This is a short introductory training course for TWiki beginners.

Slide 1: A Taste of TWiki

The basic function of TWiki is a Wiki (if that helps!) A Wiki is like a web site, except that you can edit the content in your browser "Wiki" is short for "wiki wiki", the Hawaiian for "Quick" The idea originates from Macintosh Hypercard, via Ward Cunningham In Ward's words, Wiki is "the simplest online database that could possibly work" A Wiki is basically a shared, online, persistent whiteboard

Slide 2: TWiki Wiki

TWiki implements the basic Wiki idea of a shared whiteboard Anyone can add content ... or change what is written ... or change the organisation of the content Whatever what you write is ... nicely presented ... remembered... and never forgotten

TWiki also acts as an "application platform" to integrate a number of other functions.

TWiki is an Open-Source development on TWiki.org

• led by TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
• with over 100 regular contributors in many countries

Slide 3: Where is it used?

TWiki is mainly used in commercial environments, often on corporate intranets

• Examples: Disney, British Telecom, SAP, Wind River, Motorola, Epic Games
  

A number of public Wiki sites also use TWiki

• Examples:
  https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/
  http://csci.mrs.umn.edu/twiki/view

Slide 4: TWiki Features

TWiki builds on the original Wiki concept and adds a number of features that make it very useful in a business environment.

• TWiki pages are fully revision controlled, so a record of every change to every page is kept

  r6 < r5 < r4

• The look-and-feel is highly configurable, through use of templates

A "plugins" interface eases customisation extension application integration

Slide 5: Applications of basic TWiki

Basic TWiki can be used as:

• A whiteboard
• A document repository
• A collaborative authoring environment
• A notebook / scrapbook
• A chat room

Slide 6: Extended applications

TWiki-with-extensions has been used as:

• A Content Management System (CMS) for websites
• A presentation development tool
• A Blog
• A database
• A project management system
• A tracking tool
• (truth is, we don't really know its limits!)

Slide 7: Structure of a TWiki page

TWiki pages are usually organised into three parts:

• A header
• A body
• A footer

• The header and the footer are generated by the system
• The body contains the text of the page, as entered by you

TWiki is very configurable, and the look can change. However the essentials will all be there on the page (somewhere!)

Slide 8: The Page Header

The header of a TWiki page is generally highlighted in colour, and will usually contain an icon that gives you an idea of where you are, such as a company logo.

	MyCo.MyTopic	Webs: Myco | Main | TWiki | Sandbox
	Changes | Index | Search | Jump

It will also usually contain a number of 'links' that you can click on. You will generally see:

• Changes - gives you a list of recent changes
• Index - gives you a full index
• Search - takes you to a search page, where you can search all the text
• Jump - lets you type in the name of a page you already know

Slide 9: The Page Header ... continued

	MyCo.MyTopic	Webs: Myco | Main | TWiki | Sandbox
	Changes | Index | Search | Jump

You may also see in the header a list of the TWiki "webs". A web is a collection of pages that are related closely together

• For example, we might have a web called "Enemies", where we keep all we know about our enemies, and another called "Friends"
• There's usually a safe play web called something like "Sandbox" or "Scratch", where you can create pages just to try things out
• And some admin areas, like "Main" and "TWiki04x03"

Slide 10: The Page Footer

The footer of the page is also highlighted in colour, and is usually where you will find the links that let you change the content.

Edit | Raw edit | Attach | History | r2 > r1 | More topic actions
Revision r2 - 13 Feb 2004 - 09:09 GMT - TWikiPresenter	Ideas, requests, problems regarding TWiki? Send feedback Copyright © 1999-2010 by the contributing authors. All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.

• The Edit link takes you to an interactive page where you can change the page content
• The Raw Edit link takes you to a page where you can edit the text source manually
• The Attach link lets you attach files
• The other links invoke other, more complex, functions, mainly to do with revision tracking - they can safely be ignored for now

Slide 11: Editing Pages

• You've read a page, and you disagree with it violently! It says:
  Everyone knows that the world is an OblateSpheroid
  But you know for a fact it is flat!
• You've clicked the Edit link, and an edit page has appeared that looks a little different than what was on the page before - there are even some strange hieroglyphics!
• Now what?

Slide 12: What's in a page

• The hieroglyphics might either be what's known as "TWiki Markup" or "formatting", or HTML, the markup language used for websites.
• They are a really simple way of telling the browser how you want the page to look
• The rest of the text should be simple, formatted text.
  • TWiki understands pages in plain text just fine.
    
