Macros

Macros allow the insertion of system features into normal wiki pages; the only thing that makes those pages special is that they contain macros. If you edit pages like RecentChanges or SystemInfo, you'll see what that means.

For more information on the possible markup, see HelpOnEditing and HelpOnMoinWikiSyntax.

Search macros

MoinMoin now uses a new search engine, that lets your make sophisticated searches using both the interactive search box or any of the search macros. For more help, see HelpOnSearching.

Macro


Description

Example

<<AdvancedSearch>>


create an advanced search dialogue on the page

See FindPage

<<TitleSearch>>


create a search box on the page, which search the page titles

See FindPage

<<FullSearch>>


create a search box on the page, which search the page contents

See FindPage

<<FullSearch()>>


print a list of pages whose content matches the current page title (like clicking on the page title)

See the CategoryCategory page

<<FullSearch(text)>>


print a list of pages whose content matches the search term

<<FullSearchCached(text)>>


Works like the FullSearch macro but caches the results statically. Use it if you prefer speed over an up-to-date result

<<GoTo>>


directly go to the page you enter

See the FindPage

<<PageList(Help)>>


print a list of pages whose title matches the search term

See the HelpIndex

Macro


Description

Example

<<RecentChanges>>


a list of recently edited pages

See RecentChanges

<<TitleIndex>>


an index of all page titles

See TitleIndex

<<WordIndex>>


an index of all words in page titles

See WordIndex

<<WantedPages>>


list links to non-existent pages

See WantedPages

<<OrphanedPages>>


list pages no other page links to

See OrphanedPages

<<AbandonedPages>>


list pages that were not edited for the longest time

See AbandonedPages

<<RandomPage>>


a link to a random page

<<RandomPage>>

<<RandomPage(#)>>


links to a number of random pages

Two random pages: <<RandomPage(2)>>

<<TableOfContents([maxdepth])>>


display a local table of contents, possibly limited to a maximal depth

See above

<<Anchor(anchorname)>>


macro to insert anchors into a page

#here

<<Navigation(children[,maxdepth])>>


macro to list all of a pages' children

See start of this page

<<Navigation(siblings[,maxdepth])>>


quick navigation to siblings of a page

See /MailTo

<<Navigation(slideshow)>>


creates a link to toggle between slide show and wiki mode, and a link to start the slide show

See HelpOnSlideShows

<<Navigation(slides)>>


displays first/prev/next/last links

See HelpOnSlideShows

<<AttachInfo>>


displays number of attachments for current page

See HelpOnActions/AttachFile

<<AttachInfo(page)>>


displays number of attachments for page

See HelpOnActions/AttachFile

<<AttachList(pagename,mimetype)>>


displays list of attachments

See HelpOnActions/AttachFile

System information

Macro


Description

Example

<<Hits>>


a counter for page hits <<Hits([all=(False,True)][,event_type=(VIEWPAGE,SAVEPAGE)]>>

12559

<<InterWiki>>


a list of all known InterWiki names

InterWiki

<<SystemInfo>>


info on the wiki, the python interpreter and the host system

SystemInfo

<<PageCount(exists)>>


current page count. If exists is supplied as an argument, only existing pages will be shown.

<<PageCount>> pages

<<PageSize>>


list the sizes of all pages

See PageSize

<<StatsChart(type)>>


shows statistical charts (currently defined types: hitcounts, pagesize, useragents, languages)

See EventStats and subpages

<<SystemAdmin>>


Information for system administrators

You need to be superuser to use this macro
<<SystemAdmin>>

<<EditedSystemPages>>


A list of system pages that were modified

<<EditedSystemPages>>

<<WikiConfig>>


Shows wiki configuration settings which are either non-default or unknown.

You need to be superuser to use this macro
<<WikiConfig>>

<<WikiConfigHelp>>


Shows all wiki configuration settings with descriptions

<<WikiConfigHelp>>

Others

Macro


Description

Example

<<Action(action [,text])>>


links to page with valid action, optional text could be used as alias. (action names are case sensitive)

e.g. <<Action(print, Print this page)>>, Print this page

<<Icon(image)>>


display system icons

See HelpOnNavigation

<<BR>>


insert a line break

1st line
2nd line

<<RandomQuote(pagename)>>


Select a random quote from the given page, or from FortuneCookies if omitted

<<RandomQuote>>

<<Include(HelloWorld[,"heading"[,level]])>>


include contents of another page

for details see /Include

<<FootNote(text)>>


Add a footnote1, or explicitly display collected footnotes when no args are given

See below for an example.

