Markdown and Wikis

[Rob Reed]

> I'm looking for something that :

>

> +   is in active development

>

> +   is mature

>

> Preferable

>

> +   use files for storage

>

> +   have skin/templates


My requirements are almost precisely the same. I've struggled to find
the right wiki for some projects I'm working on for a long time,
jumping around a lot and maintaining many different wikis, hoping that
one would stand out as better than the others for my purposes. So far
there isn't a clear standout for me, but I wanted to comment on some
of the other suggestions/recommendations.

IkiWiki - I'm pretty sure it requires a revision control system of
some sort if you want page history at all. You don't need to need to
use something like Subversion, but if you don't then updates simply
overwrite pages - please someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Dokuwiki - is looking pretty good these days, especially as an
introduction to wikis - for example the project has a well organized
site and a nice manual.

It seems to be under active development and does have all of the
features you're looking for.

Instiki - Definitely a nice wiki in my experience esp for it's
Markdown support (via Ruby's BlueCloth implementation). This is also a
great product to turn to for its nice project pages. You won't waste a
lot of time setting up instiki initially.

It is Ruby and depends on the Ruby on Rails framework. If you're not
into Ruby you'll find yourself doing a lot of stuff that all works
quite well but doesn't feel similar to what you've done in the past.

In my experience it can be hard to get at storage in any useful way.

My advice is to read through the FAQ, http://www.instiki.org/show/FAQ
and if you're not scared away and want to give it a try then go for
it. You'll probably be happy unless you run into trouble.

I've been burned by instiki in the past (I'm sure it was my fault) so
I stay away though I often wish I felt differently.

OddMuse - Is nice too, but I'd say that you should plan on spending
more time getting the wiki set up initially. Basic installation is
quick and easy but you probably won't be happy with the results until
you spend some time poking around with it (both the project pages and
your wiki).

If Fletcher stands behind the markdown support in OddMuse, that should
be good enough for anyone I think - as far as markdown is concerned.

If I were pushed for a recommendation, I'd say that you should at
least look at Dokuwiki.

Best wishes,

Rob