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Supported features
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Things PWP cannot
do...
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Scalability
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Feature requests
Supported features
- The various text formatting rules are described on a separate page:
TextRules
- PWP uses flat files to maintain the data, no
database is required. Every page is one data file in the data
directory. The page still contains Wiki code; HTML is created at the
moment of delivery. (You can translate Wiki code into HTML but not
re-translate HTML into Wiki code.)
- A simple cache will speed up your operations.
Every page delivered once will be stored in the cache as HTML fragment
until the file gets changed. The cached file does not contain header
and footer, you may provide dynamic output (banner :-( ) even on cached
files. A create or delete operation will erase the cache because all
other pages pointing to the created/deleted page will need new links.
The cache improves sites with much more read than create/delete
operations. You may turn off the cache using a config entry.
- The file upload page lets you store additional
content at your website. Upload images or other documents and link them
from your Wiki files.
- Every delete operation stores the Wiki pages or uploaded files in a
trash bin. If your fingers were faster than the brain,
simply unerase the file from the trash bin! You can delete files from
the trash physically after a certain period of time (config entry). You
can view files in the trash, but not edit these files.
- PWP supports a revision history. While editing a
page you decide whether your changes are bifg enough to create a new
revision. You can view and restore the old revisions of a file.
Uploaded files will also be stored in the revision history if a new
file with the same name gets uploaded again. To keep the history lean,
you can delete all files older than a certain period of time (config
entry).
- You can view recent changes, i.e. all recently
changed pages and uploaded files. 'Recently' is defined in the
configuration.
- There are two possible formats of an index file,
which lists all files created so far: A long one with date, delete
link, etc. and a short one with several entries per row. The short one
is useful if you have to maintain more than about 100 files. The index
file gets also cached.
- New in 1.4.0 Lost some information? Now you will have to
do a full text search. PWP searches in both areas, in
Wiki pages and in uploaded text files! The full text search is really
simple without any indexes and might become slow if your Wiki contains
several hundred pages. Well, hardware speed is increasing fast and time
is working for me...
- New in 1.4.0 PWP supports backlinks: A
list of all pages which link to the current page. PWP can also trace
backlinks for uploaded files. The search for backlinks is done on the
fly without indexes or similar mechanisms.
- A search for file names is available. You can type
fragments like 'ag' and a list with all matching files is presented:
'Page2', 'Age'. Search searches both, the Wiki pages and the uploaded
files.
- New in 1.4.0 A simple click on a link will generate
monthly calendar pages and an annual overview. The
calendar supports either the German (European?) week format or the US
week format where weeks start on Sundays.
- PWP can create a table of contents at the top of
each page, consisting of all H1 and H2 tags.
- New in 1.4.0 Concurrent editing? With page
locks! Any edit action will set a page lock which warns other
editors. The lock can be forced off, which will most likely result in a
conflict:
- PWP will recognize conflicts which occur if two
authors edit a document at the same time. The author who saves as
second his changes will be asked to override the changes done by the
other or to throw his changes away. (Based on the last modified time of
a file, this will not work if the server gets both 'save page' requests
within the same second.)
- New in 1.4.0 QuickEdit lets you view a
page and append, insert or prepend new text in an edit box directly on
the page. (Insert requires a special editor comment: ! --(+)-- !)
- Snippets are supported. Snippets are text
fragments, which will be appended to the end of the edit box on a
simple mouse click. See /wiki/conf/Snippets.inc.
- The whole appearance (colours, fonts) is controlled by a simple
style sheet (CSS). New in 1.4.0: You can now
add your own style sheet in second place, overwriting the default
settings.
- If configured, the web pages are delivered as zipped data
stream, making the Wiki faster on the internet.
- Save the best thing for last: PWP can create static web
pages with a different header and footer. All links on these
static pages will point to HTML pages, not to a PHP script. The static
files are combined with a snapshot of the uploaded files - you can
change them at any time without risking dead links. New in
1.4.0: PWP can delete and re-create outdated static pages. This
feature will speed up the process but might result in dead links if
there is no full update of the static contents from time to time.
Things PWP cannot do...
- There is no diff. The history will tell you about
the change of the Wiki page size in bytes.
- You cannot rename files.
- Comments on changes are not supported. You may
store comments inside a Wiki page itself (see TextRules).
- There is no user management. The Wiki runs either
totally open or relies on the user management your web server offers.
If you are lucky, your web provider has a (simple) web based tool for
user management. In most other cases you will have to write a
'.htaccess' file, supported by the apache web server and others
servers. You don't know about '.htaccess'? Look at »http://www.apache.org and search the
documentation. For more details about security see Installation.
- PWP does not support an e-mail notify
feature.
- The concept of subpages achieved by /PageName is
not supported.
Scalability
These chapters start often with
'Theoretically...unlimited...'. Well, not theory but usability is the
thing which counts! An average response time over 0.2 seconds for the
script execution is not acceptable. This Wiki will be able to handle up
to
400..600 pages, depending on the hardware. This is
about as much information as 4..6 books. Additionally, about
150..300 uploaded files are supported. It is prepared to
run on cheap web packages. Please tell me, if you have trouble with fewer
pages/files or your Wiki handles much more pages/files.
If you want to manage more pages, consider using a database backed
Wiki. Such a system will also be able to rename pages and provide a
faster full text search - a thing a database is built for! But make sure
the system supports split index pages and lists (e.g. 50 entries per
page). Otherwise you will not be able to use a lot of files!
Why are only so few pages supported?
Several operations like list views and search have to iterate over all
files in one or even two directories. With too much Wiki pages and
uploaded files PWP will react slowly.
PWP features no list view broken up into several pages. At a certain
point the list view becomes long and slow.
PWP will run into a script timeout (30 seconds default) if you create
really much static pages. At first, all uploaded files are copied into
the static pages directory. Then all Wiki pages become transformed into
HTML and are saved in the static pages directory. The critical amount of
files depends on your hardware and the underlying software. (The script
timeout does not matter regarding the functional aspect; just call again
the static pages function and PWP will continue it's task!)
Feature requests
I do not plan to implement various new features like user management,
database support, e-mail notify, etc. PWP will stay a simple and easy to
use Wiki - unless you make use of the GPL and re-write or extend the
code.
If you have found bugs or ideas for small and simple improvements: Let
me know!
»mailto:wiki@lars-ackermann.de
