6 ms·

MDwiki – Markdown based wiki done 100% on the client via JavaScript

73 points by hilbert- 12y ago

simlevesque 12y ago
I like JS and all that but having to wait for the css to load is not great UX.
Havvy 12y ago
Wikis are editable live, usually by anybody; but I cannot see a way to edit any of these projects that use MDwiki. So if that is the case, this isn't a wiki project, and why is it called one?
- robbs 12y ago
  A pull request would edit a page, I think.
  - bachmeier 12y ago
    But that doesn't make it a wiki.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
      Au contraire, I think GitHub's editing features are actually close enough to make a wiki. Though... you might as well just use GitHub's Wiki...
- aroch 12y ago
  Seems they're using "wiki" and "knowledge base" interchangeably.
ahmett 12y ago
And how is the crawling of search bots handled? Does Google render this into HTML and interpret the hyperlinks and try to crawl deeper pages as well?
- Dynalon 12y ago
  Crawling is an issue. But if you google for mdwiki, first result will be the projects website which IS crawled. I think this is undocumented by google, but they do fetch ajax content. But you can not do professional SEO with frontend-only solutions.
jason_slack 12y ago
This is interesting. It would allow me to make quick work of all the markdown files I have to get them alive. +1.
chewxy 12y ago
If anyone wants a python implementation, I have recently found MarkWiki[0] to be quite excellent. It's simple to use - I deployed it within a small team, all familiar with markdown. [0] : http://pythonhosted.org/MarkWiki/ http://pythonhosted.org/MarkWiki/
dingdingdang 12y ago
What.. a "wiki" that isn't shared? (I can see it could be made to have server component, I like the idea of doing all rendering on client-side, why not?!) The rendering is unfortunately glitchy (FF30; sometimes the CSS seems to drop during load/link clicks) and the stack of various libraries used is so deep that it may well be difficult to find the cause? Sorry, that's presumptuous actually, but I sometimes wonder why small projects like this need this many libs: marked jQuery Bootstrap Bootswatch colorbox highlightjs
- christop 12y ago
  TiddlyWiki, the original self-contained wiki (and now nearly 10 years old), was (is?) often used for note-taking. All you need is a browser, point it at a file:/// URI and you could save your changes locally. http://tiddlywiki.com/ http://tiddlywiki.com/
evolve2k 12y ago
TLDR; Not actually a wiki. This is a nice front end js component that live autocompiles markdown into HTML. IMHO to be a wiki it would need to manage user editing and version control.
- cmelbye 12y ago
  Seems like hosting it on GitHub Pages would accomplish that.
- Dynalon 12y ago
  Author of MDwiki here. Versioning and editing is indeed intended to be done and handled through git. Pull requests are prefered method for collaboration. Another way is to place the wiki on a Dropbox shared public folder and share the folder with your collaborators. Hosting can be done through Dropbox as well.
  - axman6 12y ago
    I had the same thought as the parent of your comment, but I really like this way of doing things, well done. Looks really clean and I'd consider using it if I needed a wiki for some project.
  - backdraw_ 12y ago
    In that case, I just came up with some awesome new minimalist wiki software: it's called 'plain text files in a git repository'.
dalek2point3 12y ago
is it possible to get pretty URLs? that might be the one thing that might stop me from using this -- this is exactly what i have been looking for!
balls187 12y ago
When I reload the page in Firefox 30, I first see the non-styled content, which is a bit jarring.
csirac2 12y ago
That's really cool! It reminded me of Ward Cunningham's Smallest Federated Wiki, which is mostly client-side too; although it normally uses sinatra, there's an arduino port and I seem to recall an experimental server implemented using only apache conf hacks too. https://github.com/WardCunningham/Smallest-Federated-Wiki https://github.com/WardCunningham/Smallest-Federated-Wiki
Pitarou 12y ago
AFAICT, this entirely runs on the client. The server just serves some static web pages. Presumably, if you save the static HTML / js / css files onto your laptop, you could use the wiki when you're offline.
wise_young_man 12y ago
This is similar to what we are building at UserDeck. We call it Guides and it is a knowledge base widget that embeds inline into any page of a website. It is all Javascript and customizable on the client side with layouts and components which have options which let you change things like a sidebar component to the right side instead of the left. Any team member can collaborate and edit articles live on the site and we are considering adding wiki type functionality if people are interested. You can learn more at http://userdeck.com/guides http://userdeck.com/guides.
dynjo 12y ago
Also check out http://slimwiki.com http://slimwiki.com

73 points by hilbert- 12y ago

I like JS and all that but having to wait for the css to load is not great UX.

