Wiki Lecture

Slide 1: Wiki Lecture

Slide 2: Background: The Generic "wiki"

"wiki wiki" is Hawaiian for "very fast" A wiki web site was, originally, an approach to quickly building up a web site, quickly editing it, quickly getting to information in it... Generally, Wiki:WardCunningham is credited with being the first person to develop the idea of a publically accessible and useful wiki, circa 1995. Quickly became notable for collaboration above all else.

Examples of things hosted using wiki technology: Research Projects (both group and single user) Encyclopedias Engineering Projects (civil engineering, software engineering) Customer Support Departments Personal Web Sites Today, there are an uncountable number of web sites employing wiki technology in existence. Over 100 different wiki engines Based on Apache, Araneida, IIS, Tomcat, ... Written in ASP, C, CL, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Smalltalk, ... Intranets, commercial sites, educational sites, personal home webs, ...

Slide 3: Focus: TWiki

• Feature sets vary wildly between wikis (e.g., attachments, hierarchies, markup languages, database support)

• We'll focus on TWiki for this lecture.
  • Not favoring one wiki over another.
  • Since TWiki is used in CIS and many other sites, focusing on it gives you tools you can most directly and quickly put to use.

• Alternatively known as TWiki, TWikiClone, the "Take Five Wiki"

• Requirements
  • Runs almost anywhere you can run Perl.
  • Easiest to roll out under Apache.
  • Examples of known installations:
    • FreeBSD, Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD
    • Solaris, Tru64
    • Windows NT and XP
    • Mac OS X

Slide 4: The Basics of TWiki

Terms and Jargon What we consider a "web page" is known as a topic in TWiki. One may view a topic, or edit its content. As a page is edited by users, a revision history of the topic is maintained. Typically, you can view this history to see "when who changed what". A collection of topics, often referring to one another or perhaps in a hierarchy, is called a web. A TWiki site has multiple webs.

Functionality and Features (What Makes It Different) Automatic linking between topics. Easy markup language, no need for HTML. Dynamic topic presentation: each topic's content is generated on demand, every time. Changes are instantaneous in the site. Searches are always up to date. Decentralized! No webmaster, no waiting. See something that should be changed, fixed, or updated? Just do it! Easy Plug-In system: lots of available add-ons and extra functionality (charts, calendars, schedulers, drawing tools, spreadsheets)

Slide 5: What Can You Do With It? Collaborate!

Propose Designs, Gather Commentary, Evolve, Improve! Show others what you want to do: ObservationQueue? Let others work with you: PipelinePedigree? Or let them just comment on what you did: WaspAcquisitionDesign Change is good: encourage your editors! Be fearless! Each topic has a revision history. Presentations Share them: WaspAdpTechOverview Write them: KrzWikiLecture2005Feb

Discussions and Logs Capture meeting minutes: WaspLeicaMinutes Keep a status page for yourself or your team: PhaseSevenStatus? Manage remaining todo lists: PhaseSevenCloseOut? Collect and Organize Data Project Requirements: DcsRequirements? Test Cases: ValidationVerification? FAQs: Palm:WebHome And a "big" project: TWiki

Distance, location, timezones... it's not a problem.

Slide 6: How Does a Successful Wiki Grow?

Capture Wiki syntax is simple, lets you focus on capturing the data All in one topic, lots of little topics, whatever works for you Organize After a while, patterns emerge, structures appear Easy move information around Easy to see changes (e.g., WebChanges)

Refactor Related topics often share the same information Be Merciless! Crush redundant information! Archive Don't delete, just move old information to other topics Or just slide to the bottom of a topic

Lather, rinse, repeat...

Slide 7: Highlights: Context of Content - Database Table

Flat, no hierarchy:

Context: Mainly next/previous; search

Slide 8: Highlights: Context of Content - File System

                                Tree hierarchy:

Context: Down/up; search

Slide 9: Highlights: Context of Content - HTML Pages & Wikis

                                                                Hyperlink structure:

Context: "What is related" browsing; search

Slide 10: Highlights: Context of Content - TWiki Structure

                                                                                                Tree + hyperlink structure:

Context: Down/up browsing; "what is related" browsing; search

Slide 11: Highlights: Context of Content - TWiki Breadcrumb

                                                                                                Where am I?

Breadcrumb example: Home > Plugins > PluginPackage > PluginDevelopment

Slide 12: Questions?

• Other questions, comments...?

