Advice on wiki platforms?
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So I'm looking to transform my current D&D homebrew setting site from a Joomla blog to a wiki of some type. Mainly because the format will work way better for a bunch of interconnected but independent articles that are constantly under revision. It's a good time to do that, as I'll be between campaigns soon and planning a 40+ year timeskip (so lots of things will end up needing to be rewritten/archived anyway.
My hosting provider has the following wiki platforms available for "easy install" (meaning not uploading a zip and doing everything from the command line):
Any thoughts on which might be easiest to deal with? Preferences on syntax? I don't need anything huge/scalable...this is not a high-traffic scenario. Probably I'll be the dominant person editing, with limited edits from other people on campaign-specific pages.
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Anymore, I actually like Redmine. Obviously it's meant for software dev/project management work, but IME it works well outside that realm. You get wikis, as well as issue trackers, document hosting, and forums, and it's all set up on a project-by-project basis.
Installing Redmine is a PITA, but Bitnami has a VM template that "just works".
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@mott555 said in Advice on wiki platforms?:
Anymore, I actually like Redmine. Obviously it's meant for software dev/project management work, but IME it works well outside that realm. You get wikis, as well as issue trackers, document hosting, and forums, and it's all set up on a project-by-project basis.
Installing Redmine is a PITA, but Bitnami has a VM template that "just works".
I don't have VM access, since it's shared hosting. I've got a PHP host and space on a filesystem. I could probably get SSH access, but I'd rather stay off the command line.
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From your list, DokuWiki is the only one I liked. It's been a few years but I recall it was easy to install and manage. MediaWiki works at first, but the second you deviate from the default config, it falls apart and becomes a massive steaming pile of WTF. I haven't used PmWiki or WikkaWiki.
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@mott555 said in Advice on wiki platforms?:
From your list, DokuWiki is the only one I liked. It's been a few years but I recall it was easy to install and manage. MediaWiki works at first, but the second you deviate from the default config, it falls apart and becomes a massive steaming pile of WTF. I haven't used PmWiki or WikkaWiki.
Yeah. I'm leaning away from MediaWiki because it seems focused on "big sites" or professional hosting with people dedicated to customizing it and maintaining it. Sort of the Oracle of free wikis.
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Are you set on hosting it yourself? If not, something like Obsidian Portal might be good for you.
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This post is deleted!
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@e4tmyl33t I have a hosting contract for other reasons and figure having full control will fit my predilections. Being able to bypass the rules and not have ads is worth it for ~$100/year. I also use it for school-related stuff and a private family forum (if that's even still going).
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Tried Dokuwiki. Default install is horribly borked--had to manually edit the init file to get it to function at all. And no CSS was working. Scratch that one!
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@Benjamin-Hall That's odd. I've used DokuWiki once it was setup and it used to work back then...
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@JBert said in Advice on wiki platforms?:
@Benjamin-Hall That's odd. I've used DokuWiki once it was setup and it used to work back then...
It may have been the hosting platform's installer, but it was throwing all sorts of errors including removed/obsolete language usage. Last stable version is 2018 and runs on PHP 5.6--I'm guessing that upgrading to a newer version of PHP is the issue.
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One of the other competitors, PMWiki, generally requires manually editing the
.htaccessfile to enable non-retarded link urls. And you have to manually edit theconfig.phpfile on the live installation. No thanks!Sigh...
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Advice on wiki platforms?:
It may have been the hosting platform's installer,
Yeah don't do that...download the latest from dokuwiki.org. As I recall you just unzip it, nagivate to install.php, and that's about it.
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@mott555 said in Advice on wiki platforms?:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Advice on wiki platforms?:
It may have been the hosting platform's installer,
Yeah don't do that...download the latest from dokuwiki.org. As I recall you just unzip it, nagivate to install.php, and that's about it.
I checked versions. Same version. Hadn't been touched since 2018 and still was warning that PHP 7 wasn't compatible.
I ended up biting the bullet and installing MediaWiki (in its default configuration). Seems stable so far. Now the hard part of transferring years of articles over and linking everything. And learning wiki syntax...which makes markdown look amazingly discoverable and easy by comparison.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Advice on wiki platforms?:
And learning wiki syntax...which makes markdown look amazingly discoverable and easy by comparison.
Mediawiki is mostly pretty easy… except for the templates. The templates are where it gets furiously complicated.
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What bit me with MediaWiki is I wanted a private wiki. No access unless you had an account, no public registration, and accounts must be set up by the administrator. This was super-easy to do in DokuWiki (and Redmine). It's apparently possible in MediaWiki, but I never got there.
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@mott555 said in Advice on wiki platforms?:
What bit me with MediaWiki is I wanted a private wiki. No access unless you had an account, no public registration, and accounts must be set up by the administrator. This was super-easy to do in DokuWiki (and Redmine). It's apparently possible in MediaWiki, but I never got there.
Fortunately I'm totally fine with having it public, as long as registration is controlled (meaning I get to approve/kick out yahoos). It's not like I get traffic anyway, and this is entirely not secret.
