[Discuss] Creating a Wiki server

[tmetro-blu at vl.com (Tom Metro)]

Kyle Leslie wrote:
> Any suggestions on a set up.  I have seen some things about TikiWiki and
> MediaWiki.

My vote is for Twiki (http://twiki.org/).

MediaWiki obviously has the advantage that almost everyone is familiar
with it due to Wikipedia, but I find that the markup syntax is
inconsistent enough that I still refer to the documentation, despite
perhaps a decade of semi-regular document authoring in MediaWiki.

Can you even get a WYSIWYG editor for MediaWiki? It doesn't seem to
provide much of a framework for setting up a document hierarchy with
standard navigation controls to move up/down the hierarchy. (Maybe with
a plugin?) Instead you get a breadcrumb trail that reflects whatever
random path you took to the current document, with no real indication
where the document fits in or how to navigate to siblings or parents.

Aside from a consistent markup syntax, Twiki can be skinned and
customized largely from the admin UI to look unlike a wiki, if you so
desire. There's a vibrant community supplying plugins (or at least there
was a few years back when I was actively using it).

Lastly, it has a lot of programmable functionality accessible from
within the templates. You can, for example, generate self-maintaining
lists (directories) for documents that fall into a specific branch of
the hierarchy, are tagged with a keyword, or some other attribute. You
can also create forms and buttons to create new documents using a
specific template.

I've used this functionality to create a self-maintaining table of
specifications, where one column showed the client spec, and the next
column showed the developer spec, and the page had a button to create a
new spec document using the appropriate template. That's all doable
without modifying the core-code.

Like Dan said, wikis need maintenance, and a wiki that lets you automate
some of that helps.

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/