence, whether we are talking a wiki page, an article, etc, everything would have an validity interval attached. __INSIDE__ that interval, edits can be made and versions are kept, but each of the entities (like a wiki page) would have siblings that are valid for a specific timeframe.

I know that would mean some work, but it would make using Tiki for business websites so much more convenient.

Have tried a number of different fixes and environments but keep running into the same message when trying to approve a new page:

''Error: Either staging or approved page cannot be found.''

Well,that's a correct statement as it's a new page, there is no approved page yet. The function always states that the user is viewing the staging page for the approved page, even before it was approved.

For approving existing pages, the approval process works although it doesn't remove the unapproved page.

Have recreated this problem on the [http://php.opensourcecms.com/scripts/details.php?scriptid=63,|demo site], as well as a couple of Windows environments.

To recreate: create 3 categories (Staging, Approved, Out of Sync). Turn on Wiki Approval and Staging in the Wiki section. Make appropriate category selections to match categories you made. Setting: If not in the group, edit is always redirected to the staging page edit: Put the group, you are not in, so hit Anonymous. Create a wiki page, save, then when prompted try to approve it.

On a wiki page, reviewing each & every change could get tricky because someone could do edit #2 before edit #1 is approved, and then, you end up having branches, which need to be merged.

I have an idea on how it could work but still needs coding: Basically, when a non-editor (someone with lesser permissions) edits the page, the previous version continues to be shown to the public (in any wiki, any previous version is still available to view). Anybody trying to edit the page would be sent to this new "branch" (think of it as a staging area). And the next time an editor (someone with higher permissions) saves the page, it becomes public again. This would avoid the risk of having multiple branches, needing merging. However, the UI would have to clearly show editor #2 that he is not editing the page he just saw.

I could see this being an interesting feature in certain scenarios. For example, using Tiki to generate a corporate website.

Contributors