TopicType

Documentation

The TopicType is the root of the type system of the TWikiWorbench. Every TWikiTopic has got one or more TopicTypes. TopicTypes often correlate to TWikiForms, where a type indicates the properties and use of the form being attached to a topic. However, there are also TopicTypes that only serve more as an additional marker to a generic TWikiForm being used in different applications.

TopicTypes are able overcome TWiki's limitation to only allow one form to be attached to a topic. If you'd like to attach a second form to a topic, create a new TWikiForm that mixes two others and indicate this by merging the resulting TopicType properties. This procedure is the recommended way to derive new TopicTypes from existing ones building on top of them, e.g. by augmenting a CategorizedTopic with additional formfields.

TopicTypes have a special property that you might use to indicate a special way of derivation by means of inheritance. There is no real inheritance in TWiki but the way of thinking when dealing with objects and types can be clarified this way.

When you start writing a TWikiApplication, first think of the data objects you will need and create TopicTypes for each. You can double-mark a TopicType being a TWikiForm implementation in many cases, but you can also create a separate TWikiForm topic being distinct from the TopicType topic.

The TopicType topic is the factory to create new TopicTypes as well.

Installation

Factory

Topics of type 'TopicType'

TopicType form