Twiki + BlosxomWeblog

These two programs complement each other very nicely. It would be good to see them brought together.

TWiki

Strengths

• Automatic linking (http:,ftp:,etc., WikiWords)
• easy markup (strong , emphasis ,etc.)
• Running record of all topic edits (change history)
• simple storage format (plain text on hard drive)
• Attachments, inline images
• mature plugin API

Weaknesses

In TWiki, Webs and TWikiForms have arisen to deal with this issue. However they only help so much.

• Webs offer one level of organisation and they are a great help, but still quite crude. Witness the long and involved discussions of HierarchicallyNestedTwikiWebs and related topics. Also the (admittedly outstanding) implementations of the KoalaSkin and MegaTWiki.

• TWiki.TWikiForms offer a finer degree of control and many more categories for sorting than webs. However they are quite difficult to setup properly and once setup require a high degree of manual intervention to maintain. For example, what would it take to move/add all the topics in Support which are only relevant to AthensRelease to a new PreviousVersions category?

Blosxom

Strengths

• has the standard blog features: front page rolling news items, with older posts available by date; RSS feed, trackback links (not yet released)
• uses plain text and the filesystem for storage, like TWiki
• uses the filesystem for organisation, unlike TWiki
• dead simple, one cgi <10K in size; <= 135 lines of actual code
• has a developing plugin API

Weaknesses

• no automatic linking, no formatting -- all these tasks are accomplished by manually typing html code
• has a developing plugin API
• doesn't do all those other wonderful twiki things (attachments, change recording, etc.)

Just think how easy it would be to manage topics if all it took to move all the topics in Support which are only relevant to AthensRelease to a new PreviousVersions category was a simple:

   mv *athens* /Support/releases/previous/Athens/= 

-- MattWilkie - 18 Feb 2003

• WEBs are defined by the top level directory structure, exactly the same as it is now.
• individual topics are categorised by the directory name they reside in.
  • forms could still be used for additional/refined categorisation. The idea is to complement forms, not replace them.

• Chronology-based sorting, RSS, Track-backs, and other weblog features should be considered too but I haven't thought much about that yet. Feel free to do so yourself.

File System View

/Plugins/   <= the WEB
  |
  +--/twikiblosxom/   <= category level 1
      |
      - MainIdea.txt
      - DevDiscussion.txt
      - RelatedProjects.txt
      |
      +--/implementation/   <= category level 2
          |
          - DownloadTWikiBlosxom.txt
          - HowToExtend.txt
          - ToDo.txt
          |
          +--/current/   <= category level 3
              |
              - QuickStartInstructions.txt
              - CurrentReleaseBugs.txt
  |
  +--/prefs/   <= category level 1
      |
      - WebPreferences.txt
      - WebForm.txt
      - WebTopicEditTemplate.txt

Browser View

Searching: would operate the same as now, the phrase is located anywhere in the current web, regardless of the current location. It would be a nice touch if the results were ranked according to proximity. Of course using advanced search one can still locate items in other webs. Or restrict the search to a branch of the current web.

Forms: in this setup, using directories for organisation, TWikiForms might be used for things like multiple category membership. For example WebPreferences could be a member of the /Plugins/Prefs category (figured out by location) and also be a member of a SiteConfig category (figured out by form).

Parents: would be the same as now. While a new topic is likely to be started from somewhere within the current directory branch it doesn't have to be and it us useful to keep track of a concept's trail as it progresses from topic to topic.

Discussion

What happened (or didnt happen) with this endeavor. I see that Blosxom is releasing 2.0 and I was wondering where things ended up.

-- JohnCavanaugh - 18 Mar 2003

I'm not sure where this particular implementation of TWiki with BlosxomWeblog has gone, but I've got them integrated on my weblog at http://www.decafbad.com. I need to make a write-up of what I did and how, but it's pretty simple. I pass Blosxom entries through an interface that applies TWiki formatting to the content. Also, I made a symlink from my Blosxom data directory to my Main web in TWiki, so that when wiki pages are edited, they show up in the Blosxom blog. And finally, within TWiki pages themselves, I use TWiki's include directive to embed Lucene searches on my Blosxom entries.

It all seems to be working fine so far.

-- LesOrchard - 18 Mar 2003

I'm not sure anyone ever took on the task of integrating these (except maybe LesOrchard, see previous comment) -- AFAICT, it was just a wishlist item.

My main reason for commenting though, was that if the main impetus for combining the two is to get better organization by using "the filesystem for organisation" the default TWiki organization is based on the filesystem -- topics (pages) are files and webs are directories. unfortunately twiki stops at the first sublevel. --(mhw) Forms, the bread crumb trail, and links create additional "layers" of organization which can confuse the issue.

I guess I'll take a look at what LesOrchard has done to see if I can understand the perceived advantage of combining TWiki and Blosxom (unless someone can clarify it here).

-- RandyKramer - 18 Mar 2003

Randy's summary is correct. I started this topic off as a wishlist item in the hopes that some programmer(s) would get excited about the idea and run with it. As far as I know nobody has so far, notwitshtanding LesOrchard's closely related project (which I haven't been able to understand very well yet (sometimes it sucks not being a programmer)).

-- MattWilkie - 18 Mar 2003

Of course, you can always learn to program ... Perl has something of a learning curve but it's not that hard to pick up, and there are some good books and tutorials out there - see PerlTips.

-- RichardDonkin - 19 Mar 2003

I'm rethinking my stance on filesystems-for-organization. When it comes right down to it, I was asking for that because it is what I am most familiar with. I've never been able to organise documents in any other way because the computers I've used don't support any other way. Google:jef+raskin in "The Humane Interface" says the ideal computer would have no files whatsoever, an idea I have a hard time wrapping my imagination around - but I'm working on it! My initial reaction was "No files? Impossible!" Now, well, I'm not so sure.

So for this brainstorming session, using the file system for organization is a plus in that it would be leveraging people's existing skills, but it is not necessarily the right route for long term growth.

-- MattWilkie - 04 Jun 2003

This blog solution seems to be abandoned ... marked this page as stale_content. The original author seems to be using WordPress now.

-- MichaelDaum - 27 Mar 2006

Having used Blosxom myself at one time ;). I noticed this page and googled up some newer references.

• Blosxom HomePage
• The Unofficial Blosxom User Group
• Here is a site which uses TWiki and Blosxom (as of 2004?) BlosxomAndTWiki

-- CraigMeyer - 12 Jun 2006