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 29 .