Wiki software

[torifile]

Any recommendations for an easy to use wiki package? I'm tired of countless emails and "updated" protocols on shared drives when all we need is a wiki for this stuff. Life would be so much easier...

I've installed mediawiki on one of my servers to test it out but I'm not happy with the lack of intuitive controls. It needs to be braindead simple - WYSIWYG if possible, support for inline uploading, etc. I don't want to go with a full CMS like Drupal because we don't need all that and I don't feel like supporting it.

Thoughts?

[Wyatt]

Do you happen to have Leopard server available to you? It has a wiki service built in. I'm not using it on my server, but the configuration does look pretty easy.

[torifile]

I wish. I'm going to have to push even to get a standard AMP type thing going. I just started a corporate job and this may need to be outside the corporate structure if they allow it at all. :\

[InactionMan]

We use mediawiki and it works nicely. Though there's no way around the fact that uploading sucks. Wikia created a kick-ass uploader for their mediawiki sites but have decided to not release to the public. For WYSIWYG editing, you could try the FCKeditor (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FCKeditor_(by_FCKeditor_and_Wikia))exten sion. The FCKeditor at least has an image button that can find existing images on the wiki.

A lot of other wiki-type programs are easier to install but in the end they just aren't as powerful. A basic install of mediawiki isn't exactly that great but extension like DPL and the Category Tree make it pretty darn awesome.

[torifile]

We use mediawiki and it works nicely. Though there's no way around the fact that uploading sucks. Wikia created a kick-ass uploader for their mediawiki sites but have decided to not release to the public. For WYSIWYG editing, you could try the FCKeditor (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FCKeditor_(by_FCKeditor_and_Wikia))exten sion. The FCKeditor at least has an image button that can find existing images on the wiki.

A lot of other wiki-type programs are easier to install but in the end they just aren't as powerful. A basic install of mediawiki isn't exactly that great but extension like DPL and the Category Tree make it pretty darn awesome.
Brilliant. Uploading won't occur that often and is something that one of our more savvy people can do. But editing pages will be done by many others. I hope. I don't want to create work for myself!

[torifile]

We use mediawiki and it works nicely. Though there's no way around the fact that uploading sucks. Wikia created a kick-ass uploader for their mediawiki sites but have decided to not release to the public. For WYSIWYG editing, you could try the FCKeditor (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FCKeditor_(by_FCKeditor_and_Wikia))exten sion. The FCKeditor at least has an image button that can find existing images on the wiki.

A lot of other wiki-type programs are easier to install but in the end they just aren't as powerful. A basic install of mediawiki isn't exactly that great but extension like DPL and the Category Tree make it pretty darn awesome.
That was quite possibly the hardest install that I didn't screw up the first time in my life! Having to SVN this and export that add lines to config files, etc... The problem is that I'm just setting this up on a testing server so I'm never going to be able to get it right when it goes live. :lol:

[torifile]

Ok. So how do I get a Main Page with a list of pages without having to manually edit the page? Is that what DPL is for? Anyway it can do an excerpt for the main page's link?

Or, how does one make the "toolbox" dynamic? That seems to be the best place to have things organized.

[InactionMan]

Yeah, some mediawiki extensions are a brute to install. At least this one has pretty good instructions.

Aside from the good old WYSIWYG editor this is a short list of 'must-have' extension. Well, at least there are for me.

*Category Tree (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CategoryTree) - Fancy hierarchy of categories!
*Multi-Upload (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MultiUpload) - Pretty self-explanatory.
*Dynamic Page List 2 (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:DynamicPageList) -Crazy-ass reporting tool that let's you pull crap from your wiki and display it in fancy lists and the like. Confusing as hell to use but awesome.
*Parser Functions (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:DynamicPageList) - This one lets you create all the those fancy infoboxes like wikipedias.
*Category Tree Cloud (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SelectCategoryTagCloud) -Helps prevent users from using incorrect categories.

We're using quite a few extensions on top of these that fulfill fairly specific needs but I'd use the ones on this page in any wiki I started.

[InactionMan]

Use the Cateogry Tree extension. DPL can do it but it's a little harder to use. So this: <categorytree mode=categories>Whatever the hell your top-level category is</categorytree> will plop the list on the page.

[torifile]

Use the Cateogry Tree extension. DPL can do it but it's a little harder to use. So this: <categorytree mode=categories>Whatever the hell your top-level category is</categorytree> will plop the list on the page.
Thanks for your help so far. Things are coming together nicely. :)

I've set $wgCategoryTreeSidebarRoot to true and I get a box in my sidebar for categories. But I get "Category 1 not found" instead of my categories.

[InactionMan]

Are you adding that to your LocalSettings.php file? I'd guess that instead of setting it to true you'd want to set it to whatever category will act as the root.

[torifile]

Are you adding that to your LocalSettings.php file? I'd guess that instead of setting it to true you'd want to set it to whatever category will act as the root.
That did it. Thanks. So all categories must be a subcategory of that root one? That seems a little odd but easily doable.

[InactionMan]

Yeah, it's kind of irritating. It's also irritating that there's no special page for quickly adding categories.

[torifile]

Yeah, it's kind of irritating. It's also irritating that there's no special page for quickly adding categories.
This wiki software situation reminds me of the early days of CMS software. Thankfully things have improved a great deal over the past couple of years with that. I hope the wiki situation does too.