Foswiki & XWiki News

IT-CDA project

Documentation Project

Documentation Project Meeting 15-June-2020

Project Status Report

Peter Jones IT-CDA

2 Overview

• Documentation with wikis • Wiki options • Configurations of the applications • Basic look, structure and functionality • Editing options • Look & Feel • Navigation and Search

3 Documentation with Wikis

Advantages: • Easy for anyone to enter content in the browser • Updates of documents are seen immediately • WYSIWYG and text editors (for markup, markdown, HTML) available • Automatic organization of documents • Documents are grouped and have a hierarchy (indexes, lists, trees, changes) • Colleagues files and their changes are visible to all with access rights • Notifications available • Built in revision control • Access control on single or groups of documents • Import and Export (PDF, Office, HTML etc) • Possibility to create dynamic pages • Flexible look & feel depending on user, group or document • 100s of additional feature available (macros, charts, latex, real-time editing…) • Extendible – new features • Available anywhere with very fast response times

Foswiki and XWiki can offer all of the above: • Which is best for documentation? • Which is the best for our current TWiki users? • Which is the best for our current SharePoint users? • Which is the best for IT environment and support?

4 Background of the Wikis

TWiki – Used at CERN since 2003 • Heavily used for Documentation and as a Collaboration tool • Open source GPL - perl • Stable but little recent change Foswiki – A fork of TWiki since 2008: • Now has more developers than TWiki • Has diverged over the years • Some features not available in TWiki and vice-versa • Open source GPL - perl XWiki – 2003 Java based 2nd generation wiki: • Compares itself to Confluence, SharePoint and other CMS • Open source GPL with some paid features

Can Foswiki or XWiki offer an alternative and a more modern user experience for documentation (to TWiki and possibly SharePoint?)

5 Configuration of the applications

Foswiki XWiki

Host Openshift – CERN Dockerfile Openshift - CERN Dockerfile (Pete) (Pablo) Storage Flat-file on external volume External Volume & MySQL

Authentication OpenID - extension OpenID - extension

Access Egroups – home made direct XWiki groups need syncing Control calls to ldap can respect TWiki acls Last version 2.16 - Mar-2018 12.4 - May-2020

6 Foswiki Basic page management

• Default pattern skin (like TWiki)

7 Foswiki Basic page management

• Dynamic change after login

8 Foswiki Basic page edit

TinyMCE or text editor with markup and markdown support

9 XWiki Basic page management

10 XWiki Basic page edit WYSIWYG

• CKEditor or text editor with support for several syntax • Templates for new pages: Blank, Presentation, Article, Dashboard, Meeting, Office etc

11 XWiki Basic page edit markdown

• Syntax can be changed (e.g. From TWiki to Markdown) • Syntax respected when using CKEditor • Real-time collaboration editor available as an extension

12 Base and Extension Features

Feature Foswiki XWiki Image handling   Calendars   Blog   Project management   Programmable pages   Jira Integration   Slideshows   Office import  PDF   Extensions 400+ 600+

13 Foswiki Look & Feel options

Skins: • Nat • Pattern (Twiki)

• Nat skin: Configurable menus, columns, colours etc

14 Foswiki Skins

Skins can be customized

• Example skins from other sites

15 Foswik preferences

• Set variables • Usually done in text

16 Foswik preferences

• Nat skin offers some point & click

17 XWiki Look & Feel & Preferences

• Configurable columns, colours etc • Friendly preferences interface • Skins can be bought. Can make site look more like a website

18 XWiki Skins

• Skins can be created – user guide • Skins can be bought. Can make site look more like a website

19 XWiki Templates

• Create new pages using pre-defines Templates

20 XWiki Template and Themes examples

• Meeting template. TOC, Edit for each section, Sandstone theme

21 XWiki Template and Themes examples

• Article template. TOC, No side panels, Marina theme

22 Foswiki Navigation and Search

• Default search like TWiki • Solr Search is an extension option • Navigation through inbuilt indexes and extensions (e.g tree view) • User configurable dynamic menus • Macros can be written • Need to integrate with new CERN search

23 XWIki Navigation and Search

• Solr Search built in • Optional database search • Navigation indexes and tree view are built in • Macros are available

24 XWiki Lists of documents

• List pages default feature available from all pages

25 Data - Import and Export

• Foswiki data (and attachments) stored in a CephFS directory • Mounted on the Openshift machine • Default format different to TWiki • However TWiki format can be used • TWiki meta data respected • TWiki variables and extensions mostly respected • TWiki access control is respected • Import of TWiki data and attachments possible

• XWIki data (and attachments) stored in MySQL tables • External Openshift volume also needed for permanent storage • Can import from SharePoint blogs, Office, CSV • A TWiki page can be copied and pasted into XWiki • Mass import of TWiki webs isn’t so easy • Existing extension now obsolete and no-longer supported • A CERN specific script would be needed • TWiki variables and extension call not respected • Twiki access control settings not respected

26 Foswiki - summary

• Documentation with structure under Foswiki is a strong feature • Easy to learn page management for simple pages • Automatic structure to help group pages for navigation • Foswiki has features that would interest current TWiki users • Same Markup • Can have the same look & feel • 90% of features and extensions respected • Some additional functionality • New users would benefit from a new user friendly skin • Point and click preferences • Configurable colours and panels under Nat skin • Choice of TinyMCE or text editor with markdown option • Who would use Foswiki? • Current regular TWiki users • Projects and groups that wish to migrate data and respect TWiki meta data, structures and features • More technical users who prefer text based writing and scripting

27 XWiki Summary

• Creating documentation in XWiki is easy • Easy creation of pages and managing them • Templates available to keep consistent page structure • Page organization and search in built • XWiki has features that would interest many TWiki users • Can use TWiki markup to import pages • Similar features available – but need syntax changes • CKEditor or text editor with multiple syntax support • Who would use XWiki? • Current TWiki users who have simple or few pages to import • Projects and groups that wish to migrate documents at risk of losing some features • Can import from SharePoint Blogs • New users who want a collaborative space instance • Non-techy users who like WYSIWYG and point & click features • Technical users who like scripting (velocity, groovy, python, php, ruby)

28 Summary

• Foswiki and XWiki have features that would interest current TWiki users • More work needed • Refining the Openshift installations • Tests on how they perform with 10,000s documents • Implement and test access controls • Tests of the Solr search • Integration of the new CERN search • Providing a TWiki migration scripts and procedures

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