TWiki Site Tools

Utilities for searching, navigation, and monitoring site activity

TWiki Site Tools include utilities for navigating, searching and keeping up with site activity. Preferences can be configured by web or site-wide. You are currently in the TWiki web. In particular, TWiki provides two highly configurable, automated site monitoring tools, WebNotify, to e-mail alerts when topics are edited, and WebStatistics, to generate detailed activity reports.

On this page:

WebNotify - recent changes alert

Each TWiki web has an automatic e-mail alert service that sends a list of recent changes on a preset schedule, like once a day. Users can subscribe and unsubscribe using Web Notify in each web. The Perl script mailnotify is called by a background process at regular intervals. The script sends an automated e-mail to subscribed users if topics were changed in a web since the script was last run.

Web Changes Notification Service

Each TWiki web has an automatic e-mail notification service that sends you an e-mail with links to all of the topics modified since the last alert.

Users subscribe to email notifications using their WikiName or an alternative email address, and can specify the webs/topics they wish to track, Whole groups of users can also be subscribed for notification.

The general format of a subscription is:

three spaces * subscriber [ : topics ]

Where subscriber can be a WikiName, an E-mail address, or a group name. If subscriber contains any characters that are not legal in an email address, then it must be enclosed in 'single' or "double" quotes.

topics is an optional space-separated list of topics:

Users may further customize the specific content they will receive using the following controls:

Examples: Subscribe Daisy to all changes to topics in this web. 

   * daisy.cutter@flowers.com
Subscribe Daisy to all changes to topics that start with Web. 
   * daisy.cutter@flowers.com : Web*
Subscribe Daisy to changes to topics starting with Petal, and their immediate children, WeedKillers and children to a depth of 3, and all topics that match start with Pretty and end with Flowers e.g. PrettyPinkFlowers 
   * DaisyCutter: Petal* (1) WeedKillers (3) Pretty*Flowers
Subscribe StarTrekFan to changes to all topics that start with Star except those that end in Wars, sInTheirEyes or shipTroopers. 
   * StarTrekFan: Star* - *Wars - *sInTheirEyes - *shipTroopers
Subscribe Daisy to the full content of NewsLetter whenever it has changed 
   * daisy@flowers.com: NewsLetter?
Subscribe buttercup to NewsLetter and its immediate children, even if it hasn't changed. 
   * buttercup@flowers.com: NewsLetter! (1)
Subscribe GardenGroup (which includes Petunia) to all changed topics under AllnewsLetters to a depth of 3. Then unsubscribe Petunia from the ManureNewsLetter, which she would normally get as a member of Garden Group? : 
   * GardenGroup: AllNewsLetters? (3)
   * petunia@flowers.com: - ManureNewsLetter
Subscribe IT:admins (a non-TWiki group defined by an alternate user mapping) to all changes to Web* topics. 
   * 'IT:admins' : Web*

A user may be listed many times in the WebNotify topic. Where a user has several lines in WebNotify that all match the same topic, they will only be notified about changes that topic once (though they will still receive individual mails for news topics).

If a group is listed for notification, the group will be recursively expanded to the e-mail addresses of all members.

__ALERT! Warning: Because an email address is not linked to a user name, there is no way for TWiki to check access controls for email addresses. A user identified by an email address will only be sent change notifications if the topic they are asubscribed to is readable by guest users. You can limit what email addresses can be used in WebNotify, or even block use of emails altogther, using the {MailerContrib}{EmailFilterIn} setting in =configure.

TIP Tip: List names in alphabetical order to make it easier to find the names.

Note for System Administrators: Notification is supported by an add-on to the TWiki kernel called the MailerContrib. See the Mailer Contrib topic for details of how to set up this service.

Note: If you prefer a news feed, point your reader to Web Rss (for RSS 1.0 feeds) or Web Atom (for ATOM 1.0 feeds). Learn more at Web Rss Base and Web Atom Base, respectively.

You can also use %USERSWEB% instead of Main, but this is not necessary even if you have renamed the main web by configuring {MainWebName} in configure.

WebSearch - search TWiki site

Web Search is an extremely fast and flexible search facility, part of the core TWiki feature set. Web Search Advanced offers more options, including:

See also: Search Help for help; TWiki Variables and Formatted Search for including hard-coded searches in text.

WebChanges - what's new

To check for the most recently edited topics while on-site, use the Web Changes link, usually located in the toolbar. It lists the most recently modified topics, newest first, along with the first couple of lines of the page content.

This is simply a preset SEARCH. The number of topics listed by the limit parameter.: 

%SEARCH{ ".*" web="TWiki" type="regex" nosearch="on" order="modified"
  reverse="on" 
limit="50" }%

WebRss and WebAtom - news feeds on recent changes

You can point your news reader at Web Rss and Web Atom to find out what is new in a TWiki web. Web Rss Base and Web Atom Base have the details. Like Web Changes, this is based on a %SEARCH{}%.

WebIndex - list of topics

Web Index lists all web topics in alphabetical order, with the first couple of lines of text. This is simply a preset SEARCH: 

%SEARCH{ "\.*" scope="topic" type="regex" nosearch="on" }%

WebStatistics - site statistics

You can generate a listing manually, or on an automated schedule, of visits to individual pages, on a per web basis. Compiled as a running total on a monthly basis. Includes totals for Topic Views, Topic Saves, Attachment Uploads, Most Popular Topics with number of views, and Top Contributors showing total of saves and attachment uploads. Previous months are saved.

Configuring for automatic operation

When running from the command line or a cron job, you can pass parameters to the script like this: 

./statistics -logdate 200605 -webs TWiki,Sandbox

Generating statistics manually by URL

Log Files

TWiki generates monthly log files which are used by the statistics script

E-mail

Configuring outgoing mail

Outgoing mail is required for TWiki Registration and for recent changes alert.

TWiki will use the Net::SMTP module if it is installed on your system. Set this with the SMTPMAILHOST variable in TWiki Preferences.

The notify e-mail uses the default changes.tmpl template, or a skin if activated in the TWiki Preferences.

mailnotify also relies on two hidden files in each twiki/data/Web directory: .changes and .mailnotify. Make sure both are writable by your web server process. .changes contains a list of changes; go ahead and make this empty. .mailnotify contains a timestamp of the last time notification was done.

You can use an external mail program, such as sendmail, if the Net::SMTP module is not installed. Set the program path in {MailProgram} in configure.

Setting the automatic e-mail schedule

For Unix platforms: Edit the cron table so that mailnotify is called in an interval of your choice. Please consult man crontab of how to modify the table that schedules program execution at certain intervals. Example: 

% crontab -e
0 1 * * * (cd /path/to/twiki/bin; ./mailnotify -q)
The above line will run mailnotify nightly at 01:00. The -q switch suppresses all normal output.

For ISP installations: Many ISPs don't allow hosted accounts direct cron access, as it's often used for things that can heavily load the server. Workaround scripts are available.

On Windows: You can use a scheduled task if you have administrative privileges. TWiki:Codev/CronTabWin is a free scheduler for Windows.

Site Permissions

Help with crontab

The crontab command is used to schedule commands to be executed periodically.

Related Topics: Admin Documentation Category, Admin Tools Category

-- Contributors: TWiki:Main.MikeMannix, TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny, TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie, TWiki:Main.KennethLavrsen, TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit



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