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TWiki

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For the robot character, see Twiki.
TWiki
Developer(s)Peter Thoeny with TWiki contributors
Initial release23 Jul 1998
Preview releaseNone (None) [±]
Repository
Written inPerl
Operating systemCross-platform
TypeWiki
LicenseGPL
Websitehttp://twiki.org/

TWiki is a structured wiki[1], typically used to run a collaboration platform, knowledge or document management system, a knowledge base, or team portal. Users can create wiki applications using the TWiki Markup Language, and developers can extend its functionality with plugins. The TWiki Open Source project has been founded by Peter Thoeny.

Major features

  • Revision control - complete audit trail, also for meta data such as attachments and access control settings
  • Fine-grained access control - restrict read/write/rename on site level, web level, page level based on user groups
  • Extensible TWiki markup language
  • TinyMCE based WYSIWYG editor
  • Dynamic content generation with TWiki variables
  • Forms and reporting - capture structured content, report on it with searches embedded in pages
  • Built in database - users can create wiki applications using the TWiki Markup Language
  • Skinnable user interface
  • RSS/Atom feeds and e-mail notification
  • Over 400 Extensions and 200 Plugins

TWiki extensions

TWiki has a plugin API that has spawned over 400 extensions[2] to link into databases, create charts, tags, sort tables, write spreadsheets, create image gallery and slideshows, make drawings, write blogs, plot graphs, interface to many different authentication schemes, track Extreme Programming projects and so on.

TWiki application platform

TWiki as a structured wiki provides database-like manipulation of fields stored on pages[3], and offers a SQL-like query language to embed reports in wiki pages.[4]

Wiki applications are also called situational applications because they are created ad-hoc by the users for very specific needs. Users have built TWiki applications[5] that include call center status boards, to-do lists, inventory systems, employee handbooks, bug trackers, blog applications, discussion forums, status reports with rollups and more.

User interface

The interface of TWiki is completely skinnable in templates, themes and (per user) CSS. It includes support for internationalization ('I18N'), with support for multiple character sets, UTF-8 URLs, and the user interface has been translated into Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish [6].

TWiki deployment

TWiki is primarily used at the workplace as a corporate wiki[7] to coordinate team activities, track projects, implement workflows[8] and as an Intranet Wiki. The TWiki community estimates 40,000 corporate wiki sites as of March 2007, and 20,000 public TWiki sites[9].

TWiki customers include Fortune 500 such as Nokia, Motorola and Yahoo!, as well as small and medium enterprises[10], such as ARM[11] and DHL[12].

Realization

TWiki is implemented in Perl. Wiki pages are stored in plain text files. Everything, including meta such as access control settings, are version controlled using RCS. RCS is optional since an all-Perl version control system is provided.

TWiki scales reasonably well even though it uses plain text files and no relational database to store page data. Many corporate TWiki installations have several hundred thousand pages and tens of thousands of users. Load balancing and caching can be used to improve performance on high traffic sites[13].

TWiki has database features built into the engine. A TWiki Form[14] is attached to a page as meta data. This represents a database record. A set of pages that share the same type of form build a database table. A formatted search[15] with a SQL-like query[16] can be embedded into a page to construct dynamic presentation of data from multiple pages. This allows for building wiki applications and constitutes the TWiki's notion of a structured wiki.

TWiki release history

  • 1998-07-23: Initial version, based on JosWiki
  • 2000-05-01: TWiki Release 01-May-2000
  • 2000-12-01: TWiki Release 01-Dec-2000
  • 2001-09-01: TWiki Release 01-Sep-2001
  • 2001-12-01: TWiki Release 01-Dec-2001 ("Athens")
  • 2003-02-01: TWiki Release 01-Feb-2003 ("Beijing")
  • 2004-09-01: TWiki Release 01-Sep-2004 ("Cairo")
  • 2006-02-01: TWiki Release 4.0.0 ("Dakar")
  • 2007-01-16: TWiki Release 4.1.0 ("Edinburgh")
  • 2008-01-22: TWiki Release 4.2.0 ("Freetown")

Projects inspired by TWiki and TWiki forks

  • 2003-12: O'Wiki fork (died)
  • 2004: JotSpot for "company providing an application wiki" [17] (acquired by Google)
  • 2004-07: XWiki for structured wiki concept
  • 2008-10-26: NextWiki fork
  • Sample page layout.
    Sample page layout.
  • Page edit with wiki markup, SmartEditAddOn toolbar installed.
    Page edit with wiki markup, SmartEditAddOn toolbar installed.
  • Page edit with WYSIWYG editor.
    Page edit with WYSIWYG editor.
  • Edit tables with EditTablePlugin.
    Edit tables with EditTablePlugin.

Footnotes

  1. ^ "TWiki is a structured wiki, which is a combination of a traditional freeform wiki and a more structured database" - in InformationWeek article Everything You Need To Know To Get Started With Content Management Systems
  2. ^ TWiki.org extension repository
  3. ^ TWiki Forms
  4. ^ SEARCH variable, formatted search, SQL-like query search
  5. ^ Sample TWiki applications
  6. ^ TWiki Contributors. "User Interface Localisation". twiki.org. Retrieved 2008-03-01. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  7. ^ Paper on corporate wiki users (slides)
  8. ^ "The wiki as online conveyor belt" section in BusinessWeek article Make Some Noise - How web 2.0 tools can help you communicate with customers more effectively
  9. ^ Estimated number of TWiki installations
  10. ^ What do TWiki users say?
  11. ^ Financial Times article CASE STUDY: Wikis give ARM Holdings a leg-up
  12. ^ TWiki success story of DHL Packstation
  13. ^ http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/TWiki/TWikiScalability TWiki Scalability
  14. ^ TWiki Forms
  15. ^ http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/TWiki/FormattedSearch formatted search
  16. ^ http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/TWiki/QuerySearch SQL-like query search]
  17. ^ "About JotSpot". jot.com. Retrieved 2008-10-29.

See also


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