[Pmwiki-users] pmwiki-0.6.21 released with experimental WikiFarmsupport

[Steven Leite]

> So, perhaps it's
> better to have two approaches, and come up with suitably different
names
> and descriptions of each so that people can understand the difference.

I've been following the topic of WikiFarms for quite a while now, and I
don't see any difference between the two currently available
implementations.  They both allow users to run multiple wikis's, without
having multiple installs.  Period.  That's the main reason anybody would
want to use a wiki farm in the first place.  So calling them both
wikifarms seems logical enough to me.

Just like there's a hundred different flavours of image gallerys,
guestbooks, and even wiki's out there, it doesn't seem strange to have
two different wiki farm implementations for PmWiki.

Any other differences between the current Wikifarms are just "features"
as far as I'm concerned.  There are bound to be features that one
Wikifarm has, and that the other doesn't.  The most helpful thing for a
user in determining which Wikifarm to use will be to clearly list the
"features", and briefly explain what they do and what the benefit.
Other "features" my include overhead, ease of installation,
configuration, etc etc ..

-S


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Patrick R. Michaud" <pmichaud at pobox.com>
To: "Andrew Shapira" <pmwa at onezero.org>
Cc: <Pmwiki-users at pmichaud.com>
Sent: Friday, May 28, 2004 7:45 AM
Subject: Re: [Pmwiki-users] pmwiki-0.6.21 released with experimental
WikiFarmsupport


> On Fri, May 28, 2004 at 06:19:05AM -0700, Andrew Shapira wrote:
> > [...]  I wonder if,
> > after the new AgroWiki is stable, the users would be done a big big
> > service if you could figure out how to merge the previously existing
> > WikiFarms and the to-be-named AgroWiki variety into one thing that
is
> > released with the main PmWiki software.
>
> In general I agree, but part of the problem is that the two WikiFarm
> implementations take *substantially* different approaches to building
> and managing the farm, and I don't quite know how to merge them, or
> even if they should be merged.
>
> If I understand it correctly, the WikiFarm implementation in the
Cookbook
> uses entries in a wiki page to create new fields in the farm, and all
> local customizations for the field are held in the farm's
> pmwiki/local/wikifarm/ directory.  This makes it easy to create fields
> in the farm, but in practical terms, this means that only the farm
> administrator (or whoever has access to the farm account)
> can create/modify local customizations in the fields.
> (John and others: feel free to correct any misinterpretations I've
made.)
>
> Version 0.6.21 takes the approach that a single pmwiki installation
can
> be used to serve multiple fields in different (user) accounts on the
same
> system.  This would be useful for web hosting environments, where the
> hosting provider wants to allow field administrators in separate web
> hosting accounts the ability to enter their own local customizations.
> Of course, multiple fields can be installed in a single account as
well.
>

>
> It also could be that the wikifarm code in 0.6.21 simplifies the
> implementation of the Cookbook wikifarm script, so that creating new
> fields via a wiki page and the other things that the Cookbook version
> does could be seen as "extensions" to the wikifarm capabilities built
in
> to 0.6.21.  (Perhaps a "WikiCoOp"?)   I'll be quite happy to help
> in any merging of the two approaches, but because this would likely
> require extra time and effort from John and/or Donald, I think the
> choice to start down that path is properly left to them.  Until then,
> I just try to make sure that changes to the core PmWiki base
> don't unduly interfere with existing installations and Cookbook
recipes.
>
> Pm
>
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