
Ask HN: Looking for a Static wiki generator - bobcattr
I am looking for a simple static wiki (not blog) generator.  All I really need is the static generation of markdown files to be presented in a parent child fashion.  Does anything like this exist?<p>The reason being the host system is not powerful enough to run a wiki engine like dokuwiki
======
1331
It seems that the terminology is causing some confusion. The definition of a
wiki is "a website which allows its users to add, modify, or delete its
content via a web browser" [1], which is pretty much the opposite of "static."
I assume that what you want is a static site generator that has organisational
features that are common in wiki software...

My favourite wiki software is Gitit [2]. It uses Pandoc [3] to convert from an
input format (such as Markdown) to HTML. Perhaps you could write a simple
script that iterates through all source files and renders the HTML to a
destination directory using Pandoc, creating any subdirectories as required.
That minimal solution should be very easy to implement; adding organisational
markup within the HTML would require some programming.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki>

[2] <http://gitit.net/>

[3] <http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/>

------
ColinWright
I'm sure people will chime in with more information here, but you might be
interested in previous discussions of this and similar questions:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4860457>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4858436>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4857473>

~~~
bobcattr
I have searched before and didn't really come up with much that is a wiki.
Everything is a blog

~~~
ColinWright
I produced my own statically generated wiki that uses forms, email, and a cron
job to receive changes, regenerate the site, then upload the changed pages.
It's crude, old, non-standard, and definitely not what you want. When I made
it some 13 years ago there were no alternatives. Still runs, mind you.

So it's possible, and I'm sure someone has done it, but I have no suggestions.
Sorry.

 _Added in edit ..._

Have you had a look at this: <http://code.google.com/p/statwiki/> ??

Or this: <http://ikiwiki.info/> ??

Or this: <https://github.com/arthurk/pyll#readme> ??

This also has a lot of information:

[http://iwantmyname.com/blog/2011/02/list-static-website-
gene...](http://iwantmyname.com/blog/2011/02/list-static-website-
generators.html)

------
ColinWright
So if it's a wiki, how do you intend to make a change, given that it's static?
I'd be interested to see how your solution to that design issue compares with
the solution I came up with over a decade ago.

~~~
bobcattr
Through the markdown (or whatever else) files on the system via the shell.

~~~
ColinWright
I don't understand. It's a wiki. You have a collection of plain text files
with markdown or something. There's a web server. The webserver expects html.

How does the text get converted to html? What provokes the process? Do you
just initiate it by hand having changed the plain text files? If so, what's
the difference between a wiki and a static web site?

I don't understand what you're trying to achieve, and why you're calling it a
wiki.

~~~
gexla
I don't quite get it either.

Could you use something like Org mode in Emacs? Org mode has a sort of
personal wiki feel. Everything is stored as text and you can export your files
as HTML.

~~~
bobcattr
No can't use that.

