gnufoo
Instiki patches

Instiki is the software that I am using to run this site, and as such I've been trying to make it do what I want. For instance, I've been integrating the bare minimum to allow easily for blogging. Here is the list of changes that I have made. You can see some of them in action on the wiki behind this site.

I am pursuing this project mainly because I think the wiki is broader and more general than the blog, and that the wiki can subsume the blog. I have tried to add conservatively to Instiki. I think it's a great project, and much of its greatness comes from its simplicity. I hope that my additions do not take away from that.

Features

Here is a list of the features in my Instiki patches.

• Blogging features

  • Added tag [[!include-blog-view CategoryName]]

  Shows the pages in the given category in most recent order of creation in a generic blog-like view. These can be included on any page, and although my intent is for using it as a blog there are probably other interesting uses.

  • Added tag [[!include-blog-archive CategoryName]]

  Makes the pages in a given category available by month and year, which is typical for blogs.

  • Blog pages are not special. They are just instiki pages.

• Added commenting facility

  • Comment pages are also not special.
  • Any page can be commented on, including comments.
  • Handles nested comment threads
  • There are some unresolved Commenting implementation issues
  • Commenting can an be turned on in the edit web page (off by default).

  I added commenting mainly for the blogging feature, but it's completely orthogonal to blogging. It works on any page including blog pages and comments.

• Added a preview to the edit page, which is pretty handy.

  I hated having to lose context between seeing what I wanted to change and going to find it. Or similarly, wanting to see what I just changed without losing my place.

• All the hot-keys, such as Ctrl-S to submit a page, now have tooltips to help users find them.

• Added html export with layout

  This is good for using the wiki as a content management system and still having the original wiki feel and aesthetic. I think the html export feature used to do this by default but was changed.

I have submitted a patch against the trunk for the blogging feature. And I intend to submit patches for the other features soon, especially the preview feature since I think that's the least controversial and most useful of them.

Source Code

Here is the source code: instiki-2007-09-04.tgz

Here is the darcs repository, from which you can also browse the source code: instiki