I have a topic that I want to put out to the Notes community to discuss. I could simply blog about it and ask people to comment. The challenge is I end up with a long list of comments without threads. I could direct people to a forum where discussions would be threaded but at the end I would have to summarize all of the conversations into one document - too much work.
The Web 2.0 thing to do would be to post the document to the web and invite people to modify the document itself. I thought a Wiki might work well for this purpose and so I headed over to the OpenNTF site to download the new xPages Wiki, managed by Steve Castledine and Niklas Heidloff .
In less than 5 minutes I had downloaded the Wiki, read through the quick start guide and set up my first xPages Wiki.
The steps I used were:
- Download template to my Notes DATA Directory
- Sign template with an ID authorized to run agents on the Domino server
- Create a new Wiki.nsf file on the Domino Server and grant ACL rights
- Access the new Wiki from the web and start posting
That's it. Less than 5 minutes. Wow!
Some things I like about the new xPages Wiki so far:
- Easy to set up
- I can access content from a web browser or from my Notes client
Some questions/concerns I have:
- Word wrapping appears to change places from time to time. Some times a line will wrap in the middle; other times near the end.
- A few times, I created pages that when I clicked on the link I ended up at a Notes 4 era list page. Clicking through worked. (Possible configuration issue, or a bug?)
- I do a lot of off-line work. I wonder what will happen if I edit pages and replicate back to the Domino server when others have made changes. I may want to limit myself to off-line reading and reference.
Things I'd like to see:
- E-Mail notification of updates with a Notes doclink (in addition to RSS)
- Ability to customize the site design
All in all, for a 20-minute investment, including a test Wiki page and this blog post, I'm impressed!
If you want to check it out, here's a link to the new Wiki I set up for readers of this blog: http://www.NotesOnProductivity.com/Wiki
Discussion/Comments (5):
"If you want to check it out, here's a link to the new Wiki I set up for readers of this blog: { Link }
The link at the end of this isn't actually a link. Looking at your source code shows "href-=" instead of "href=" and is missing the "</a>"
Eric Mack (www.ica.com): 3/12/2010 11:38:03 PM
Fixed. Thanks for catching & reporting that!. Much appreciated.
Timothy Briley (): 3/12/2010 11:41:08 PM
No problem. I've got to be good for something.
Kevin Hansen (http://www.dominokeys.com): 3/14/2010 8:18:37 AM
It is a VERY good template. However there are a number of bugs that make it something which may not work well in an enterprise setting. We frequently have problems with the creole standards rendering properly (seems like we're always loosing chapter headings and such). Its also important to note that its not frequently updated, so you have to watch the versions when upgrading your Domino server (ran into that the hard way - and then had to either downgrade Domino or wait for a template update).
But for focused or small team applications, its fantastic. And free!
Discussion for this entry is now closed.