171 lines
6.5 KiB
Markdown
171 lines
6.5 KiB
Markdown
An overview of some of ikiwiki's features:
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[[toc ]]
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## Uses a real RCS
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Rather than implement its own system for storing page histories etc,
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ikiwiki uses a real Revision Control System. This isn't because we're
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lazy, it's because a real RCS is a good thing to have, and there are
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advantages to using one that are not possible with a standard wiki.
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Instead of editing pages in a stupid web form, you can use vim and commit
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changes via [[Subversion]]. Or work disconnected using svk and push your
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changes out when you come online. Or use [[git]], [[tla]], or [[mercurial]]
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to work in a distributed fashion all the time. (It's also possible to
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[[plugins/write]] a plugin to support other systems.)
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ikiwiki can be run from a [[post-commit]] hook to update your wiki
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immediately whenever you commit a change using the RCS.
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Note that ikiwiki does not require a RCS to function. If you want to
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run a simple wiki without page history, it can do that too.
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## A wiki compiler
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ikiwiki is a wiki compiler; it builds a static website for your wiki, and
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updates it as pages are edited. It is fast and smart about updating a wiki,
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it only builds pages that have changed (and tracks things like creation of
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new pages and links that can indirectly cause a page to need a rebuild)
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## Supports many markup languages
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By default, pages in the wiki are written using the [[MarkDown]] format.
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Any page with a filename ending in ".mdwn" is converted from markdown to html
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by ikiwiki. Markdown understands text formatted as it would be in an email,
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and is quite smart about converting it to html. The only additional markup
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provided by ikiwiki on top of regular markdown is the [[WikiLink]] and
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[[PreprocessorDirective]].
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If you prefer to use some other markup language, ikiwiki allows others to
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easily be added by [[plugins]]. For example it also supports traditional
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[[plugins/WikiText]] formatted pages, pages written as pure
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[[plugins/HTML]], or pages written in [[reStructuredText|plugins/rst]]
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or [[Textile|plugins/textile]].
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ikiwiki also supports files of any other type, including plain text,
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images, etc. These are not converted to wiki pages, they are just copied
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unchanged by ikiwiki as it builds your wiki. So you can check in an image,
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program, or other special file and link to it from your wiki pages.
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## [[Blogging|blog]]
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You can turn any page in the wiki into a [[blog]]. Pages matching a
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specified [[PageSpec]] will be displayed as a weblog within the blog
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page. And RSS or Atom feeds can be generated to follow the blog.
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Ikiwiki's own [[TODO]], [[news]], and [[plugins]] pages are good examples
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of some of the flexible ways that this can be used. There is also an
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[[example_blog|examples/blog]] set up that you can copy into your own wiki.
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Ikiwiki can also [[plugins/aggregate]] external blogs, feeding them into
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the wiki. This can be used to create a Planet type site that aggregates
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interesting feeds.
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You can also mix blogging with podcasting by dropping audio files where
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they will be picked up like blog posts. This will work for any files that
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you would care to syndicate.
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## Valid html and [[css]]
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ikiwiki aims to produce
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[valid XHTML 1.0](http://validator.w3.org/check?url=referer).
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ikiwiki generates html using [[templates]], and uses [[css]], so you can
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change the look and layout of all pages in any way you would like.
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## [[Plugins]]
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Plugins can be used to add additional features to ikiwiki. The interface
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is quite flexible, allowing plugins to implement additional markup
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languages, register [[PreProcessorDirective]]s, hook into [[CGI]] mode,
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and more. Most of ikiwiki's features are actually provided by plugins.
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Ikiwiki's backend RCS support is also pluggable, so support for new
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revision control systems can be added to ikiwiki.
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## [[todo/utf8]]
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After rather a lot of fiddling, we think that ikiwiki correctly and fully
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supports utf8 everywhere.
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## Other features
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The above are the core design goals and features of ikiwiki, but on that
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foundation a lot of other important features are added. Here is an
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incomplete list of some of them.
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### [[Tags]]
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You can tag pages and use these tags in various ways. Tags will show
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up in the ways you'd expect, like at the bottom of pages, in blogs, and
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in RSS and Atom feeds.
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### [[SubPages|SubPage]]
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Arbitrarily deep hierarchies of pages with fairly simple and useful
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[[SubPage/LinkingRules]]
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### [[BackLinks]]
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Automatically included on pages. Rather faster than eg MoinMoin and
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always there to help with navigation.
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### Smart merging and conflict resolution in your web browser
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Since it uses a real RCS, ikiwiki takes advantage of its smart merging to
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avoid any conflicts when two people edit different parts of the same page
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at the same time. No annoying warnings about other editors, or locking,
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etc, instead the other person's changes will be automatically merged with
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yours when you commit.
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In the rare cases where automatic merging fails due to the same part of a
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page being concurrently edited, regular commit conflict markers are
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shown in the file to resolve the conflict, so if you're already familiar
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with that there's no new commit marker syntax to learn.
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### [[RecentChanges]], editing pages in a web browser
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Nearly the definition of a wiki, although perhaps ikiwiki challenges how
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much of that web gunk a wiki really needs. These features are optional
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and can be enabled by enabling [[CGI]].
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### User registration
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Can optionally be configured to allow only registered users to edit
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pages.
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User registration can be done using a web form, or ikiwiki can be
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configured to accept users authenticated with OpenID, or HTTP basic
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authentication, or other methods implemented via plugins.
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### Discussion pages
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Thanks to subpages, every page can easily and automatically have a
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/Discussion subpage. By default, these links are included in the
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[[templates]] for each page.
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### Edit controls
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Wiki admins can [[lock_pages|page_locking]] so that only other admins can
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edit them. Or a wiki can be set up to allow anyone to edit Discussion
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pages, but only registered users to edit other pages. These are just two
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possibilities, since page edit controls can be changed via plugins.
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### [[PageHistory]]
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Well, sorta. Rather than implementing YA history browser, it can link to
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[[ViewVC]] or the like to browse the history of a wiki page.
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### Full text search
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ikiwiki can use the [[HyperEstraier]] search engine to add powerful
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full text search capabilities to your wiki.
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### Commit mails
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ikiwiki can be configured to send you commit mails with diffs of changes
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to selected pages.
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### [[w3mmode]]
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Can be set up so that w3m can be used to browse a wiki and edit pages
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without using a web server.
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