My contribution to this is to document the reciepes etc I use here<div><a href="http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Profiles/Simon">http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Profiles/Simon</a></div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Profiles/Simon"></a>simon<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">2009/8/27 Twylite <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:twylite@crypt.co.za">twylite@crypt.co.za</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
Hi,<br>
<br>
I'm new here, and I have a lengthy question that comes down to: what<br>
recipes are recommended and/or commonly & widely used (and how does one<br>
find out this information)?<br>
<br>
Background<br>
<br>
I have been looking at using a Wiki to replace two sites that I<br>
currently maintain. After some investigation (<a href="http://c2.com" target="_blank">c2.com</a>, Wikimatrix, and<br>
plenty of other sources) I narrowed down the field, and decided that<br>
PmWiki has the right features and extensibility to make it the first<br>
candidate that I try out.<br>
<br>
The first site I want to replace is a knowledge base for my development<br>
team (corporate) that is currently based on Drupal. When extensions are<br>
used Drupal can be a pain to maintain (a number of extensions have never<br>
been upgraded for Drupal 6), and it is largely worthless without<br>
extensions, so no maintenance is being done. We would like to transfer<br>
the knowledge base across, and enhance the system by adding CRM and bug<br>
tracking.<br>
<br>
The second site is my personal web site, currently a blog and a few<br>
static pages, but I plan to include collaborative areas for projects I<br>
work on, and a reference section ("knowledge base") that is read-only to<br>
the public (but may allow comments). I'm also keen on extending this<br>
setup into a farm to help out friends with their pet hosting requirements.<br>
<br>
As far as I can tell, with some customisation, PmWiki is up to the task.<br>
<br>
Customisation<br>
<br>
And then things went wrong. Once I had waded through the general PmWiki<br>
documentation it became evident that customisation (by way of recipes)<br>
is required for event the simplest of sites, and that the Cookbook is a<br>
lengthy menu into the world. Lengthy being 955 items.<br>
<br>
After my experiences with Drupal I have some requirements when<br>
considering add-on code. Add-ons should be:<br>
- actively maintained, and/or<br>
- stable & feature complete, and/or<br>
- being considered for inclusion in the core.<br>
<br>
Many recipes have some indication of stability and maintainer, but also<br>
no way to tell if this information is up-to-date. Even then there<br>
appears to be no way to tell if a recipe is widely used (i.e. a<br>
maintainer will appear spontaneously out of enlightened self-interest if<br>
the recipe is abandoned), well-regarded by the community (plays well<br>
with the core and other recipes), or a duplicate effort of a probably<br>
better recipe (e.g. Footnotes vs MarkupExtensions).<br>
<br>
In a quest for answers I have discovered the following:<br>
<br>
* I figured that looking at the extensions PmWiki.org was running would<br>
be a good place to start. This information is available via a link from<br>
<a href="http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/RecipeCheck" target="_blank">http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/RecipeCheck</a> .<br>
* Bundles (<a href="http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Category/Bundles" target="_blank">http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Category/Bundles</a>) look promising,<br>
but most efforts seem to be incomplete or lacking in scope or detail<br>
(specifically the purpose/goals of the bundle and the rationale for<br>
including various recipes).<br>
* There can be complex interactions between recipes. Some don't work<br>
together, others are only useful with a supporting skin, etc.<br>
* There are duplicates of just about every possible feature, even some<br>
features in the core. Two auth systems, three input/form systems, five<br>
or so ToC recipes, a half dozen approaches to comments, a dozen recipes<br>
for displaying attachments.<br>
* There have been discussions on pmwiki-users on how to rate, rank or<br>
otherwise determine popularity of recipes, often for reasons similar to<br>
my own. These discussions date to Jan this year, Aug 2008, various in<br>
2006, and even further back.<br>
In one PM suggests the possibility of using the statistics submitted by<br>
the SiteAnalyzer, but I have couldn't find whether this happened or not<br>
(<a href="http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wiki.pmwiki.user/51802/match=recipes+use" target="_blank">http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wiki.pmwiki.user/51802/match=recipes+use</a>)<br>
* Even if you filter the Cookbook index and consider only<br>
stable/maintained Recipes that sound potentially useful there are still<br>
_dozens_, and you're no closer to figuring out which of the duplicates<br>
is better.<br>
* For what it's worth, Drupal now collects statistics of extension use<br>
and is using them to ensure that the most widely used extensions are all<br>
available for Drupal 7 on the day it is released. This is in response<br>
to the disastrous situation with Drupal 6.<br>
* Many other projects are experiencing similar problems: huge numbers of<br>
extensions of wildly varying usefulness and quality going into a single<br>
repository, and new users to the project are lost in the morass. Many<br>
projects have adopted systems of rating (based on user vote, aggregate<br>
rating, or committee review) and/or download rank (or usage statistics<br>
where available) to combat this.<br>
<br>
Help!<br>
<br>
I have now committed quite a lot of time & effort into this research,<br>
and I have still failed to answer my basic questions:<br>
(1) which recipes does everyone find useful<br>
(2) is a given recipe widely used, stable and actively maintained (i.e.<br>
will I have peace of mind choosing that recipe)<br>
(3) which of the duplicates is most popular (for a given task, if relevant)<br>
<br>
Any ideas?<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
Trevor<br>
<br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>____<br><a href="http://kiwiwiki.co.nz">http://kiwiwiki.co.nz</a><br>
</div>