

Ask HN: A simple wiki which supports Markdown syntax? - boundlessdreamz

I'm looking for a wiki which has the following features<p>* supports markdown syntax
* Written in PHP/Python/Ruby/Java
* Allows only authenticated and approved users to make edits (approved = all users have to approved by an admin) 
* Free<p>Mediawiki does support all the above with extensions but it is a beast :)<p>Even if a wiki doesn't support markdown, please do comment. I would like to know of all the alternatives. Any experiences with Docuwiki/TikiWiki/MoinMoin?
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cmelbye
Dokuwiki and pmwiki are both very nice, hackable, lean wikis.

I have a question on this subject, though. For a wiki (not a blog post, etc),
do you guys prefer WYSIWYG, markdown, textile, creole
(<http://wikicreole.org/>), or something else?

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boundlessdreamz
I prefer both markdown and WYSIWYG

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cmelbye
Oh yeah, forgot about WYSIWYG. Definitely my first choice, but it can be very
difficult and buggy to implement.

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applicative
Gitit rules; I don't know if it counts as simple, and it certainly doesn't
count as "written in PHP/Python/Ruby/Java" -- are you sure you need that?:

"Gitit (<http://gitit.net>) is a wiki backed by a git or darcs filestore.
Pages and uploaded files can be modified either directly via the VCS’s
command-line tools or through the wiki’s web interface. Pandoc is used for
markup processing, so pages may be written in (extended) markdown,
reStructuredText, LaTeX, HTML, or literate Haskell, and exported in ten
different formats, including LaTeX, ConTeXt, DocBook, RTF, OpenOffice ODT, and
MediaWiki markup."

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boundlessdreamz
This is awesome and is something that didn't come up while googling. Is there
a way to only approved users to edit the wiki? I didn't get that info after
reading README

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applicative
There are several ways to adjust access. The easiest way to limit editors is
with the 'access-question' field in the configuration file; if you use the
field, then the "question" must be answered by anyone setting up an account.

# Example: # access-question: What is the code given to you by Ms. X? #
access-question-answers: RED DOG, red dog

See <http://github.com/jgm/gitit/blob/master/data/default.conf>

Or see, e.g. [http://groups.google.com/group/gitit-
discuss/msg/e07fcabd70b...](http://groups.google.com/group/gitit-
discuss/msg/e07fcabd70bd7495)

On patch-tag.com (which hosts darcs projects) the gitit wikis are set up
differently, with the natural default that they are only editable by members
of the project. You might sign up there with an arbitrary 'test project' so
you could try out the wiki mechanism. (Many users just use it for the wiki,
apparently, though I can't point to an example.)

(The patch-tag gitit wikis are the only publicly accessible gitit wikis I've
used regularly. I use a git-backed gitit wiki locally for everything; it's
awesome because of the connection to Pandoc and the indifference between
LaTeX/HTML/RTF output).

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sqrt17
IMO, dokuwiki works fine. Reasonably easy to install as a Ubuntu package, has
several authentication plugins. And it doesn't look ugly.

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zacharyvoase
I’m the creator of Markdoc (<http://markdoc.org/>), which is pretty simple
(bias bias bias bias) but it's just plain-text files in a directory, which
means you’ll need to be comfortable with a text editor and a version control
system.

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jackowayed
On this topic, is there a good place to ask "does this exist?" where you'll
get good answers. Like, when I'm about to start hacking on something, I'll
Google around a little, but sometimes I find out after I start/finish that it
already exists in a reasonably-good form. An Ask HN thread every once in
awhile I guess would be ok, but it seems like overkill in many cases,
especially if not many people would really be interested in the answer.

I guess ideal would be a piece of HN just for that that doesn't end up on the
homepage, but some people would look over them once a day or so and see if
they do know of something that exists.

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giantfuzzypanda
I don't think you can really do much better than Google. If the
competitor/originator isn't on the first few pages, then you have an advantage
even if you weren't the first one to make it.

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jackowayed
If you're talking startups, I agree. But sometimes it's just some little
library/tool that I need, and I'll spend an afternoon writing it and put it on
GitHub if it doesn't exist, but if it does, I'd rather just use that than
waste my time.

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joeyh
Ikiwiki uses markdown in plain text files, and can be configured to lock all
pages and only allow specific users to edit specific pages (configuration for
that would look like locked_pages => "* and !user(foo) and !user(bar) and
!admin()"). It's written, unapologetically, in Perl.

It is used as the wiki for projects including Dragonfly BSD, NetBSD, GNU Hurd,
Monotone, Cario, etc.

<http://ikiwiki.info/>

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karanbhangui
<http://jottit.com> does all this and more. It's a hosted solution, not sure
if you're looking for something to install.

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tptacek
Instiki had all those attributes; it's certainly easier to set up than
Mediawiki, but there has to be a more recent answer to this problem.

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boundlessdreamz
I looked at instiki, but it didn't seem like it had a facility where an admin
needs to approve the users before they can edit. Is that the case?

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tptacek
Our very first revision of Playbook was built on Instiki, and if I remember
correctly, it had user registration.

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wbond
A colleague and I are currently working on Noted (<http://notedwiki.com>),
which matches what you are looking for, except that we are planning on
charging when it launches. It is currently in development, but we are going to
be looking for beta testers soon, which may provide an opportunity for a free
or discount copy.

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bradgessler
Does anybody know of a markdown git-backed wiki?

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applicative
Gitit (<http://github.com/jgm/gitit>) uses git by default. (But it now also
supports darcs and mercurial: the darcs version is used by the wikis on
<http://patch-tag.com/> and, unsurprisingly, by the darcs wiki
<http://wiki.darcs.net/> )

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davidw
<http://dedawiki.dedasys.com> does: Markdown, is written in Rails and is
pretty simple to hack. It's available under the Apache license (BSD style,
basically). It could use some work, but it does do what you asked, and is
fairly simple to hack on if you need something more.

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synack
I wrote this one a while ago and still use it for my own projects. Written in
Python, uses Markdown syntax, and is fairly easy to hack on and add features.
Still haven't gotten around to adding decent version control though.

<http://github.com/synack/nikiwiki>

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avinashv
tptacek mentioned <http://instiki.org> which has all your features. It's a
good wiki if you're happy with a Ruby solution, and Markdown/Textile
formatting is native.

A PHP-solution is PmWiki, and getting Markdown support via plugin is outlined
here: <http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/MarkdownMarkupExtension>

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erikpukinskis
<http://gist.github.com/363190>

ruby lilwiki.rb

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savant
nice. was going to comment on it before you shoved it into a gist that you
should gist it.

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erikpukinskis
:)

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nailer
Are you users computer programmers? If not, I'd suggest avoiding the need to
learn markup languages. There are WYSIWYG plugins for most wikis.

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applicative
This is the miracle of Markdown: everyone basically already knows it. I have
read more than one story like this

<http://atendesigngroup.com/blog/what-it-not-what-it-looks>

where programmers thought _Of course, these naive non-programmers will want
WYSIWYG_ \-- but in fact they preferred Markdown once they found it.

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nailer
Really? I program and I've spent a while fixing non-obvious markdown errors. I
believe that was the whole reason it was forked by markdownsharp. How would
learning any language be easier than not learning anything at all?