    Actually it is perfectly and absolutely flat
    
    appears as
    
    Actually it is perfectly and absolutely flat

Slide 13: Formatting just makes pages prettier

... and easier to read

• There are basically two ways for text formatting
  • using an editor (that's where you get to when clicking on the Edit link) or
  • using TWikiShorthand (that's where you get to when clicking ot the Raw Edit link)

An example for TWikiShorthand might be:

_Actually_ it is *perfectly* and __absolutely__ flat

appears as

Actually it is perfectly and absolutely flat

• A full description of all the formatting can be found in the TextFormattingRules and TextFormattingFAQ
• The best thing to do is just to type until you get stuck
  • then follow the link on the edit page to the help.

Slide 14: Commonly used formatting using TWikiShorthand

TWiki understands pages in plain text just fine, but you can jazz them up using some simple formatting shortcuts. Here are some of the more commonly used ones:

• ---+ indicates a heading. Add more +'s for a deeper heading.

You type You see ---+ This is a heading This is a heading ---++ And so is this And so is this

• %TOC% will insert a table of contents
  

Slide 15: More common formatting using TWikiShorthand

• A blank line gives a paragraph break
  
• --- on a line of its own gives a horizontal bar
• Text in stars *like this* looks like this
  
• Text in underscores _like this_ looks like this
  
• Text in equals signs =like this= looks like this
  
• Bulleted lists use three spaces followed by an asterisk (*) at the start of the line
  • The depth of the bullet is given by the number of spaces, in multiples of three

You type You see    * Bullet       * Sub-bullet Bullet Sub-bullet

• Numbered lists use a number in place of the *. The list is numbered automatically, so you can just use a 1

Slide 16: Even more.....

• You can create a table using vertical bars:

     | Cat | Feline |
     | Bear | Ursine |
     | Wolf | Lupine |

• appears as

Cat Feline Bear Ursine Wolf Lupine

• %RED% .... %ENDCOLOR% will change the colour of the enclosed text. Lots of colours are available (%RED%, %GREEN%, %BLUE% etc)

Slide 17: WikiWords

• One special hieroglyph that is very important is a BumpyWord
  • a word that starts with uppercase, then some lowercase, then more uppercase (a.k.a CamelCase)
• This has a special meaning to TWiki; if it matches the name of another topic, TWiki will automatically create a link to that page for you.
• If there is no such page, then the word is highlighted and a question mark is put after the word, LikeThis
• If you click on the question mark, then TWiki will invite you to create that page.

• This lets you enter the names of topics you think should exist, but don't yet
  • You, or someone else, can always come along later and click on the question mark!

Slide 18: Referencing other pages and URLs

• BumpyWords automatically link to the target page
  • You can make these links easier to read using square brackets:
    • [[BumpyWords][bumpy words]] appears as bumpy words
• An ordinary URL pasted into text will appear as a link - http://www.google.com
  • You can also prettify URLs using square brackets:
    • [[http://www.google.com/][Google]] appears as Google
• Use %SEARCH. This is an interface to a sophisticated search engine that embeds the results of the search in your page. See TWikiVariables for full details.

Slide 19: More formatting

• There's lots more formatting available, see TextFormattingRules and TextFormattingFAQ
• If you are a real masochist, you can even enter raw HTML tags!
• Important to disable unwanted formatting, use <nop>
  • <nop>_word_ appears as _word_

Slide 20: Relax!

• You got totally confused by all the different formatting rules you just learned?
• Don't worry - for the very beginning, using the text editor (so just touching the Edit link instead of the Raw Edit link) should be just fine.
• Figure out how everything works and then come back to TWikiShorthand.

Slide 21: Creating new pages

• Alternative ways:
  • Click on the question mark after a BumpyWord
  • Type in the name of the topic in the "Jump:" box
  • Type in the name of the topic in the URL
• Any time you try to visit a page that doesn't exist, TWiki will invite you to create it.
• Make sure the names of topics are always BumpyWords.

Slide 22: Attachments

• Attachments are files which have been uploaded and attached to a TWiki page using the 'Attach' function in the footer.

