I thought I read something a while ago about this here, but I am thinking of setting up a Wiki at work. Problem is I have no idea what is involved. Is this a hard project? What does it run on? Can there be access permissions?
Information appreciated!
Setting up a Wiki
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[JiF]Beej1024
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[JiF]Dandyman
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There are hundreds of different Wiki's out there and the range from remarkably easy to quite complex. Some of the wiki's I've worked with are:
Mediawiki
The most common wiki is Mediawiki, as the driver behind Wikipedia, but it is more complex than many competing wiki's. The biggest drawback I see at the moment is that the current version (1.
requires PHP 5. This version of PHP is vastly superior to 4, but isn't supported by most hosting companies and is only just now starting to be included in new Linux distributions. For this reason, I still run version 1.6. Installation is pretty simple if you have a system with Apache, PHP, and MySQL up and running. On Linux this is pretty simple, but on Windows can be a bit more work.
WikkaWiki
Much simpler than Mediawiki, WikkaWiki is relatively easy to use, but certainly lacks some features. Its perfect if you the majority of the content is going to be text with some images.
Tomboy
Tomboy is not a wiki for multiple users, but instead a simple Java based wiki you can run on your computer system. Its meant as a personal note system, but something that can fill in for a real web based wiki in a pinch.
Pandora
Pandora is a wiki written in the Ruby language and looks pretty easy to install and configure. I haven't worked with it much, but have been hearing good things about it for a little while now.
I highly recommend you go to VMware.com and download the free VMPlayer (if you don't have Workstation) and the following virtual machine rPath Mediawiki Appliance.
Mediawiki
The most common wiki is Mediawiki, as the driver behind Wikipedia, but it is more complex than many competing wiki's. The biggest drawback I see at the moment is that the current version (1.
requires PHP 5. This version of PHP is vastly superior to 4, but isn't supported by most hosting companies and is only just now starting to be included in new Linux distributions. For this reason, I still run version 1.6. Installation is pretty simple if you have a system with Apache, PHP, and MySQL up and running. On Linux this is pretty simple, but on Windows can be a bit more work.WikkaWiki
Much simpler than Mediawiki, WikkaWiki is relatively easy to use, but certainly lacks some features. Its perfect if you the majority of the content is going to be text with some images.
Tomboy
Tomboy is not a wiki for multiple users, but instead a simple Java based wiki you can run on your computer system. Its meant as a personal note system, but something that can fill in for a real web based wiki in a pinch.
Pandora
Pandora is a wiki written in the Ruby language and looks pretty easy to install and configure. I haven't worked with it much, but have been hearing good things about it for a little while now.
I highly recommend you go to VMware.com and download the free VMPlayer (if you don't have Workstation) and the following virtual machine rPath Mediawiki Appliance.
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[JiF][AARP]Grimp
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[JiF][AARP]Grimp
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We maybe asking Mindtouch for a demo box. If we can get one I will let you know how it is.
From the online demo it looks really easy to use.
I have setup a couple test servers for Mediawiki and there is a lot of customization that would have to be done once you get it running.
To do it correctly you would probably have to dedicate a full time person to it for a while to get it all setup way you want it.
Of course that's from the perspective of someone who has no clue, but I did get 2 running
ONe just the VMware and on HD install.
Oh yeah, one other wiki from scratch, but I already forgot which it was. None look even close to as polished as the Mindtouch one.
The Mindtouch one is starting to look like cheap money for an easy to use canned system.
From the online demo it looks really easy to use.
I have setup a couple test servers for Mediawiki and there is a lot of customization that would have to be done once you get it running.
To do it correctly you would probably have to dedicate a full time person to it for a while to get it all setup way you want it.
Of course that's from the perspective of someone who has no clue, but I did get 2 running
ONe just the VMware and on HD install.Oh yeah, one other wiki from scratch, but I already forgot which it was. None look even close to as polished as the Mindtouch one.
The Mindtouch one is starting to look like cheap money for an easy to use canned system.