siteinfo.xml

By looking at the WikiMatrix et al error logs I stumbled across a few 404s for a file called siteinfo.xml - after searching the web I found it to be a file format defined by Amazon's search engine A9. It allows you to set up a menu like structure of links which will be available from the A9 toolbar or the siteinfo Firefox extension.

The siteinfo.xml needs to be placed in the domain's root directory and should look like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<siteinfo xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/siteinfo/1.0/">
  <webmenu>
    <name>Your Domain</name>
    <menu>
      <item>
        <text>Your Domain Home</text>
        <url>http://yourdomain.com</url>
      </item>
      <item>
        <text>Help</text>
        <url>http://yourdomain.com/help.html</url>
      </item>
    </menu>
  </webmenu>
</siteinfo>

I wonder how this could be utilized in DokuWiki. It could provide access to some common DokuWiki pages like the syntax description or the index but maybe it could also give easy access to an automatically generated sitemap.

The image shows the siteinfo menu defined by Amazon's siteinfo.xml and should give you an idea what is possible.

Do you have any ideas if and how DokuWiki should support this feature? Or should we leave this alone?

Tags:: siteinfo,; xml,; technology,; amazon

Similar posts:

Posted on Monday, August the 28th 2006 (6 years ago).

I hadn't come across this before but it reminds me of LinkTypes in the header section:
http://www.htmlhelp.com/refere … #linktypes

I think phpBB uses these linktypes to move between forum sections etc, though I never really used them.

This siteinfo.xml looks very flexible and I guess I might use it on a DokuWiki even just for the main (static) pages and functions. Might be especially useful for those new to the workings of DW - I remember having to refer to the syntax page a lot when first starting and this could make it easier to find.

I would see conf/local.php having at least 2 switches - one to enable siteinfo.xml for the static things and one to add links to namespaces. Or maybe an admin plugin could allow custom layouts of the file - a bit like the Firefox bookmarks editor.

cheers,
Ben

2006-08-31 16:08:45

Ben