Talk:Wiki as a book reader

TiddlyWiki plus synchronization software would be a start. Something like a tiny webserver that used SQLite or dbh for storage would be enough.

We are currently looking into MoinMoin. It has a very good extensible architecture. It is fairly easy to add the missing features by adding actions, macros, and parsers. I will take a look at TiddlyWiki though.

Version control?

While reading the page, I couldn't help but think "subversion can do that" and "subversion can do that as well" and "yeah that should also be possible with version control". So, how about some kind of mixture between version control and wiki?

Besides, I wanted to say that I don't like those ideas about using special unicode characters:

• breaks the concept
• clutters the document "source"
• disregards needs of colour-blind people
• mixes not only formatting and content (which is bad enough in HTML) but authoring information in addition

All that is just IMHO and my 2 cents.

I'll sign up a different time cos it's late in the night. 84.158.225.130 19:11, 21 March 2006 (EST) (Benjamin B.)

Notes

> Besides, I wanted to say that I don't like those ideas about using special unicode characters:

Thank you for your comments.

I realize that the Unicode Private Use Area characters would mix formatting and content and would agree that that may not be desirable at all and, for some aspects, such as font choice and type size which could sometimes or even often apply to a whole page may always not be necessary. However, if one wants to have a system whereby, say, a student types a page of text in blue and then wants to make a few of the words stand out by making them in red, it seems to me (though I am entirely ready to learn of any alternative possibility) that there is no way to do that other than by mixing formatting and content. That formatting could be done either by Unicode Private Use Area characters or by some sort of HTML-like system with someway bracketed English-like text as one prefers, but if one needs to indicate where the red ink starts and where the blue ink is again used, mixing formatting codes and content may be necessary.

William Overington 1155 GMT 22 March 2006

Version control and formatting

In a way, wiki is a version control tool. It keeps history of all the changes made, allows you to diff between any two versions of the document and to revert to an older version when needed, some versions even detect that the version you are working with is different than the last committed version and gives you a merge view when you commit yours.

So in that sense, subversion is more of an alternative than it is complementary. There is no reason that prevents us from replacing the underlaying storage mechanism in wiki (file system or database) with subversion, making use of the branching capabilities and other features that subversion provides. But some of those capabilities will need to be exposed through the UI before the usr can make use of them.

I am afraid though that it would complicate the user interface to a degree where it negatively affects the usability of the whole application. Especially that I think subversion is of little added value in this case.

Regarding formatting, unicode formatting characters seem to complicate the formatting process to the degree that wiki could loose its appeal as an easy-to-use authoring tool. If the user is interested in providing more sophisticated formatting, then CSS is where the state of the art seems to be today in regards for formatting. It is easy, clean, and seperates text from formatting (which was another objection that I read here).

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