MediaWiki

MediaWiki (http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/) is the Wiki used by the WikiPedia project and others. MediaWiki is written in PHP and uses MySQL as a data store.

See

• ComparisonOfMediaWikiToTWiki
• http://www.mediawiki.org
• http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_architecture
• Wiki:MediaWiki
• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_User%27s_Guide:_Installation

-- JohnTalintyre - 26 Feb 2004

MediaWiki is gaining a huge amount of development momentum due to the popularity of WikiPedia. That combined with a very large user-base for feedback, has produced, IMHO, the best usability of any wiki. I would love to see TWiki steal emulate some of MediaWiki's features and general design principles (possibly including them into core).

Here's a list of some of MediaWiki's more notable features with notes of parallel TWiki developments. The intention is not wiki-envy but wiki-cross-fertilization. I think Mediawiki's implementation of some of these features is well worth looking at for ideas for parallel TWiki efforts. Feel free to add features and comments.

• TabInterface for different views of a topic (discussion, edit, history, etc)
• Side-by-side diffs
• Edit summary which is shown in "Recent changes" - see AllowDesignationOfSummary. Note: this refers to case of summary comment on most recent edit, not the overall topic.
• Namespacesallow content separation (to address the namespace, use the Namespace:Page title syntax).
• Link to individual sections - See ImplicitNamedSections, NamedIncludeSections, FineGrainedAddressing
• Section editing - see SectionalEditPlugin, ImplementSubPageEdit
• Automatic signature without copy and paste.
• Talk pages - Clearer separation of DocumentMode and ThreadMode as part of architecture.
• Users can configure their timezone - see ShowLocalTimeOfUser

-- LynnwoodBrown - 05 Aug 2004

I would add that one of slickest features in MediaWiki is the way it manipulates metada, categories can be created on the fly and are inserted in the editer text. You can create new categories and sub-categories very easily, this one of the slickest way I have found in the Wikis I know to organize your information. Yes, I know there is templates in TWiki, but MediaWiki categories are easier to use.

-- KhalidHASSANI - 29 Oct 2004

WikiPedia has a FireFoxExtension - quite neat: http://www.bananeweizen.de/

-- MartinCleaver - 08 Nov 2004

TWiki has it too, FirefoxExtensionAddOn

-- PeterThoeny - 12 Nov 2004

What I would definitely like to see is a tool to migrate from MediaWiki to TWiki (an entire Wiki site or even just pages, since the markup is different).

-- SebastienBarre - 02 Feb 2005

See related converters DolphinToTWikiAddOn, GenericWikiToTWikiAddOn, JSPwikiToTWikiAddOn, KwikiToTWikiAddOn, UseModWikiToTWikiAddOn, ZwikiToTWikiAddOn.

If you make progress, we are looking forward to see your MediaWikiToTWikiAddOn converter posted on TWiki.org

-- PeterThoeny - 03 Feb 2005

Please see MediaWikiHistoryAndComparisonInTWiki, I'm hoping we can knock off the part of the MediaWiki features there (and the ones that I need the most).

-- MattEngland - 09 Apr 2005

From my ISP (Dreamhost):

Posted: Apr 7th, 2005 - 01:47:38 PM PST (6 days 13 hours ago)

Hey again!

So, now you've checked out http://wiki.dreamhost.com/ and it's awesome, so you want your OWN wiki on your site. But... you have no idea how to install one!

Well, you're in luck.. we've just added "MediaWiki" - the open source PHP- based wiki software behind wiki.dreamhost.com and the wikipedia - to our one click installs area:

https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=goodies.installer

So go and try it IMMEDIATELY!

Thanks, The Happy DreamHost Wiki Woo Wonk Team

Hard to beat that... But it means Wiki is becoming mainstream.

-- ArthurClemens - 14 Apr 2005