1 An overview of some of ikiwiki's features:
6 Rather than implement its own system for storing page histories etc,
7 ikiwiki uses a real [[Revision_Control_System|rcs]]. This isn't (just)
8 because we're lazy, it's because a real RCS is a good thing to have, and
9 there are advantages to using one that are not possible with a standard
12 Instead of editing pages in a stupid web form, you can use vim and commit
13 changes via [[Subversion|rcs/svn]], [[rcs/git]], or any of a number of other
14 [[Revision_Control_Systems|rcs]].
16 Ikiwiki can be run from a [[post-commit]] hook to update your wiki
17 immediately whenever you commit a change using the RCS.
19 It's even possible to securely let
20 [[anonymous_users_git_push_changes|tips/untrusted_git_push]]
23 Note that ikiwiki does not require a RCS to function. If you want to
24 run a simple wiki without page history, it can do that too.
28 Ikiwiki is a wiki compiler; it builds a static website for your wiki, and
29 updates it as pages are edited. It is fast and smart about updating a wiki,
30 it only builds pages that have changed (and tracks things like creation of
31 new pages and links that can indirectly cause a page to need a rebuild)
33 ## Supports many markup languages
35 By default, pages in the wiki are written using the [[ikiwiki/MarkDown]] format.
36 Any page with a filename ending in ".mdwn" is converted from markdown to html
37 by ikiwiki. Markdown understands text formatted as it would be in an email,
38 and is quite smart about converting it to html. The only additional markup
39 provided by ikiwiki on top of regular markdown is the [[ikiwiki/WikiLink]] and
40 the [[ikiwiki/directive]].
42 If you prefer to use some other markup language, ikiwiki allows others to
43 easily be added by [[plugins]]. For example it also supports traditional
44 [[plugins/WikiText]] formatted pages, pages written as pure
45 [[plugins/HTML]], or pages written in [[reStructuredText|plugins/rst]]
46 or [[Textile|plugins/textile]].
48 Ikiwiki also supports files of any other type, including plain text,
49 images, etc. These are not converted to wiki pages, they are just copied
50 unchanged by ikiwiki as it builds your wiki. So you can check in an image,
51 program, or other special file and link to it from your wiki pages.
55 You can turn any page in the wiki into a [[blog]]. Pages matching a
56 specified [[ikiwiki/PageSpec]] will be displayed as a weblog within the blog
57 page. And RSS or Atom feeds can be generated to follow the blog.
59 Ikiwiki's own [[TODO]], [[news]], and [[plugins]] pages are good examples
60 of some of the flexible ways that this can be used. There is also an
61 [[example_blog|examples/blog]] set up that you can copy into your own wiki.
63 Ikiwiki can also [[plugins/aggregate]] external blogs, feeding them into
64 the wiki. This can be used to create a Planet type site that aggregates
67 You can also mix blogging with [[podcasting|podcast]]. Simply drop
68 media files where they will be picked up like blog posts. For
69 fuller-featured podcast feeds, enclose media files in blog posts
70 using [[plugins/meta]]. Either way, this will work for any files
71 that you would care to syndicate.
73 ## Valid html and [[css]]
75 Ikiwiki aims to produce
76 [valid XHTML 1.0](http://validator.w3.org/check?url=referer).
77 (Experimental [[tips/HTML5]] support is also available.)
79 Ikiwiki generates html using [[templates]], and uses [[css]], so you
80 can change the look and layout of all pages in any way you would like.
82 Ikiwiki ships with several ready to use [[themes]].
86 Plugins can be used to add additional features to ikiwiki. The interface is
87 quite flexible, allowing plugins to implement additional markup languages,
88 register [[directives|ikiwiki/directive]], provide a [[RCS]] backend, hook
89 into [[CGI]] mode, and much more. Most of ikiwiki's features are actually
92 The standard language for ikiwiki plugins is perl, but ikiwiki also supports
93 [[plugins/write/external]] plugins: Standalone programs that can be written in
94 any language and communicate with ikiwiki using XML RPC.
98 After rather a lot of fiddling, we think that ikiwiki correctly and fully
99 supports utf8 everywhere.
103 The above are the core design goals and features of ikiwiki, but on that
104 foundation a lot of other important features are added. Here is an
105 incomplete list of some of them.
109 You can tag pages and use these tags in various ways. Tags will show
110 up in the ways you'd expect, like at the bottom of pages, in blogs, and
111 in RSS and Atom feeds.
113 ### [[SubPages|ikiwiki/SubPage]]
115 Arbitrarily deep hierarchies of pages with fairly simple and useful
116 [[ikiwiki/SubPage/LinkingRules]]
120 Automatically included on pages. Rather faster than eg MoinMoin and
121 always there to help with navigation.
123 ### Smart merging and conflict resolution in your web browser
125 Since it uses a real RCS, ikiwiki takes advantage of its smart merging to
126 avoid any conflicts when two people edit different parts of the same page
127 at the same time. No annoying warnings about other editors, or locking,
128 etc, instead the other person's changes will be automatically merged with
129 yours when you commit.
131 In the rare cases where automatic merging fails due to the same part of a
132 page being concurrently edited, regular commit conflict markers are
133 shown in the file to resolve the conflict, so if you're already familiar
134 with that there's no new commit marker syntax to learn.
136 ### [[RecentChanges]], editing pages in a web browser
138 Nearly the definition of a wiki, although perhaps ikiwiki challenges how
139 much of that web gunk a wiki really needs. These features are optional
140 and can be enabled by enabling [[CGI]] and a [[Revision_Control_System|rcs]].
142 ### User registration
144 Can optionally be configured to allow only registered users to edit
147 User registration can be done using a web form, or ikiwiki can be
148 configured to accept users authenticated with OpenID, or HTTP basic
149 authentication, or other methods implemented via plugins.
153 Thanks to subpages, every page can easily and automatically have a
154 /Discussion subpage. By default, these links are included in the
155 [[templates]] for each page. If you prefer blog-style
156 [[plugins/comments]], that is available too.
160 Wiki admins can lock pages so that only other admins can edit them. Or a
161 wiki can be set up to allow anyone to edit Discussion pages, but only
162 registered users to edit other pages. These are just two possibilities,
163 since page edit controls can be changed via plugins.
167 Well, sorta. Rather than implementing YA history browser, it can link to
168 [[ViewVC]] or the like to browse the history of a wiki page.
172 Ikiwiki can use the xapian search engine to add powerful
173 full text [[plugins/search]] capabilities to your wiki.
175 ### Translation via po files
177 The [[plugins/po]] plugin allows translating individual wiki pages using
182 Can be set up so that w3m can be used to browse a wiki and edit pages
183 without using a web server.
projects / ikiwiki / blob