New subject: [xwiki-users] vm files in Cloud

11 Apr 2012

...

 Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:23:38 +0200
 From: Jean-Vincent Drean &lt;jv(a)xwiki.com&gt;
 To: XWiki Users &lt;users(a)xwiki.org&gt;
 Subject: Re: [xwiki-users] vm files in Cloud

 Hi,

 On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 2:03 PM, Martin Evans &lt;website(a)studenthubs.org&gt;
 wrote:
  Hi, I have a Cloud distribution, which means I
don't have access to the  .vm
  files. When I want to make a change to the
behaviour of my wiki, this
 causes big problems. Sometimes I can over-ride the vm file by adding in a
 new TextArea field, but it's normally impossible to know where to put it. 
 What do you mean ? Are you looking at
 http://platform.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/DevGuide/Skins ?
 Is there anything unclear ?

  Then there is the problem of default behaviour.
If I insert a blank
 TextArea to over-ride vm behaviour, I get nothing. I need to access the  vm
  file to see what's currently written there
before making a change. But  the
  vm files do not appear in the search. Does anyone
have any experience of
 this frustrating lack of functionality and ease of use? 
 You actually do have access to the .vm through your browser.

 From 
http://platform.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/DevGuide/Skins#HD.OverridingtheSki…
 :

 ----------------------------------------8<----------------------------------------
 Copy the original content of the menuview.vm template and paste it in
 the property field named menuview.vm. If you don't have access to the
 server filesystem, open the template by following
 http://localhost:8080/xwiki/skins/colibri/menuview.vm

 ----------------------------------------8<----------------------------------------
 Of course you need to replace localhost:8080 in the URL above by the
 URL of your wiki.

 Now, putting my XWiki-Cloud-Admin hat on, I must say that it is not
 recommended to make this kind modifications in your skin. The cloud
 platform is upgraded every 3 month on average. If the original VM file
 has been modified in the new release your skin might be broken after
 an upgrade.

 --
 Jean-Vincent Drean,
 XWiki.

Hi Jean-Vincent, thanks for your immediate response. I shall make my
problem clearer. Not every vm file is in the /skins/colibri folder. When my
wiki was set up by XWiki, they created a new skin and I can't find the vm
files for that. However, this is just an example. Trust me it is useful to
see (if not edit) the vm files, but I can't see how to find where exactly
they lie.

Also, is it true that other features, e.g. search, use vm files? What
method should I use to locate these such files? I agree that leaving the vm
files in place is a good idea for upgrades but it's useful to view them
sometimes.

Finally, while investigating this, I noticed that I can view vm files while
not logged into the wiki. This exposes source code to the public viewers
(should they know where to look). How can I stop this?

Thanks again,
Martin