[pmwiki-users] Supporting different modes in default pmwiki

Patrick R. Michaud pmichaud at pobox.com
Sun Aug 7 10:59:44 CDT 2005


On Sun, Aug 07, 2005 at 12:58:39PM +0200, Thomas -Balu- Walter wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 07, 2005 at 10:30:59AM +0200, chr at home.se wrote:
> > * A ''reader'' uses the wiki site to find information and he is thus
> > * An ''author'' contributes contents to the site. He also reads pages,
> > * An ''administrator'' ... hmm, in addition to probably being an author,
> 
> I am not sure wether I like this kind of split. In a Wiki a reader
> should usually also be an author. 

If we're talking about wikis in the traditional sense, I agree.  However,
one of PmWiki's primary goals is to assist with the development and
maintenance of web sites, and in that application there tend to be
a lot of readers who are not (and cannot be) authors.

> PS: Lately there are a lot of nice ideas floating around, but I feel
> that PmWiki gets more complicated every day - for admins, but even worse
> for readers and authors too. We should watch out that all the new
> features included in the core don't make PmWiki to complex.

Yes, I fully agree with and share this concern and I'm watching out for it.  
I don't think we've increased reader complexity much at all, and so far 
we're in pretty good shape for authors.  The complexity for admins is 
indeed going up, but mainly just for those who want a high degree of 
customization or features that are outside of the core.  And some 
forms of customization just inherently require complexity.

I think that for someone who wants to use PmWiki with the features it
had as of a year ago, the complexity hasn't increased much (and in many
areas the complexity has decreased).  But for an admin who wants
custom edit pages that automatically adapt based upon the skin chosen,
the cookbook recipes installed, the author's current preferences, and
any actions available to the currently authorized user, all of which
are shared across multiple fields in a wikifarm, then yes, the 
complexity has increased a bit.  :-)

Pm




More information about the pmwiki-users mailing list