Wiki Feature Ideas

External innovations, that improve WikiEngines or WikiForum usability. See WikiInnovations for innovations introduced in this wiki.

The most complete list is http://usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?search=CategoryWikiTechnology

Brainstorming preamble:

What about letting out our dreams here, in a brainstorming manner, i.e. without prematurely deleting stuff, even if it sounds crazy? If you find some of your dreams realized, the innovation seekers in the above links of wiki innovations, would be very thankful to you, if you add what you found.

For ideas for this wiki, see WikiWikiSuggestions.

Brainstorming:

A Wiki with a Userdefinable View Filter, that suppress unwanted stuff for users, instead of stimulating them to suppress other people, by deleting their contributions. (-> CategorizedRecentChanges? )
An AllInOneWiki.
A Wiki that lets you Initiate Your Own Free Wikiforum On Each Page.
A WikiWithProgrammableContent that can be programmed online by their users (-> SmartWikis, WikiIde (= Wiki with Programs As Content) )
- Does ZopeApplicationServer qualify?
A Multi Media Wiki with animated 3D graphics and music, created and enjoyed by its community.
- There was a proposal alive with nan.com at one point to make a BlenderWiki.
A MathWiki with XML mathematical notation, (based on a modified Amaya?)
- Exists already. ZwiKi has been extended to make a LatexWiki.
A Programmers Wiki operated from within an IDE of a programming language
- Easy to do by combining ZwiKi with the ZopeApplicationServer external editor product.
WysiwygWiki
- Also easy with the zope external editor
A Wiki Computer Language where the source text is in a Wikiforum. It allows a synthesis of top down and bottom up open source team programming. Each method called but not yet specified, generates a stubmessage Wikipage as an edit control like in this Wikiforum to be filled by some Wiki Programmer or some prospective user with a Wiki Message. A Wiki Message can be a Comment (e.g. a short note, a bug report, a UserStory, a whole discussion, a document, etc.) or a Program Construct. Stubs can be globally or locally en/disabled..
- Is SchemeWeb? a possible candidate?
A Wiki Factory with Create Pages, which work like an installation shell, but create some plug and play Wiki somewhere on the Web on a free server like http://www.Hypermart.com. Even the registration process for the hosting service is integrated ..

-- FridemarPache

I think one useful feature to have on a wiki would be the ability to allow people to upload files too. Like say.. if there is someone who wants to put up a source package or something.. he/she should be allowed to do that! Don't know whether this is the right place to add in this wish! But all I'd like to say is.. we have a Wiki clone running in our office.. and thought it would be a good idea to allow people uploading files onto the server(limiting upload size to something reasonable like < 4MB). And we have that running now.. so.. sharing stuff becomes a lot easier! -- @ChandrasekharKG

There are wikis that do this. TWiki, WikiPedia, WikiTypeFramework, ZwiKi ...

The feature is useful for uploading images and sounds that can be embedded in articles.

A WikiWithTrails. Exists in ZwiKi.
CommunityCascadingStyleSheet?. Have a specially indicated wiki page, the source of which serves as the stylesheet for all Wiki pages. Then add a notation to the wiki markup which invokes <style></style> tags. -- KarlKnechtel

I have been thinking about wiki for a long time and have written a few to play with. The problem I find is that even though the wiki is great for associating different pieces of text, I still have to create the associations through WikiWords. I was thinking this morning about a slightly different type of wiki that puts all words from the text into a database by (WikiWord (meaning the page), normal word (a word within the page)). Then as the page is displayed there are lots of links for all the words. The normal WikiWords would still go straight to the individual pages, and there would be a page describing a list of StopWords? that are ignored by the indexing process. I am not wild about having almost every word on a page as a link, but it would show the intentional and non-intentional common threads through many words. A page might mention Mary and through the database this link displays a page of all other WikiWord pages that also reference any Mary. This could even be expanded to use a SoundEx algorithm within the database to allow for misspellings, etc.

I know all (that I can think of) wikis have a search feature, but I'm thinking that having the display component of the wiki perform that referencing dynamically might be better. Maybe the display component doesn't do the search, but rather creates a http link for each word that causes the search to happen on the next displayed page?

-- MikeEggleston

This sounds a lot like "AutoLink" http://wikifeatures.wiki.taoriver.net/moin.fcg/AutoLink which has already been implemented by the GeboGebo WikiEngine.

See WikiFeatures, ParagraphWiki

CategoryMetaWiki CategoryWiki