[pmwiki-users] Looking for articles/reviews about PmWiki

Eric Forgeot eforgeot at gmail.com
Mon Oct 3 00:58:04 CDT 2011


I was writting something about this, just before receiving Josh's post.

It was a really interesting testimony, especially because I think quite
the same :)


- Is it still relevant now to go toward the wiki direction, instead of CMS?
 - Most success stories
(http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/SuccessStories), at least the 4 first
ones and some more I randomly picked up, seem to use PmWiki as either a
CMS, or as a wiki with restricted rights only (login / password)
 - "Real" wikis, with no restriction, are quickly vandalised, and
require much work to maintain
 - Yet wiki can be userful for some projects, or for intranet. Many users
problably still expect PmWiki to behave like a wiki.

Would it be too complicated to distribute 2 versions of PmWiki, one for
traditional wikis, and the other for more traditional websites ? Or only
one version, but with different settings so we can quickly choose one
way or the other?

I'm not talking about removing wiki functionalities, but about enhancing
the parts as framework for designing website.

After customised PmWiki with my favorite settings, I think it was quite
a long (but interesting) task.

I think this at least could be improved, or arranged to help the users:

- After using the password only authentication, I thought it would be
wiser for my website to use a login/password. I don't know how the brute
force is possible, but with only one password and no username, it may be
easier to scan for the password. I've looked at
http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/AuthUser but it might be quite tedious
to set up. Maybe proposing by default the couple username/password (with
an option to password only) would help.

- Most actions, such as edit, history and such, could be hidden for
readers. A discrete login link (or a login page) could replace this. It
could be quite frustrating to most reader since they can't edit the
pages. When I visit my town's website, I'm not proposed to edit the
pages or login as admin.

- Adding facilities such as index to pages (
http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/DictIndex ), TOC (
http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/PageTableOfContents )?

- The documentation is a bit confused, we don't really see what is
important at first, and what is less important. The WikiLinks problably
help to circulate too much between the pages, adding to the confusion.


> It's a great product, but it ships in an unappealing packaging.

- As discussed, the default theme and website should look more
attractive, and hopefully this might change in the future. See this:
http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PITS/01265

>  From a brand management point of view, the brand name PmWiki is not really a benefit, as it reduces the cms to a wiki.


Probably it's too late to change now. It's already known as PmWiki, and
besides it's short and easy to remember. I quite like the name.
Wikipedia and mediawiki has the word wiki in it, and they are well known
and widespread even for normal websites (in case of mediawiki).






More information about the pmwiki-users mailing list