wikkid-dev team mailing list archive

[Tim Penhey <tim@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Guys,

I'll be posting this on my blog when I come to do the initial release, and 
probably in the Launchpad project announcements too.

Any comments or suggestions?

I feel I should add a section about "what to do to help"

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Wikkid Wiki

As with any creation being released, I'm writing this with some trepidation.
I'd like to announce the first release, 0.1, of Wikkid Wiki.

What is it?

Wikkid is a wiki that uses the Bazaar DVCS as an underlying storage model.
Wiki pages are text files in a branch.

Why another wiki, surely there are enough already?

There is the obvious reason, because I felt like it.  But this is not the
primary reason.  Since I started working for Canonical I've come to appreciate
the whole culture of free, libre, and open source software more.  During the
day I work on Launchpad.  Primarily in the area of integrating the Bazaar
DVCS.  Launchpad builds Ubuntu, and our primary focus recently has been on
helping the distribution more.  Many other projects also use Launchpad as
their primary hosting site and one thing that Launchpad is missing for project
hosting is a wiki.  However the primary focus of the Canonical Launchpad
developers has been that on making Launchpad better for building Ubuntu, and
Ubuntu already has a wiki (maybe more than one).

There are a number of particular requirements that we have if we are going to
integrate wikis with Launchpad.  Issues around scalability, separation,
permissions, and probably many others I've not spent too much time thinking
about just yet.  There weren't any other wikis that fit the picture that we
had.  I have to admit to having very strong opinions myself on what I wanted
for wikis in Launchpad.  Since no one else was looking at it, I took it upon
myself.  Discussions started last year between a small group of Launchpad
developers, but there was no traction.  At the start of March I started
writing the Bazaar backed wiki.  It needed a name though.  Thankfully after
trying several I got the perfect name from Aaron Bentley - wikkid.

The wikkid vision

* Any wikkid wiki can be branched locally for off line editing.
* Any branch can be viewed using wikkid - not limited to branches created
through wikkid
* A local wikkid server can be run using a bzr plugin
* Local commits use the local users Bazaar identity
* Wikkid can be configured to operate in a stand alone, public facing mode
where it has a database of users
* Wikkid is integrated with Launchpad offering wikis to (at least) projects.
* Wikkid uses standard wiki markup languages - not inventing its own

What does wikkid offer?

Right now, wikkid offers basic page editing, rendering and browsing.
* ReST is the default wiki format
* creole is also supported (as long as the first line is "# creole")
* source files are syntax highlighted using pygments
* you get to see your gravatar for your local Bazaar identity
* no page locks are used, but instead a three way merge
* conflicts due to concurrent editing are shown for the user to resovle

Where to from here?

Well here is just the beginning.  The TODO file is quite long already, and
that is just a simple brain dump.

Things that I want to have done for 0.2 include:
* Change the underlying server from twisted.web to WSGI
* Change the generated URL format (it will be more Launchpad like)
* Add the stand-alone user database code, along with sessions and logins and
email validation
* Add a view to show changes for a page
* Allow the reverting of any historical change

Ideally I'd like to provide everything that is needed for wikkid to be
deployed as a stand-alone, public facing, wiki.