Table of Contents
What The Heck Are Namespaces?
What are namespaces?
A namespace in DokuWiki is like a directory or folder on your computer. You can store pages in a namespace (directory) and have namespaces within namespaces (folders within folders). Namespaces are separated by colons (:). Spaces are automatically replaced with _'s.
Here's some examples:
| Namespace | Windows equivalent | Description |
|---|---|---|
| start | \start.txt | the top level has no namespace name. This is the home page for the entire wiki. |
| faqs: | \faqs\ | the faqs namespace. If this was a link, it would try to access to faqs:start |
| faqs:start | \faqs\start.txt | the location of the “home” page for faqs: |
| faqs:wiki: | \faqs\wiki\ | the wiki namespace within the faqs namespace |
| faqs:wiki:start | \faqs\wiki\start.txt | the “home” page for the faqs:wiki: |
| faqs:wiki:page_help | \faqs\wiki\page_help.txt | another page within the faqs:wiki: namespace |
| faqs:wiki:* | \faqs\wiki\*.* | refers to all of the pages within a namespace |
Namespaces are used to organize the website and keep like pages together. The Sitemap lists all the pages in this wiki organized by namespace. Each namespace uses start as the name of the default (home) page for that namespace.
DocuWiki allows the Admins to set up templates so that, for example, all the People pages have the same look and are organized the same way. You can find more (highly technical) details on namespaces here.
Where can I see the namespace?
The easiest place to see a namespace is in the tab on the top right corner of page content area. In the example to the right, it's the actor page in the faqs namespace.
The location tab for the page you are now reading is faqs_how_tos:about_this_wiki:namespaces. It's the namespaces page inside the about_this_wiki namespace inside the faqs_how_tos namespace.
If you look at the bottom of this page, you'll see You are here:. This is the same namespace:page information, but clickable and uses the page titles.
The start page
Within every namespace DokuWiki will create a home or default page, called start. If you link to the namespace without specifying a page, it will look for the start page.
How do I use namespaces?
For the most part, you don't don't need to. If you are just editing a page or adding a new page within an namespace (e.g., adding John Smith within People, DokuWiki will put the page in the correct namespace.
If you are planning on having a lot of similar pages - like, for example, indexing a painting collection - you can start a new sub-namespace by creating a link to .:paintings:
When you click on the link and start editing, DokuWiki will create the new namespace (the paintings sub-directory) and a start page within it.
Adding a New Production or Team gives you an example of adding a new namespace in real life.
If you'd like to set up a template so all the pages in paintings: (for example) have the same look, talk to one of the Wiki Admins about creating a template.
Storing media files
When you create a namespace, you also create an equivalent namespace (folder) in the Media Manager. So, for example, images of each painting would be stored within a paintings: namespace in the Media Manager.
It's best practice to store any images or other media in the same namespace as the page that's using it. You can still reach into other namespaces (folders) to get things like logos, etc.
If you're still confused
Feel free to reach out to one of the Wiki Admins.