[Mailman-Developers] Make web_page_url visible in the admin GUI?

[Max Bowsher]

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JC Dill wrote:
> Max Bowsher wrote:
> 
>>Mailman doesn't really have two distinct web interfaces. It has a single
>>web interface, portions of which are restricted to administrators.
> 
> That isn't important to the issue, is it?

You said:
  "As I read it, Max's request is to be able to set
   the URL to the user webpage, not for the admin webpage."

My point in saying what I did was that 'the URL to the user webpage' and
 'the URL for the admin webpage' are not independently settable entities.
They are, in fact, identical, just one has things like 'listinfo' or
'options' appended, whilst the other has things like 'admin' or
'admindb' appended.

> As I understand it, your issue is what URL is "shown".  My suggestion is 
> that we make a change to the code that allows list administrators to 
> change what URL is "shown" to list users.  The new URL will also work 
> for list administrators, but the default URL will *also* continue to work.
> 
>>So, then you have one address considered canonical for users and another
>>considered canonical for administrators?
> 
> No.  You have one address that *always* works (the server name address) 
> and the option to add another address that also works (assuming you 
> didn't make any errors when you configured the additional URL) and which 
> is the address displayed on the email footer, list help pages, etc.
> 
> For instance, many websites that are hosted on virtual domains can be 
> reached thru several different URLs (options vary from host to host):
> 
> www.domain.com  (the preferred URL, obviously)
> www.host.com/domain.com
> www.host.com/~username
> www.host.com/user/~username
> www.host.com/user/domain.com
> 
> Etc.  Only one of these (at most) is the "real" URL to the directory to 
> the domain files on the server.  The others are aliases to the same 
> directory.  We can do the same thing with mailman, add an alias and mark 
> the alias as the "preferred" URL to be used and displayed on the list 
> webpages and mail footers.

You are talking about very approximately the same issue as I am, but you
are approaching it from a different direction, and speaking about it in
abstract ways, which, as far as I can see, become partially irrelevant
and/or incompatible when applied to Mailman specifically.

First incompatibility:
At the moment, the Mailman interface uses absolute URLs based on
web_page_url all over the place. This has two consequences: First, even
if you have multiple URLs configured in your web server to reach the
Mailman interface, the moment follow a link or submit a form, you will
end up using the URL defined by web_page_url.
Second: If Mailman isn't actually visible at the URL defined by
web_page_url, the web interface will be inoperable, even if you manually
 type an URL at which it is visible, since all links and form submission
destinations will be invalid.


Second incompatibility:
You are talking about adding a feature to set the preferred URL. But
this is what web_page_url already is!!!



Taking account of those incompatibilities and modifying your suggestion
accordingly, I think what is reached is essentially what I suggested
headed by "OPTION TWO" in my mail that I previously referred you to.

Restating:
  Make links and form action URLs within the admin interface
  relative, so that an incorrect web_page_url does not render
  the admin interface inoperable.

and the earlier context in that mail implied '... and then it will be
safe for web_page_url to be a normally accessible configvar in the web UI.


Max.
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