Five years ago as of this writing, I was jotting down some thoughts about wiki engines, prompted by doubt and disappointment:
It's 2017, and wiki engines haven't been a hot topic since at least the start of the decade. But wikis are still a thing, and the age of this technology is showing. I can't help but think, if one was to start coding a modern engine without all the baggage, what features would it need to look like something designed for (relatively) ordinary people from the 21st century?
- A proper title field above the edit box. You almost always need to enter one, anyway.
- Another field for categories below the edit box. To reference categories from within main page text, just recognize the hashtag notation.
- To format text, just let people use BBCode. I'm used to wiki markup, thanks to many years of practice, and it's still a bother.
- For that matter, add a "new page" link to the sidebar. It's a lot easier to figure out than explanations about linking.
(What about Markdown? It comes with too much controversy attached. And frankly it's just programmers who like it and use it, for the most part.)
Note, I'm not even talking about rich text editors or other fancy stuff. But when it comes to basic usability, there's simply no excuse nowadays.
Since then, my sites went through big changes, I have a new one, and all three contain at least one wiki. So what happened to all those ideas?
- I use BBCode in OddMuse, and added support to BrutalWiki;
- same for the ability to create a new named page with a form, that it shares with TiddlyWiki and Feather Wiki;
- I still use Markdown quite a bit, but now with clearly articulated objections;
- categories / tags are tricky as it turns out, for programmers and users alike.
It's progress then, and all remaining problems seem tractable now. Better yet, old wiki engines are still maintained, new ones are joining the fray, and with movements like the small web or digital gardening they're of interest to people again. I'll take it.