Ben Wilson

Software engineer, programmer of VimKi

Okay, so why am I messing with Wiki? To be honest, for a long time I sort of snubbed my nose at the concept. In some ways I still resist. However, I'm preparing to go to law school and wanted a software tool that could satisfy some odd requirements:

• Shall allow for Vim-based text editing.
• Shall Able to function without a web server. Or, rather, should provide its own web interface.
• Shall have file-based archival. This allows for legion mechanisms for backups and whatnot.
• Archival shall be in a low-bandwidth easy to manage format.
• The PHP serialize or Perl Data::Dumper approaches fit this, not XML.
• Should be cross platform capable.
• Should have print-ready formatting available.
• May be a Gui-based tool.

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Assessments

PmWiki

So far, the one product that gets pretty close to this is PmWiki. It is a fairly lean tool in PHP that uses flat file archival, and has an accompanying script that allows for user-preferred editor. The default is vi and has a bit of a problem with syntax markup, but a decent understanding of vim changed that.

PmWiki lacks the non-web server function. The accompanying script requires the data be served via a web-server, as it functions as its own web client, pulling the Wiki source and feeding it to the editor.

PmWiki also has what I would call a convoluted archival format. Why did he not go with serialize?

TWiki

Um, Twiki is what got me started with wiki in the first place. I started collaborating on a science-fiction project that used Twiki for the web-based collaboration.

However, the tool is a pain to install and leaves too much junk available that needs to be cleaned out to make the site really useful. They boast being ready for the corporate intranet, and yet the install's a reall pain. Additionally, it relies upon RCS for versioning, and I use only CVS. So, when I try to save a page it laughs at me hysterically.

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