<<Date(timestamp)>>


display a timestamp according to system settings

2024-12-23

<<DateTime(timestamp)>>


display a timestamp2 according to user settings

2024-12-23 11:51:28

<<GetText(text)>>


loads I18N texts (mainly intended for use on Help pages)

"EditText" is translated to "EditText"

<<GetText2(,message,argument1,argument2,...)>>


loads I18N texts (mainly intended for use on Help pages or in generated output on wiki pages) and replaces %s in the message by the arguments. The first character of the argument is used as the separator (in this example: a comma). You can escape the separator by using a backslash.

"<<GetText2(,[You may not read %s],FooBar)>>" yields "[You may not read FooBar]"

<<TeudView>>


useful for intranet developer wikis, a means to view pydoc documentation, formatted via a XSLT stylesheet

See http://twistedmatrix.com/wiki/python/TeudProject

<<MailTo(email)>>


protect your email address from spam bots

for details see /MailTo

<<NewPage(PageTemplate,ButtonLabel,[ParentPage,@ME,@SELF] [,NameTemplate])>>


Allow the user to create (sub-) pages easily, using the page PageTemplateas the template for the new page and the string NameTemplate as a template for the name.3 @ME is used if you want the page created below the users homepage. @SELF is used to create a subpage below the page where it is called from.

<<GetVal(NeatSnippets,regards)>>


Retrieve dictionary entries from dict pages.

If you have a page called GermanDict which contains the entry Test, you should see the translation here:

<<MonthCalendar(,,12)>>


Displays a Calendar and creates link for entries to each day on subpages

See /MonthCalendar

  1. the text cannot contain any wiki markup (1)

  2. "timestamp" can be empty (current time), a number of seconds since 1970 (unix timestamp), or a W3C time specification ("2002-01-23T12:34:56"). See RFC822, sect. 5. (2)

  3. NameTemplate is formatted with time.strftime(), with the exception of %s which is replaced by the input into the edit box (which is only shown if necessary). If NameTemplate is not specified or empty, it defaults to %s. (3)

Writing your own macro

Create a python file called MacroName.py located in your data/plugin/macro directory. Ensure it has a single function called macro_MacroName(macro, arg1, arg2, ...), which is the entry-point.

You can access the request object by using macro.request - e.g. to access form parameters and other information related to user interaction.

Your function should use the formatter to construct valid markup for the current target format. In most cases this is HTML, so writing a macro which returns HTML will work in most cases but fail when formats like XML or text/plain are requested - you can use macro.formatter to access the current formatter.

For example, your wiki page has the following line on it:

<<MacroName(True, 1.7772, 17)>>

You could write a MacroName.py file like this:

   1 from wikiutil import get_unicode, get_bool, get_int, get_float
   2 
   3 Dependencies = []
   4 generates_headings = False
   5 
   6 def macro_MacroName(macro, arg1, arg2, arg3=7):
   7     # arguments passed in can be None or a unicode object
   8 
   9     arg1 = get_bool(macro.request, arg1)
  10     arg2 = get_float(macro.request, arg2)
  11     # because arg3 has a default of 7, it is always of type int or long
  12 
  13     return macro.formatter.text("arguments are: %s %2.3f %d" % (arg1, arg2, arg3))

If your macro can generate headings (by calling macro.formatter.heading()) then set generates_headings to True to allow the TableOfContents macro to evaluate your macro for headings to take into the table of contents.

Macro arguments

The arguments given to your macro are normally passed as unicode instances or None if the user gave no argument.

Consider this example macro:

   1 def macro_Example(macro, arg1, arg2):
   2   ...

and the wiki code (together with the result)

 1. <<Example()>>            - passes None, None
 2. <<Example(a,b)>>         - passes u'a', u'b'
 3. <<Example(,)>>           - passes None, None
 4. <<Example("",)>>         - passes u'', None

default values

If your macro declares default values as in this example:

   1 def macro_Example(macro, arg1=7, arg2=2.1):
   2   ...

