php & wikis

[Alain Farmer]

Hello Sadu, David, and y'all,

> Yo! Another interested party here ...

So how about it, David. Do you have any download-URLs
for us?  Reading is fun and instructive, but we want
to *play* with something. Some building blocks... ;-)

> We're using a wiki to create a user extensible
> software manual (ah, you know me, love docs),
> so end users can add their own note pages to
> the manual.

Excellent way of using a wiki. :)

> It's an old wiki and infortunately,
> in-line images don't work.

That's *really* old! All of the wikis Ive tested
support inline images, even the simplest ones.

> I've seen some newer ones where that does work
> (heh .. including the place where we got this
> one a couple years ago...

Pretty much *anywhere* you look.

> It's Ward Cunningham's...

Who, as we all know, was inspired by HyperCard when he
created the first wiki ever. What an impressive
lineage HyperCard has, eh!

> Is that the right spelling?

Yes.

> ... and I've looked at some newer ones like Swiki
> but this sounds very interesting.

I have swiki installed on my server if you would like
to try it. It has some nice features that many wikis
do not have, such as : (1) the editing form includes a
field to change the name of the page; (2) when you
change it, the name of a page is replaced everywhere
in the wiki, e.g. no broken links; (3) an automatic
listing at the bottom of each page of the pages linked
to the current page. I have been moving *away* from
swiki, though, because it regularly froze my server,
forcing me to reboot, notably when editing *long*
pages.

> Hmmm... yes, it would be cool if I could give the
> users a nice MC tool for manual updates, searching 
> etc.

In terms of usage, I am solidly anchored into *wiki*.
As for R&D, in the short-term Im entirely focused on
blogs. My blog plans are the following :

1. One MC-based blog client for blog-users ;
2. One MC-based blog client for blog-admins ;
3. One MC-based blog server.

Any previous work done on any/all of the above that
you could share with me/others would, therefore, be a
great leap forward right now. Please act *immediately*
so that I can avoid doing any un-necessary work..
Pretty please, with a cherry on top. ;-)

I share David's aversion towards web stuff,
particularly when compared to the web-applications we
can accomplish with MetaCard. I am an ardent supporter
and promoter of using an xCard on the client side as
well as the server side. And I certainly don't count
myself among those who still desperately cling to the
web-browser as the "one & only" means of making good
use of the Internet. But.. it is clearly an uphill
battle that we're facing. We have to soften the
transition for those who are too insecure to let go of
their web-browser 'blanket'. Hence, it is a good first
step to make them realize that xCard-apps can vastly
improve their current web habits. Blogging with a
MC-based blog client, for example, is simpler and
better than blogging via the blog's web interface.
Downloading stacks from the Pantechnicon from within
our "inventory" stack is another example. Once they
grasped all of the advantages of our xCard approach to
the web, by actually using them, then they may
gradually move away from their web browser, in favour
of our xCard clients, for most of their web-based
activities.

Java-based FreeCard will have an edge here, btw, given
that Java applets can be imbedded into web pages, plus
web browsing can be embedded into Java programs. I
also discovered that JavaScript can be embedded into
any Java program, including FreeCard, and therefore
that one of FreeCard's scriptingLanguages will be
JavaScript. This should appeal to those web-developers
who are familiar with JavaScript because it will
smooth their transition from web-pages (DOM) to
xCards.

Subversive eh!  ;-)

Alain

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