=====Suggestions about the future of Wikka=====
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====Some background====

I first came to WikkaWiki before quite some years looking for a wiki solution for the PtokaX Direct Connect Hub. I witnessed a good amount of activity, large enough to make me want to contribute. 

My need to contribute to this newly-found coding community drove me enough to start learn PHP to the point I got some actions contributed.
Then after a summer of contributions my life undertook some changes and I did not feel like using a wiki, whenever Wikka crossed my mind I always checked the site to see how it is developing.

Lately I needed a wiki solution for a community of Greek professionals. First on my mind was WikkaWiki I downloaded, saw that things were basically more or less the same since 1.12 (ok, excuse me I know some stuff where better).
I gave MediaWiki a try and I (still find) found it too cumbersome and requiring too much activity and moderation for a community to have a proper wiki with it. 

While I found WikkaWiki a bit stale, I did want to see some code and read through it. I saw the issue tracker site, I noticed some directions (for example for the 1.3 milestone) and some efforts for doing i18n, implementing utf8, user groups, templates, etc. What made sad was that there was no change on the way that WikkaWiki was doing things as far as code is concerned. Having meddled with some PHP projects ever since and read / practiced / experimented with a lot of things PHP last two years I find that the code is a filthy place. It is obvious that there hasn't been a code review for ages, which leads to fragmented and non uniform nor unified approaches to regular web application problems.>>

====The website====

The separation of the wikkawiki content and the documentation is a good move, done in a bad way.
In general there needs to be a good way to clean up all the information of the wikkawiki site and just keep what is valid and up to date.

In my opinion:
	- www.wikkawiki.org should give wikka related information (history, markup, requirements,...), 
	- docs.wikkawiki.org should give the wikka how to information 
	- code.wikkawiki.org should give the developers information, 
	- dev.wikkawiki.org should point to the development site. 

====The proposal====

I want to stir things up a bit by talking about a WikkaWiki Code revamp. Basically a rewrite, tearing all ties with the history, making the Wikka name comparable and an active player in the Wiki scene all over the internet.

The development team should
	- Move to Git (gitorious.org, github.com, sourceforge.com)
	- Use that infrastructure to manage issues and track development
	- Clean the current source and release a stable frozen 1.2.x release
	- Decide on the code structure and the program flow start rewriting Wikka2
	- At first Wikka2 release start writing importers from other wikis, older WikkaWiki versions and other input.

The code needs to start using 
	- Models, 
	- Controllers, 
	- Views, 
	- Templates, 
	- I18n, 
	- OAuth
	- Unicode, 
	- Input validation, 
	- Storage system (PDO, flat-file), 
	- Alternative parsers (markdown, mediawiki, texitle), 
	- Plugins

In addition:
	- remove the WikiName limitation
	- use a Javascript code highlighter,
	- implement [[www.wikicreole.org | WikiCreole wiki syntax]] as the default wiki syntax (with minor additions for custom needs), 
	- scrap the Freemind action and provide it as an extra Plugin, 
	- strive to be more standards compliant by filtering the XHTML output with a XHMTL filter class, provided as extra plugin, 
	- join the jQuery bandwagon for indulging the wonderful jquery plugins, provided as extra plugin,
	- use Minify to save bandwidth, provided as extra plugin,

I know this is all too much. But without those decisions and directions, the WikkaWiki is destined to grow dead unmaintained and behind of the times.
Give your input, lets discuss about this.

===After notes===
I noticed that a sourceforge project already exists, good, although crippled badly. 
Appearing active from within sourceforge can help push the exposure to potential developers and users. 
Lets make sure that Wikka gets the most out of it. 
Move the SVN there, move the bug tracker there (they can too host a Trac), setup the webhosting facility, so that can be done.

Please do check WikkaFutureCoreInteractions
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CategoryDevelopmentSuggestions