6 ms·

Ask YC: wiki software for structured data

11 points by jasonlbaptiste 18y ago

does anyone know if there is wiki like software for structured data? has to be open source. ie- mediawiki is basically for a blank page of information. im looking for something that is like wikipedia, but the data entered is a set group of fields. ie- title, link url, description, phone number, address

joshwa 18y ago
Jotspot used to be like this until they were bought by Google...
deyan 18y ago
I am not sure if this is what you need, but I have found http://twiki.org/ http://twiki.org/ to be useful. Drupal is another solution - can be made into a wiki with a few additions (which, however, can add up to quite a lot of extra time). hopefully this helps, deyan
- bockris 18y ago
  I was also going to suggest twiki but I don't have any first hand experience with it. I have also looked at Roundup in the past. http://roundup.sourceforge.net/ http://roundup.sourceforge.net/ WikidBASE is a fairly new but also in the same vein. http://projects.nickblundell.org.uk/wikidbase http://projects.nickblundell.org.uk/wikidbase If a hosted solution is acceptable you can look at Dabble DB or Coghead http://dabbledb.com/ http://dabbledb.com/ http://www.coghead.com/ http://www.coghead.com/
- SwellJoe 18y ago
  We use TWiki very heavily. We use it for documentation, and not (much) structured data, but I have noted that it has far better support for structured data than any other wikis I've used. It has a large number of data imports (including from Excel and other spreadsheets), and some good form management tools. So, you can build a form for entering structured data, and that structured data goes into the wiki (and can be edited on the same form or directly in wikitext). It's quite intimidating from a customization perspective, but since it has so many features built in, you probably won't need to do a lot of coding to make it do what you want. Theming it can be a challenge, though. I also don't love the syntax. But you can't beat it for features. It does everything any other wiki does, plus a bunch of other app building types of functionality that don't exist anywhere else (or at least, nowhere else I've seen).
- parbo 18y ago
  I've used twiki a bit, and my main gripe with it was that it was pretty slow. And there were some issues with mod_perl if I recall correctly.
vanekl 18y ago
http://flamenco.berkeley.edu/ http://flamenco.berkeley.edu/
babul 18y ago
Perhaps choose something like dekiwiki and mod it to suit your need?
- SwellJoe 18y ago
  I want to like dekiwiki, because it looks awesome. But, egads, it's slow! It's also kind confusing to use...which is surprising given all the work that's gone into the UI. And, of course, it doesn't have any real support for structured data. It's just a really nice looking wiki with the standard feature set (actually a rather anemic feature set, which is fine for many purposes, since most wikis are too damned complicated). Since structured data is the thing in this request, it seems like there are probably better alternatives. I only know of one wiki that deals with structured data (TWiki) but I'm betting there are others. I seem to recall seeing discussion of wiki+spreadsheet style tools, though I don't remember where or what.
thorax 18y ago
You can use MediaWiki and add Semantic MediaWiki extension to get something closer to what you want. We use this a lot and get all sorts of structured data (with RDFs, etc) when we need it, but freeform data around it.
ntoshev 18y ago
Not really what you want, but here is a nice showcase of what domain-specific wiki combining text and structured data can look like: http://wikinvest.com http://wikinvest.com Edit: Again not a Wiki, but Google Spreadsheets could also work for you
jasonlbaptiste 18y ago
wow, many thanks for the quggestions
tptacek 18y ago
This answer is not super helpful, but anecdotally: this is how our product works; it's a Wiki engine running on top of Subversion that parses, stores, renders, and indexes valued "tags". We're using it right now to manage firewall rulesets; our customers document firewalls and rules in a Wiki, and to pull in relevant details from that documentation into their rulesets. We wrote our own (in Ruby); it wasn't hard enough to do that we'd have considered outsourcing that part. So, one contribution: consider just writing it yourself. Another contribution: this approach rocks a lot.
rglullis 18y ago
Infogami is precisely what you want. www.infogami.org

joshwa 18y ago

Jotspot used to be like this until they were bought by Google...

deyan 18y ago

I am not sure if this is what you need, but I have found http://twiki.org/ http://twiki.org/ to be useful. Drupal is another solution - can be made into a wiki with a few additions (which, however, can add up to quite a lot of extra time). hopefully this helps, deyan

bockris 18y ago
I was also going to suggest twiki but I don't have any first hand experience with it. I have also looked at Roundup in the past. http://roundup.sourceforge.net/ http://roundup.sourceforge.net/ WikidBASE is a fairly new but also in the same vein. http://projects.nickblundell.org.uk/wikidbase http://projects.nickblundell.org.uk/wikidbase If a hosted solution is acceptable you can look at Dabble DB or Coghead http://dabbledb.com/ http://dabbledb.com/ http://www.coghead.com/ http://www.coghead.com/
SwellJoe 18y ago
We use TWiki very heavily. We use it for documentation, and not (much) structured data, but I have noted that it has far better support for structured data than any other wikis I've used. It has a large number of data imports (including from Excel and other spreadsheets), and some good form management tools. So, you can build a form for entering structured data, and that structured data goes into the wiki (and can be edited on the same form or directly in wikitext). It's quite intimidating from a customization perspective, but since it has so many features built in, you probably won't need to do a lot of coding to make it do what you want. Theming it can be a challenge, though. I also don't love the syntax. But you can't beat it for features. It does everything any other wiki does, plus a bunch of other app building types of functionality that don't exist anywhere else (or at least, nowhere else I've seen).
parbo 18y ago
I've used twiki a bit, and my main gripe with it was that it was pretty slow. And there were some issues with mod_perl if I recall correctly.

vanekl 18y ago

http://flamenco.berkeley.edu/ http://flamenco.berkeley.edu/

babul 18y ago

Perhaps choose something like dekiwiki and mod it to suit your need?

SwellJoe 18y ago
I want to like dekiwiki, because it looks awesome. But, egads, it's slow! It's also kind confusing to use...which is surprising given all the work that's gone into the UI. And, of course, it doesn't have any real support for structured data. It's just a really nice looking wiki with the standard feature set (actually a rather anemic feature set, which is fine for many purposes, since most wikis are too damned complicated). Since structured data is the thing in this request, it seems like there are probably better alternatives. I only know of one wiki that deals with structured data (TWiki) but I'm betting there are others. I seem to recall seeing discussion of wiki+spreadsheet style tools, though I don't remember where or what.

thorax 18y ago

You can use MediaWiki and add Semantic MediaWiki extension to get something closer to what you want. We use this a lot and get all sorts of structured data (with RDFs, etc) when we need it, but freeform data around it.

ntoshev 18y ago

Not really what you want, but here is a nice showcase of what domain-specific wiki combining text and structured data can look like: http://wikinvest.com http://wikinvest.com Edit: Again not a Wiki, but Google Spreadsheets could also work for you

jasonlbaptiste 18y ago

wow, many thanks for the quggestions

tptacek 18y ago

This answer is not super helpful, but anecdotally: this is how our product works; it's a Wiki engine running on top of Subversion that parses, stores, renders, and indexes valued "tags". We're using it right now to manage firewall rulesets; our customers document firewalls and rules in a Wiki, and to pull in relevant details from that documentation into their rulesets. We wrote our own (in Ruby); it wasn't hard enough to do that we'd have considered outsourcing that part. So, one contribution: consider just writing it yourself. Another contribution: this approach rocks a lot.

rglullis 18y ago

Infogami is precisely what you want. www.infogami.org