Attachment	Action	Size	Date	Who	Comment
myco.gif	manage	9.6 K	13 Feb 2004 - 18:41	MushroomMagicMan	Attached image file

• Attachments are simply files, in whatever format you want.
• TWiki recognises some file formats, notably image files (.gif)
  • Write %ATTACHURL%/myco.gif to see this:

Slide 23: Wiki Culture

Enough about mechanics; how is a wiki actually used ? Well, that's really up to you, but there are a number of tricks that the wiki community has developed for collaborative writing that work pretty well:

• What can I edit?
  • Anything. But it's good etiquette to sign your contributions
  • If someone doesn't want you to edit a page, it's up to them to say so, clearly, on the page
• But what if somebody doesn't like my edits?
  • In TWiki, they can always recover the old revision and re-instantiate it if they really want to
  • Otherwise they should regard your changes as an opportunity for discussion
• Pages in wiki are (usually) in one of three "modes"
  • DocumentMode
  • ThreadMode
  • StructuredMode

TWiki doesn't automatically distinguish between these modes; they are purely semantic.

Slide 24: DocumentMode

• A page in DocumentMode usually comprises a contribution which is written in the third person and left unsigned.
• The piece of text is community property
  • It may have multiple and changing authors as it is updated to reflect the community consensus.

Slide 25: ThreadMode

• Thread mode is a form of discussion where the community holds a conversation
• The discussion usually starts out with a statement, at the top of the page, that is subsequently discussed
• The page may be periodically "refactored" (edited) to remove some of the comments
  • As long as the comment is accurately reflected in what replaces it, nobody usually minds.
  • Remember to always maintain a complete list of contributors, though!

You may see a comment box on a page in ThreadMode that makes it easy to quickly add your inputs. Typing in a comment and adding it to a page this way is known as "blogging"

• ThreadMode is rather like an e-mail thread
  • Except that new comments are usually added to the end
• ThreadMode pages often get refactored into DocumentMode

Slide 26: StructuredMode

• A page in StructuredMode follows some predefined structure for example
  • An agenda
  • A set of meeting minutes
  • A requirement description.
• Pages in StructuredMode will usually have rules governing how they are edited.

Slide 27: Other Wiki tricks - Categories

• A Wiki trick for grouping pages together
• Example: to group together a set of pages all relating to the weather:
  1. Create a page called 'CategoryWeather'
  2. Put a SEARCH that contains the word 'CategoryWeather' into it
     • %SEARCH{"CategoryWeather" nosearch="on" nosummary="on"}%
  3. Put the BumpyWord 'CategoryWeather' on all the pages relating to the weather
     (usually at the bottom, below a horizontal bar)

Slide 28: Contributed features

Basic TWiki is rich with features, but is enriched even further by the addition of optional plug-in modules that may (or may not!) be installed in your TWiki. These are classified as either skins (modules that change the look-and-feel) and plugins (modules that enhance functionality).

Here's a brief description of some of the more common plugins, together with the tags you might expect to see in topics if they are used. You can find out more by visiting the plugin pages.

• ActionTrackerPlugin: Support action tags in topics, with automatic notification of action statuses %ACTION...
• CalendarPlugin: Show a monthly calendar with highlighted events %CALENDAR...%
• CommentPlugin: Support rapid entry of short comments (also known as blogging) %COMMENT...
• ChartPlugin: Create PNG or GIF charts to visualize data in TWiki tables %CHART...
• EditTablePlugin: Edit TWiki tables using edit fields and drop down boxes %EDITTABLE...
• InterwikiPlugin: Define shortcuts for links to common external sites

Slide 29: More plugins

• RenderListPlugin: Render bullet lists in a variety of formats %RENDERLIST...
• SlideShowPlugin: Create web based presentations based on topics with headings %SLIDESHOWSTART...
• SpreadSheetPlugin: Add spreadsheet calculations like "$SUM( $ABOVE() )" to tables located in TWiki topics %CALC...
• TablePlugin: Control presentation and sorting of tables %TABLE...
• TWikiDrawPlugin: Add quick sketches to pages %DRAWING...

