Sometimes I think that having less choice is better than having more choice. It may depend on a person, but it can drive me crazy when I have too vast selection, and I have the need to make a choice. That’s true for all kinds of mechandise that I buy. That’s why I always look for the reviews, recommendations, and for a forgiving return policy.
I wanted a wiki for my site, as I find wiki a wonderful tool for collaborative development of ideas. I needed to make a choice, so I googled for wiki comparision tables, and reviews. I found several of them, and at first I chose MediaWiki as the most well known wiki out there. Well, after I have downloaded it and have taken a quick look around, it ticked me that it was way too big than what I imagined it would be. After careful investigation of the same comparison tables I put my finger on WikkaWiki that, compared to lots of other lightweight wiki tools is still being developed.
Installation was a breeze, quick and easy. I put a full copy of the distribution in a separate directory, and linked to it from where I wanted my wiki to be. I wanted several of them in different places and separate, and that way I was able to make that happen with ease. Everything happens on a single installation page, and after you have filled it with all necessary data, it creates the database tables for you, and initializes your wiki. The configuration file is put in the local directory, and you are free to modify it if needed.
Nothing is perfect, as you can imagine. For my installation, I wanted the wiki to be private, and for that I needed it to not allow freely available registration. There was no option to do that, so I had to hack the code, remove the registration part, and move it to a special administration page inside the wiki where I could create new users myself. Also, the defaults are set in the configuration file to allow public access to the wiki pages, and I changed it to allow registered users only. The most interesting (and somewhat disturbing) thing was that WikkaWiki creates a cookie when the user logs in, and that cookie is not linked to specific wiki, but rather to the host. That is, when you have several wiki on your site, once you log in to one of them, you get logged in to all other wiki automatically! I will see if I can fix that as that’s not quite what I want.
Nils,
I have reviewed WackoWiki now, another fork from the same ancestor, if I understand it correctly. They have this option of disabling public registration. However, I did not like it at all. The main reason was that while it disallowed registration indeed, it still offered a link to registration on the wiki’s login page. And that was the first thing I removed! Also, I frankly don’t see a point in allowing registration on the front login page when a special password is provided. It’s better be done from the inside. I made myself the administration page in the wiki that only the administrator has access to, and put the registration action there. I also put the UserAdmin action there, and waiting anxiously for the rest of its functionality to come, especially an option for deleting users when they own no important pages, and renaming users as an alternative to deleting when they do, along with disabling logins.
Looking at WackoWiki, I also noticed that they have the configuration parameter ‘cookie_prefix’, similar to ‘table_prefix’. That might be the way to go for WikkaWiki as well.
While I am in the whining mode 
, let me note one more thing here. I do miss a feature here that allows me to put tables in my wiki’s content. I almost deserted to WackoWiki because of that. I noticed lots of discussion regarding this issue on the WikkaWiki’s TableAction and TableActionInfo pages. The thing is, I need it now as I actively fill my wiki with content. A half-baked solution offered there is not an option for me as it’s quite difficult to maintain (not very readable text). I am fine with how WackoWiki does it.
Hope this one opinion (of many that you surely get on the net) will help you to further develop WikkaWiki.
Aleksey,
Thank you for your comments on Wikkawiki.
>For my installation, I wanted the wiki to be private, and for that I needed it to not allow freely available registration. >There was no option to do that,
It is true that there was no action for that, but you may want to take a look at the hacks provieded at http://wikka.jsnx.com/RegisterAction or http://wikka.jsnx.com/UserRegistration which allow you to prevent registration or registering only with the right pw
>the defaults are set in the configuration file to allow public access to the wiki pages, and I changed it to allow registered users only.
the default will be changed (to registered users) in the next version.
>The most interesting (and somewhat disturbing) thing was that WikkaWiki creates a cookie when the user logs in, >and that cookie is not linked to specific wiki,
we’ll try to solve this in one of the next versions.
I hope you have fun with your wiki, you might want to take a look at hacks from other users, provided at http://wikka.jsnx.com/CodeContributions
Greets,
Nils Lindenberg