wikis (was Re: [BBLISA] Suggestions for a documentation system)

[Douglas Alan]

John Stoffel <john at stoffel.org> wrote:

> Mark> Most wikis will let you cutnpaste.  copy the file to an emacs
> Mark> buffer, edit, and paste back?  TWiki even has a "raw text"
> Mark> display button for the cut and you can click "edit" to paste it
> Mark> back.

> Which completely obviates the need for a wiki, since I can just open
> an emacs buffer (emacs is always running for me...) and just write a
> note and store it in a directory.

I love Emacs and use it exclusively to edit text.  If a directory of
text files is good enough for you, then by all means, go at it.  I have
tons of such directories!

When you need to have a (possibly distributed) group of people working
on the same documents, however, and you want to have it well-organized,
revision controlled, displayable in a pretty manner, readily
navigatable, and hyperlinked, then a wiki seems like a much better
choice than a directory filled with plain ascii files.

> The point I was trying to make is that HTML is NOT a good interactive
> system where you need to do data entry.  Especially data entry in
> large volume.  

Wiki formatting languages are typically not HTML.

> >> So maybe what I'm saying is that I want an emacs wiki client, without
> >> the web browser (w3m?) insanity/overhead.

A quick Google of "emacs wiki" reveals a number of freeware products that might
meet your needs:

   http://repose.cx/emacs/wiki/
   http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/EmacsWikiMode
   http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/PlannerMode
   http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/MuseMode
   http://www.mwolson.org/projects/EmacsWiki.html

|>oug