RuntimeVar Plugin for DokuWiki

A powerful DokuWiki plugin that provides dynamic text replacement for user information, dates, groups, and other runtime data. Pages using this plugin are automatically non-cacheable to ensure fresh content.

Features

• Dynamic User Information: Display current user details, groups, and authentication status
• Date and Time Variables: Current dates, timestamps, and time-based values
• Page Context: Current page name and namespace information
• Random Values: Generate random numbers for dynamic content
• Automatic Cache Control: Pages with runtime variables are automatically non-cacheable
• Session-Based Authentication Information: Compatible with various auth plugins including authchained used with authplain+authldap

Installation

General

1. Download and install the plugin in your DokuWiki lib/plugins/ directory
2. The plugin should be located at: lib/plugins/runtimevar/
3. Enable the plugin in DokuWiki's configuration if necessary
4. There is no language and configuration support (needed)

Note: This plugin is not available via DokuWiki's official plugin manager as it's hosted on GitHub only.

Details

Method 1: Git Clone (Recommended)

cd /path/to/your/dokuwiki/lib/plugins
git clone https://github.com/cs1969/dokuwiki-plugin-runtimevar.git runtimevar
# On Debian/Ubuntu systems:
chown -R www-data:www-data runtimevar

Method 2: Manual Download

1. Download the latest source code from GitHub
2. Click "Code" → "Download ZIP"
3. Extract and rename the folder to runtimevar
4. Upload to lib/plugins/runtimevar/ in your DokuWiki installation
5. Ensure proper file permissions

Usage

Use the following syntax in your wiki pages:

{{runtimevar #METHOD}}

Replace #METHOD with one of the available methods below.

Available Methods

User Information

Method	Description	Example Output
#USER	User login name	john_doe or guest
#USERNAME	User display name	John Doe or Unregistered guest user
#GROUPS	User groups (comma-separated)	USER, ADMIN, ALL, other Auth Groups

Date and Time

Method	Description	Example Output
#YY	Two-digit year	24
#YYYY	Four-digit year	2024
#MM	Month with leading zero	01 - 12
#DD	Day with leading zero	01 - 31
#YYYY-MM-DD	ISO date format	2024-01-13
#YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS	Full timestamp	2024-01-13-10-30-45
#YYYYMMDD	Compact date format	20240113
#HHMMSS	Time format	103045
#HH-MM-SS	Time with separators	10-30-45
#TIMESTAMP	Unix timestamp	1705141845

Page Context

Method	Description	Example Output
#PAGE	Current page name without namespace	start
#NAMESPACE	Current namespace	wiki or : for root

System Information

Method	Description	Example Output
#RANDOM	Random number	54872
#USERAGENT	Browser user agent	Mozilla/5.0...
#IP	Client IP address	192.168.1.100

Examples

Dynamic User Greeting

Hello {{runtimevar #USERNAME}}! You are logged in as {{runtimevar #USER}} and belong to groups: {{runtimevar #GROUPS}}.

Time-Based Content

This page was generated on {{runtimevar #YYYY-MM-DD}} at {{runtimevar #HH-MM-SS}}. Current timestamp: {{runtimevar #TIMESTAMP}}

Conditional Links (using other plugins)``

• [[:start]]
• [[private:{{runtimevar #USER}}:start|My Private Area]]
• [[special:page_{{runtimevar #YYYYMMDD}}|Today's Special]]

Group Handling

The #GROUPS method provides intelligent group management (Information):

• Authenticated users: Show their actual groups + default group + ALL group
• Guest users: Always show the ALL group
• Default group: Automatically added and shown in UPPERCASE if not present
• ALL group: Always shown for all users
• Case handling: ADMIN, ALL, and default group (normaly USER) are always uppercase

Note: This maybe useful for ACL related issues. Just show the current user groups with {{runtimevar #GROUPS}} in any page...

Caching Behavior

Important: Pages containing {{runtimevar}} patterns are automatically marked as non-cacheable. The plugin:

• Adds ~~NOCACHE~~ flag to pages with runtime variables
• Forces cache expiration on every request
• Ensures fresh content for all users
• No manual ~~NOCACHE~~ markup required

Error Handling

• Unknown methods return: ?runtimevar?
• Robust fallback mechanisms for user detection
• Session-based authentication for reliability
• Compatible with various DokuWiki auth plugins

Technical Notes

• The plugin hooks into PARSER_WIKITEXT_PREPROCESS for early processing
• Uses session data ($_SESSION[DOKU_COOKIE]) for reliable user detection
• Compatible with authchained and other authentication plugins
• All virtual groups (DEFAULT, ALL) are displayed in uppercase

Support

This plugin was initially developed for internal intranet use and is provided as-is. While it's stable for our use case, it may not cover all edge cases for public deployments.

For community usage:

• Feel free to fork the repository for your own modifications
• Create issues for bug reports in the repository
• Feature requests are welcome but may not be implemented by the maintainer
• Consider creating your own fork for significant extensions

Note: There are no current plans to submit this plugin to the official DokuWiki repository.

Contact: dokuwiki@schmifu.de (Christian)

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RuntimeVar Plugin - Making DokuWiki content more dynamic and user-aware!