Havvy 12y ago

Wikis are editable live, usually by anybody; but I cannot see a way to edit any of these projects that use MDwiki. So if that is the case, this isn't a wiki project, and why is it called one?

robbs 12y ago
A pull request would edit a page, I think.
- bachmeier 12y ago
  But that doesn't make it a wiki.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
    Au contraire, I think GitHub's editing features are actually close enough to make a wiki. Though... you might as well just use GitHub's Wiki...
aroch 12y ago
Seems they're using "wiki" and "knowledge base" interchangeably.

ahmett 12y ago

And how is the crawling of search bots handled? Does Google render this into HTML and interpret the hyperlinks and try to crawl deeper pages as well?

Dynalon 12y ago
Crawling is an issue. But if you google for mdwiki, first result will be the projects website which IS crawled. I think this is undocumented by google, but they do fetch ajax content. But you can not do professional SEO with frontend-only solutions.

jason_slack 12y ago

This is interesting. It would allow me to make quick work of all the markdown files I have to get them alive. +1.

chewxy 12y ago

If anyone wants a python implementation, I have recently found MarkWiki[0] to be quite excellent. It's simple to use - I deployed it within a small team, all familiar with markdown. [0] : http://pythonhosted.org/MarkWiki/ http://pythonhosted.org/MarkWiki/

dingdingdang 12y ago

What.. a "wiki" that isn't shared? (I can see it could be made to have server component, I like the idea of doing all rendering on client-side, why not?!) The rendering is unfortunately glitchy (FF30; sometimes the CSS seems to drop during load/link clicks) and the stack of various libraries used is so deep that it may well be difficult to find the cause? Sorry, that's presumptuous actually, but I sometimes wonder why small projects like this need this many libs: marked jQuery Bootstrap Bootswatch colorbox highlightjs

christop 12y ago
TiddlyWiki, the original self-contained wiki (and now nearly 10 years old), was (is?) often used for note-taking. All you need is a browser, point it at a file:/// URI and you could save your changes locally. http://tiddlywiki.com/ http://tiddlywiki.com/

evolve2k 12y ago

TLDR; Not actually a wiki. This is a nice front end js component that live autocompiles markdown into HTML. IMHO to be a wiki it would need to manage user editing and version control.

cmelbye 12y ago
Seems like hosting it on GitHub Pages would accomplish that.
Dynalon 12y ago
Author of MDwiki here. Versioning and editing is indeed intended to be done and handled through git. Pull requests are prefered method for collaboration. Another way is to place the wiki on a Dropbox shared public folder and share the folder with your collaborators. Hosting can be done through Dropbox as well.
- axman6 12y ago
  I had the same thought as the parent of your comment, but I really like this way of doing things, well done. Looks really clean and I'd consider using it if I needed a wiki for some project.
- backdraw_ 12y ago
  In that case, I just came up with some awesome new minimalist wiki software: it's called 'plain text files in a git repository'.

dalek2point3 12y ago

is it possible to get pretty URLs? that might be the one thing that might stop me from using this -- this is exactly what i have been looking for!

balls187 12y ago

When I reload the page in Firefox 30, I first see the non-styled content, which is a bit jarring.

csirac2 12y ago

That's really cool! It reminded me of Ward Cunningham's Smallest Federated Wiki, which is mostly client-side too; although it normally uses sinatra, there's an arduino port and I seem to recall an experimental server implemented using only apache conf hacks too. https://github.com/WardCunningham/Smallest-Federated-Wiki https://github.com/WardCunningham/Smallest-Federated-Wiki

Pitarou 12y ago

AFAICT, this entirely runs on the client. The server just serves some static web pages. Presumably, if you save the static HTML / js / css files onto your laptop, you could use the wiki when you're offline.

wise_young_man 12y ago

This is similar to what we are building at UserDeck. We call it Guides and it is a knowledge base widget that embeds inline into any page of a website. It is all Javascript and customizable on the client side with layouts and components which have options which let you change things like a sidebar component to the right side instead of the left. Any team member can collaborate and edit articles live on the site and we are considering adding wiki type functionality if people are interested. You can learn more at http://userdeck.com/guides http://userdeck.com/guides.

dynjo 12y ago

Also check out http://slimwiki.com http://slimwiki.com