In some sites (mine, for example), the pages are quasi-static, while the sidebar must be updated at each commit (because it contains some lists, like "last posts" or "last updates", or a tagcloud). As this sidebar is included in every page of the site, many commits can potentialy leat to a full re-compilation.... I think a sidebar included after the compilation (via a SSI mechanism for example) would make sense and reduce the dependencies. Different things could be possible: * output as .shtml instead of .html * ignore the sidebar->page dependency links * consider the *real* dependencies; pageA may include the title (only) of pageB, but don't need to be recompiled after each typo correction on pageB. shtml output with open cgi web access is a potential security hole and can DoS the site, but it's not a problem for a single-editor site. NicolasLimare > This is a good idea, though sadly not portable enough to be the default. > Especially if the only way to do it is with .shtml. > But I really like the idea of not rebuilding the sidebar all the time. > Definitly a TODO, for me, if I can figure out how to do it. Patches > eagerly accepted. > > I have implemented a htmlext configuration item, that lets you control > what extension ikiwiki uses for output html pages. So in theory, a > sidebar could be done as you describe using .shtml. --[[Joey]] [[wishlist]] > I have a plan for a way to avoid unecessary rebuilds caused by the > sidebar. The idea is to use wikistate to store what a sidebar renders to. > Then in the needsbuild hook, render sidebar(s) and compare with their > previous stored rendering. If a sidebar's rendered content has changed, > then all pages that display that sidebar need to be forced to be rebuilt. > > Also, if there is no previous stored rendering for a sidebar, or > if there is a stored rendering for a sidebar page that no longer exists, then > the pages need to be rebuilt. (This should deal with the [[bugs/Building_a_sidebar_does_not_regenerate_the_subpages]] bug. > > This would also save significant time, since the stored sidebar rendering > could just be dumped into the page by the pagetemplate hook. Current code > re-loads and renders the same sidebar file for every page built! > > The sticky part is (relative) links on the sidebar. These would need to > be modified somehow depending on the page that the sidebar is placed on, > to not break the link. > > Another wrinkle is changing subpage links on a sidebar. Suppose a sidebar > links to page `foo`. If page `bar/foo` exists, the sidebar on page bar will, > currently, link to that page, in preference to a toplevel `foo`. > If `bar/foo` is removed, it will update to link to `foo`. With the new > scheme, the stored sidebar rendering is not for page `foo`, and so > the change of the `bar/foo` link will not be noticed or acted on. > Granted, it's unlikely that anyone relies on the current behavior. You > generally want links on a sidebar to link to the same place on every page > that displays it. So finding some way to force all links on a sidebar to > be handled absolutely and documenting that would avoid this problem. > > So, one way to handle both the above problems would be to use the > pre-rendered sidebar for each page, but use a html parser to look for > links in it, and munge them to work as relative links on the page the > sidebar is being added to. Or, if the wiki's url is known, just do this > once when rendering the sidebar, adding the full url to the links. > (Maybe require `url` be set when using sidebar?) > --[[Joey]]