Wikis For Dummies®

Chapter 14. Creating Applications Using Structured Wikis

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Understanding structured wikis

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Adding a search function to your wiki

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Using variables, templates, and forms to create applications

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Enhancing your wiki pages with plug-ins

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When you sit down to explore wikis, you likely don’t want to delve into complex variables, search terms, and forms. You want to make a cool wiki for you and your office mates, get a big promotion for being proactive, and retire on the beach in Maui, forever branded in corporate history as “the guy/gal who made us wiki-tastic.” Right? Right.

But now you face the prospect of building something more with your wiki. Will you stand on that precipice, elated and excited at the possibilities? Or will you shy away and read a different book on, say, cooking or gardening? You, it seems, are the decider.

So you make the leap and decide to add those advanced features that everyone has been asking for to your wiki. Good. We begin by talking about structured wikis. Structured wikis originated in the brain of Peter Thoeny, the co-author of this book. Peter’s vision was that by using simple components to add structure to wiki pages, and then adding plug-ins and basic programming mechanisms, wikis could be transformed into simple applications. Structured wikis are almost too complex for this book, but this chapter provides a good foundation. ...