Introduction#
Here is a page to try and organize ideas to extend SWDWiki and possibly other wiki to make them more useful and allow them to replace more traditional tools.
Traditional tools#
Here is a list of traditional tools that compete with Wikis:- filesystem/shared network drive (or even local drive) (smb, nfs)
- spreadsheets
- database applications (catalogs etc.)
- document editor
- note taking application
- file versioning system (svn, git, webdav)
- mindmapping tools
- web server/publication system
- search engine
Current strong points#
Currently a wiki already offers a lot of interesting features:
- document editing/publishing with multimedia attachments
- integrated versioning
- ability to attach any document
- full text search in all documents (and sometimes attachments)
- simple markup means it's easy to imitate a page you like
- good interaction with copy and paste
Improvement ideas#
Multiple wikis#
Using a single wiki for everything is almost impossible, so it seems important to be able to run multiple wikis and move data from one to another.
One could bypass the wiki and synchronize pages through the backend filesystem (svn, rsync etc.)
One could present the wikis as a filesystem and run a synchronization tool on top to synchronize 2 wikis. This would make a webdav interface desirable.
Merging changes#
When a user tries to save a page that just was edited by another user, the wiki usually returns an error. Automatic merging seems more appropriate for large pages edited by multiple people. One could decide to apply the merge automatically when there is no conflict.
Branches#
Wikis perform revision management of pages behind the scenes. To avoid conflicts and protect pages, typical wikis rely on user and access rights: only allow trusted user to edit and count on them to build something coherent.
Related pages#
- Programming
- Data
- Representation