Wiclear wiki

• http://wiclear.free.fr/

"Wiclear is a Wiki engine. That is, a software to create web sites where content is freely editable online. Wiclear is in early development and has few features, compared to more advanced projects like WikiNi, MediaWiki or other well known wiki engines."

-- Contributors: SteffenPoulsen

Discussion

At times lately there has been some thoughts on whether the customers really are satisfied with a simple wiki or whether they need an advanced wiki. To that end I was reading a recent blog entry on selection of a wiki which clearly fell out in favour of a very simply wiki; the Wiclear wiki.

The blog author relatively quickly testdrives quite a few wikis, being: MediaWiki, PMWiki, UseModWiki, phpWiki, DokuWiki, TikiWiki, TWiki, Backpack, Basecamp and Projectforum, before deciding to go with Wiclear.

There is not much elaboration on why TWiki was elected out, but it appears it was due to difficulties in theming/skinning and adding a desired navigation structure. The basic requirements he worked with was:

• Apply a customized style sheet
• Customize the section navigation
• Customize the page elements
• Customize the heading
• Set up test users
• Enter test content
• Set up appropriate help documentation for a wiki-nubi.

It is clear what made Wiclear so attractive in this case; a very simple file layout with a lot of "everything in one file", and a familar feel for a user that is experienced with php+mysql. As an example skinning Wiclear is a matter of handling one .php file and one .css file - and these are even laid out in the same directory. (Eventual images for the skin go to /images below this).

I'm in doubt how much we are to envy these "simple" wikis - the users selecting them do it for various reasons and I am not sure the criteria used for selection are always that well thought out. In this example I am of course curious what happens when Wiclear really catches on, and his users start asking for more.

-- SteffenPoulsen - 25 Jul 2006