The following plugins are installed on this TWiki: SpreadSheetPlugin, CommentPlugin, BlackListPlugin, ChartPlugin, EditTablePlugin, GaugePlugin, GeoLookupPlugin, HeadlinesPlugin, InterwikiPlugin, LocalCityTimePlugin, PerlDocPlugin, PreferencesPlugin, RenderListPlugin, ShareMePlugin, SlideShowPlugin, SmiliesPlugin, TWikiDrawPlugin, TWikiNetSkinPlugin, TWikiOrgPlugin, TablePlugin, TagMePlugin, TinyMCEPlugin, TwistyPlugin, VarCachePlugin, WysiwygPlugin

There are many other plugins, see http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins

Slide 30: Credits and Acknowledgements

• This training was developed by TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie on behalf of Oxamer, one of the companies in the Oxford Gene Technology group.
• Valuable contributions were also received from the TWiki Open Source community; special mentions go to:
  • TWiki:Main.WalterMundt
  • TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit
• The latest version of this presentation is available at TWiki:TWiki.ATasteOfTWiki, where you can also provide feedback

Related topics: WelcomeGuest, TWikiTutorial, ATasteOfTWikiTemplate

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Comments & Questions about this Distribution Document Topic

*Note:* Don't be alarmed if your comments disappear pretty quickly! I'm refactoring regularly, and will only leave comments I don't agree with in the comment section. So if your comment has gone, it's because I agreed, accepted it and refactored the presentation accordingly - CrawfordCurrie

Note that the presentation has to sit on the fence between an on-line presentation, and a slide presentation, so it is wordier than I would like. Any suggestions on how to improve on this would be welcome. The presentation is not intended as a replacement for TWikiTutorial, it lies somewhere between that (very limited) self-help tutorial and the detailed documentation.

This training is public domain, and as such please feel free to link to it.

-- CrawfordCurrie

I noticed that some slides have too much content with regular font size on a 1024x768 screen, a typical projector resolution. I think I fixed them all, but please raise this again if it is still happening. -- CC

-- PeterThoeny - 18 Mar 2004

I made some cosmetic changes to make the text more XHTML clean.

-- PeterThoeny - 14 Aug 2004

As a Twiki newbie, I would suggest that slides 27 and 28 should have the trailing %FEATURENAME...% removed. It tells me nothing about the syntax, and it doesn't provide a link to more details. The descriptions are fine on their own.

-- NeilHerber - 18 Nov 2004

For some reason the inclusion of the GIF is not working properly at slide 21 on this page.

It says "type {this} to see {this}" and {this} is exactly what is displayed (instead of the GIF)

-- MartinGregory - 13 Jan 2005

Neil and Martin, thanks for the feedback, is now changed. Since it is a Wiki you could do that yourself

-- PeterThoeny - 07 Oct 2005

I would add information about the use of the Tool Bar to create tables

-- TWikiGuest - 20 Nov 2005

This might also be of interest: TWikiApplicationsTutorial.

-- PankajPant - 05 Jul 2006

In Slide 27's listing the list ActionTrackerPlugin contains a word 'statii' which is some what confusing

-- PraveenKumarJavvaji - 04 Dec 2006

Thanks. Corrected.

-- ArthurClemens - 04 Dec 2006

The Merriam-Webster dictionary documents "statuses". The plural form "Statii" is derived from Latin, and is still commonly used. Google results:

• Status: 604,000,000
• Statuses: 2,610,000
• Statii: 1,110,000

-- PeterThoeny - 05 Dec 2006

Will anybdy tell me that what is the difference between the topics and web ? This question is totally related to the TWiki access control . If i do something in the topic then i have to give the permissions path in that topic and for the web i can do some chnges in the web preferences only ? Is it so ? Please help me ...................

-- ArunGarg - 03 Jul 2007

a web is an area of collaboration which consits of a number of topics (web pages) about that collabaration area.

Scenario1: If JohnDoe is not allowed to access the MyPersonalWeb he can't view or edit any of the topics in that web.

Scenario2: JohnDoe is allowed to access the MyPersonalWeb but on YourPersonalTopic you can define that he's allowed to view but not to edit that topic.

Have a look at TWikiAccessControl or go to the Support web for more questions.

-- CarloSchulz - 03 Jul 2007

Slide 16 is incorrect. It lists Wolf as Vulpine but Vulpine relates to Foxes. Wolves are Lupine or Canine.

-- JulianSegal - 02 Jan 2008

Thanks. This is now checked in.

-- PeterThoeny - 05 Jan 2008

Hey Crawford, I just refactored your presentation a bit. Mainly on the content, tweaking it a little so that it's closer to TWiki 4.2 now.

I wasn't sure how much you liked your header and footer design, so I left if as it

In case you disagree with my changes, just hop to TWikiTutorial Just kidding!

-- SebastianKlus - 02 Aug 2008

It's great!!!!

-- AlbertKAZADIMUKENGABANTU - 2010-02-16