Then the arguments can be skipped or left out and are automatically converted to the type of the default value:

 1. <<Example()>>            - passes 7, 2.1
 2. <<Example(,3)>>          - passes 7, 3.0
 3. <<Example(2)>>           - passes 2, 2.1
 4. <<Example(a,7.54)>>      - error, "a" not an integer

Additionally, it is possible to declare the type you would like to get:

def macro_Example(macro, arg1=int, arg2=float):
  ...

This requires that the user enters the correct parameter types, but it is possible to skip over them by giving an empty argument in which case it'll be passed into the macro code as None:

 1. <<Example()>>            - passes None, None
 2. <<Example(a, 2.2)>>      - error, "a" not an integer
 3. <<Example(7, 2.2)>>      - passes 7, 2.2
 4. <<Example(, 3.14)>>      - passes None, 3.14

unit arguments

If your macro declares unitsarguments then units are required as in this example:

   1 from MoinMoin import wikiutil
   2 def macro_Example(macro, arg1=wikiutil.UnitArgument(None, float, ['px', '%'], defaultunit='px')):
   3     if arg1:
   4         if arg1[1] == 'px':
   5             arg1 = '%dpx' % int(arg1[0])
   6         else:
   7             arg1 = '%g%s' % arg1
   8     return macro.formatter.text("argument is: %s" % (arg1))

The defaultunit of px is used if the user does not enter a unit. He has to enter valid units of px or %.

 1. <<Example()>>             - argument is: None
 2. <<Example(100)>>          - argument is: 100px
 3. <<Example(100mm)>>        - <<Example: Invalid unit in value 100mm (allowed units: px, %)>>
 4. <<Example(100px)>>        - argument is: 100px

choices

If your plugin takes one of several choices, you can declare it as such:

   1 def macro_Example(macro, fruit=(u'apple', u'orange')):
   2   ...

This requires that the user enter any of the given choices and uses the first choice if nothing is entered:

 1. <<Example(apple)>>       - passes u'apple'
 2. <<Example(OrAnGe)>>      - error, tells user which choices are valid
 3. <<Example()>>            - passes u'apple'

required arguments

If you require some arguments, you can tell the generic code by using the required_arg class that is instantiated getting the type of the argument:

from MoinMoin.wikiutil import required_arg

def macro_Example(macro, arg1=required_arg(int)):
  ...

This requires that the user enters the argument:

 1. <<Example()>>            - error, argument "arg1" required
 2. <<Example(4.3)>>         - error, "4.3" not an integer
 3. <<Example(5)>>           - passes 5

keyword arguments

If your macro needs to accept arbitrary keyword arguments to pass to something else, it must declare a _kwargs parameter which should default to the empty dict:

   1 def macro_Example(macro, _kwargs={}):
   2   ...

This makes the user able to pass in anything, even arbitrary unicode strings as key names:

 1. <<Example(äöü=7)>>       - passes the dict {u'äöü': u'7'}
 2. <<Example(=7)>>          - passes the dict {u'': u'7'}
 3. <<Example(a=1,"d e"=3)>> - passes the dict {u'a': u'1', u'd e': u'3'}
 4. <<Example(a)>>           - error, too many (non-keyword) arguments

trailing arguments

Trailing arguments allow your macro to take any number of positional arguments, or to be able to handle the syntax of some existing macros that looks like

[[Macro(1, 2, 3, name=value, name2=value2, someflag, anotherflag)]].

In order to handle this, declare a _trailing_args macro parameter which should have a an empty list as the default:

   1 def macro_Example(macro, i1, i2, i3, name, name2, _trailing_args=[]):
   2   ...

Also, when the user gives too many arguments, these are put into _trailing_args as in the second example:

 1. <<Example(1, 2, 3, name=test, name2=test2, flag1)>>   - valid, passes u'flag1' in _trailing_args
 2. <<Example(1, 2, 3, test, test2, flag1)>>              - same

It is possible to use this feature together with the arbitrary keyword arguments feature _kwargs.