Revision [20166]
This is an old revision of TechnicalWriting made by DarTar on 2008-08-30 16:41:47.
- Hi, thanks for your feedback. Let me quickly reply to some of your points. -- DarTar
Good Traits
- It is fast
- Has many features
- Has a mailing list
- Has graphics and audio functions
- Easy to install
Bad Traits
- Hard to Navigate
- can you please develop?
- Layout is not organized
- to give you an idea of how flexible the new default layout will be, take a look at this test server
- Some of the main links do not work
- which?
- It is still being developed so the format could change at any time
- I'm afraid this is plainly false. As anyone familiar with opensource projects will tell you, the fact that a product is constantly being developed/improved has nothing to do with its maturity or with its backwards-compatibility. All of our upgrades (with the exception of rare cases that are extensively discussed and documented) preserve backwards-compatibility and the format (I guess you mean the "markup") will not change.
- The code is very hackable
- I take this as a compliment. The easy hackability of Wikka has been one of its strongest selling points so far.
- The site is also not ascetically appealing
- ascetically as in ascetic? I probably agree
- The very fact that this must be installed is a turnoff since others do not need to be
- All wiki engines must -- by definition -- be installed. If you are looking for a hosted service, you are definitely looking for something different.
- Making a username is not easy "Username must be formatted as a WikiName"
- This is a known issue we are aware of. Future releases will try to remove this limitation.
- Is this site appealing to the eye? No, the layout is very unorganized. Many of the links are embedded into the pages which makes it difficult to navigate.
- How easy it is to use/register/surf? Not very easy. You have to search for the link to register, which is embedded into the page.
- How effective is the site in providing information? It is informational.
- Is the content organized throughout the wiki? It is not organized at all. It seems to be in no particular order and is scrambled. It is very difficult to remember where anything is.
- I guess this flat structure that you consider a lack of organization is actually a feature of many wikis, if you need something more structured, you'll probably end up choosing a CMS or a hybrid Wiki/CMS. This said, Wikka has a powerful Category system that helps organize content hierarchically. Consider however that, in spite of categories, the present server is the community website and it's unlikely that it will have more structure in the future, precisely because it's mostly based on user contributions. We are working to improve the separation between authoritative content and user-contributed content. All the information you can find in the docs, for one, has been reviewed by the Wikka developers. All bugs reports and feature requests are now handled via our tracker and user-contributed extensions will be hosted on a dedicated domain. You will find a detailed explanation of further changes we have planned on ANewHomeForWikka this page -- DarTar
Some general notes...(taken directly out of context from IndependentWikkaReviews user reviews)
Features that make Wikka Wiki a winner:
- RSS feeds. Suppose you like to write on the web, but hate the reverse-chronology shackles of weblog software. On the other hand, you want people to be able to read your most recent scribbling as you publish it. An RSS enabled wiki allows the freedom of a wiki and the syndication of a weblog.
- Flexibility∞. Okay, technically a wiki should be open to everyone to read, write, and edit. But what if you want to keep out the Anonymous Cowards who like to drop by and take a dump in your space? Wikka wiki allows some flexibility in who can play in your sandbox.
- Comments∞. So you want the wiki to be an intertwingling of your own making, but you want others to be able to drop by and point out your more obvious warts. Wikka wiki has comments built in.
- Over-powered∞. Doug Miller commented the other night that MySQL seem to be overkill when it came to running a wiki, and that something like SQlite would be a-plenty. Too true. But the nice thing about over-engineering a product means that it has room to breath and grow. Not satisfied with the current feature set? No worries, pet.
(Many users compare WikkaWiki to MediaWiki, claiming it to contain a lot less "fluff" and more functional tools.)
"I have found that the RSSfacilities built into Wikka Wakka Wiki is really useful!"
"It has all the features that I wanted without feeling like it is bloated like MediaWiki"
"[M]y first wiki was MediaWiki, and I just decided it was.. 'too much'. I wanted something that was easier, cleaner interface, and where new users with something to say would be more likely to add content and ended up with WikkaWiki (Jason Rahaim∞)"
"Wikka is an Wiki written in PHP with some great features:
PHP and MYSQL make it lightweight and fast. (Okay so that’s propaganda from the website but it really is great.)
Page level security so you can determine which pages can be viewed and edited by others.
Like other Wikis it uses the CamelCase syntax for links to other pages but it also has some neat tricks for creating elements like lists, horizontal bars, etc.
Its functionality can be extended using plugins called actions. People have written actions to display rss feeds and calendars among others."