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Show HN: Piki, a fresh take on the wiki
- binarycrusader 14y agoServer's overloaded already; and something about the stylesheet makes the font appear weirdly garbled on FireFox ESR 10.
- Skoofoo 14y agoSorry about the overload; this is my first web app and I can't afford to use anything above Heroku's free plan. I will look into the garbled text problem. :)
- saraid216 14y agoAny plan to make this available to others someway somehow? I've been working on a writing project that would be ideally captured in a wiki, and I've been putting off the idea of writing my own software or deeply customizing other software.
- silverlight 14y agoI like it! Simple and elegant. Throw in a little Markdown syntax for bolding, italics, image embeds, etc., and I think you'd be well on your way to a cool thing. Like others, I wouldn't mind forking/contributing if you ever decided to make it open source, but I respect it all the same if you don't want to go that route. I would actually love to use this as a small part of an ongoing project where we're thinking of including a small wiki functionality (although it would need to be either open source or something that was able to run on our servers for that, not remotely hosted...)
- Skoofoo 14y agoThank you, that's what I was going for! Piki will never use a markup language, but I plan to add drag-and-drop image embedding and right-click text stylization. People who seem to take the most interest in this also express desire to use it locally. I'll have to figure out a way to cater to you folks.
- aidenn0 14y agoI'm surprised people want to use it locally; I would have thought yet another local wiki would be the last thing people want.
- jhrobert 14y agoOne can "style" text without a "markup language". For example star text star <- bold. I went further in http://simpliwiki.com/SimpliWiki http://simpliwiki.com/SimpliWiki
- lutusp 14y ago> One can "style" text without a "markup language". For example star text star <- bold. But that's a markup language. The difference between * text * and <b> text </b> is a matter of syntax, not kind. Also, in most forums like this one, asterisk text asterisk gives italic text.
- jhrobert 14y agoIt becomes a "markup" language (ala markdown, etc) when the "markups" are removed and replaced by htlm codes. As you noted, in HN, when using stars they get removed and replace by some <i>...</i> stuff.
- lutusp 14y ago> It becomes a "markup" language (ala markdown, etc) when the "markups" are removed and replaced by htlm codes. No. Asterisks that aren't lexical content are markup. HTML tags are also markup, just a different markup. When you replace asterisks with HTML tags, you're translating from one markup to another. The markup cycle ends when the markup is rendered as styled text that a human recognizes as lexical content. For example, italicized text.
- kennywinker 14y agoOne of the cardinal features of a wiki is collaboration. It's unclear from poking around in Piki if it has any way to handle communal editing. I like the automatically formatting things into headings and subheadings, etc. but couldn't figure out how to make links.
- Skoofoo 14y agoI chose to focus on making Piki as useful as possible for smaller wikis written by individual writers. That's untypical of a wiki engine, but I think it's something worth exploring. Mass collaboration is great for some things, but the most original and polished work tends to come from individuals or small teams. There is currently no collaboration or custom links (though a URL will turn into a link), but I plan to add these features in the future.
- derleth 14y ago> wikis written by individual writers You've just missed the point so completely I believe there should be an award for the magnitude of missing-the-point you have achieved.
- sovande 14y agoCongrats! You just reinvented a web page from 1993.
- Skoofoo 14y agoNot exactly. Where Piki lacks in collaboration features, I believe it's far ahead of any other wiki engine in terms of user experience, considering the user is someone who wishes to have a place to organize their own thoughts and ideas.
- tommorris 14y ago> the most original and polished work tends to come from individuals or small teams. Counterpoint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... Find me a single-authored article that goes into the level of detail on the same topic...
- interg12 14y agoFeedback: Let me see the product before I create an account. I hate it when I have to log in to something before they tell me what it is.
- Skoofoo 14y agoI figured that letting people write without an account was not worth the added complexity, especially for a minimum viable product. You are free to look at any of the published wikis; the interface for writing a wiki looks almost exactly the same. I made the sign-up process as painless as possible, in case you ever change your mind.
- Arelius 14y agoNo thanks. No matter how simple you make a sign-up process, it'll always turn people away.
- thebigshane 14y agoThat is not a fact.
- Arelius 14y agoIt's not, it's speculation. But it's probably naive to assume it's possible to require information from a user (username, password is about minimal) and not turn at least somebody away. Also, perhaps not impossible, but I've yet to see it.
- jblock 14y agoSorry, but this color scheme is unreadable. Contrast is your friend! And I'd rather not see a bunch of "test" articles with one paragraph or so. Show me some dense, complex content, and maybe I'll grow interested (that and not having it 500 every 30 seconds).
- chad_oliver 14y agoI actually love the color scheme. Horses for courses, I suppose.
- jblock 14y agohttp://saumya5.brinkster.net/hci/25.pdf http://saumya5.brinkster.net/hci/25.pdf Sorry, but a Wiki is about content, not looks.
- chad_oliver 14y agoI'm not convinced that such a precriptive statement makes sense. You could just as easily say that long-form books are about content, not presentation, yes I know of many books whose typography and presentation have a significant effect. Perhaps Piki isn't what you think a wiki should be. Congratulations, know we know that semantic shift is alive and well.
- mpd 14y agoTrue story: Piki was Stipple's original name, some 3+ years ago. I don't remember now why we changed it...
- mietek 14y agoProbably because it sounds similar to a slur: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pikey http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pikey
- hbz 14y agoI tried to edit the article entitled "Internal server error" but the controls for contributing to it weren't intuitive enough.
- andrewflnr 14y agoDoes Piki have a different data model from a "regular" wiki, or is it just the UI?
- obilgic 14y agowhere is the source code?
- obilgic 14y agohttps://github.com/changs/piki https://github.com/changs/piki
- jhrobert 14y agoI really liked that "section" -> "sub section" -> "paragraph" handling. Very unobstrusive. I am yet to study "contenteditable" but I'm glad it lets one designs such mechanisms. Kudos.
- Skoofoo 14y agoI'm happy that somebody recognized this :) It was a huge pain to mold the contenteditable element into a polished wiki editor, but I'm pretty proud of the results.
- ville 14y agoI went to the 'Learn' page first and then could not find a way to get back to the home page to sign up.