• We'll continue with "how to" from this point

Slide 13: TWiki as a Web Site

• Main traits
  • Simple, most obvious use
  • Fast: publishing is as fast as email. Fill in the form and submit; done!
  • Easy: writing topic content is as easy as writing email.
  • Can be thought of as a read-write web.

• Easy to add content
  • Edit the page where you want to "spin off" into your new page just by mentioning it.
  • TWiki's content is dynamic; new page link appears immediately.
  • Click the new page link, and start entering content right now!

• Multiple authors and contributors? Not a problem.
  • By default, once you edit a page, you "lock" it for an hour.
  • TWiki expects you'll have more subsequent edits to make.
  • Other people "hold off" editing that page until your lock expires.
  • You, the author, can turn off the lock if you want. "The user knows best."

Slide 14: TWiki as a Web Site (cont'd)

Miscellany

With this background on headers and templates under our belts, we're in a position to survey the primary components of the standard C++ library:

• String objects were designed to eliminate the need to use char* pointers in most applications. They support the operations you'd expect ... Some string implementations employ reference counting, which can lead to better performance (in both time and space) than char* based strings.
• Stop writing your own container classes! The library offers efficient implementations of vectors, lists, deques, maps, sets, and bitsets...

---+++ Miscellany
With this background on headers and templates under our belts, we're in a position
to survey the primary components of the standard C++ library:

   * String objects were designed to *eliminate* the need to use =char*= pointers...
     They support the operations you'd expect ... Some =string= implementations...
     _better_ performance (in both time and space) than =char*= based strings.
   * Stop writing your own container classes!  The library offers efficient
     implementations of vectors, lists, deques, maps, sets, and bitsets...

Slide 15: TWiki as a Web Site (cont'd)

TWiki offers the usual set of display and formatting machinery:

• Font rendering (italics, bold, monospace)

• Structure, sections, tables of contents

• Tables, charts

• Inline images

Every TWiki editing page includes this text at the bottom; read it!

Formatting help:

• bold put word/phrase in asterisks: *your phrase*
• bullet list 3 spaces, asterisk, 1 space:    * your text
• headings 3 dashes, 1 to 6 pluses, 1 space: ---++ Your Heading
• ...
• More formatting help and hints on good style

Slide 16: TWiki as a Document Authoring System

• Everything in one topic
  • Simplest to manage
  • Great for reports, articles, how-to's, assignments...
  • Becomes unweildly for long documents
  • Collaboration is "one at a time"

• Chapters or Sections in topics of their own
  • Each significant chunk of a document can be viewed or edited separately
  • Even better collaboration: now people can edit different sections in parallel
  • A "main" or top level document can be constructed that =INCLUDE=s the other topics together.

• Example:
  • The rendered example: TWikiDocumentation
  • Simplified for your printer: TWikiDocumentation
  • The actual (raw) text of the page: TWikiDocumentation

Slide 17: TWiki as a Database

Great potential! Merges free form documentation with intelligent searches, structures, sorting of topics, and so on. As much or as little detail can be present in a given page.

Pages can be created with templates. A template is just another topic that is copied into a new wiki page when you create it for the first time. Great for bringing new users up to speed, entering their content in an established style. For example, a template can be TestCaseExample^?.

<form name="new" action="%SCRIPTURLPATH%/edit%SCRIPTSUFFIX%/%INTURLENCODE{"%WEB%"}%/">
Create a new test case named:
<input type="text" name="topic" value="BlahBlahBlah" size="24" />
<input type="hidden" name="templatetopic" value="TestCaseExample" />
<input type="submit" value="Create" />
</form>

Create a new test case named:

Slide 18: TWiki as a Database (cont'd)

There are two general ways of using TWiki as a database.

• Text Searches
  • Each page has a "style" that is followed, either in topic name or page content.
  • A search can then be made, looking for content following that style. Using our friend INCLUDE, searches can generate reports as well as tables.
  • Because the search is live at runtime, wiki always appears "fresh" and up to date.
  • Example of a content style: BuildingGCC SoftwareInstalls
  • Example of a topic name style: ArcReq29^? DcsRequirements^?

• Forms
  • Each page has a form associated with it.
  • Form can be updated whenever the page is created or edited.
  • Form contents immediately affect searches on the rest of the rest of the TWiki.
  • Example: TestCaseForm^? TestArchivalOfAllRelevantData^? ValidationVerification^?

Other Cruft

• Set BEGINTWOCOLUMNS =

  Set NEXTCOLUMN =

  Set ENDCOLUMNS =