GotWiki Suggestions

• Lost Edits When I open two edit sessions on the page, make some changes in both then save them, I loss the edits from the first session I safe.

There is a design flaw is Got Wiki that causes this problem. Each session gets a copy of the page as it exsisted when the 'Edit' link was clicked. The problem occurs after the first session was saved. The second session no longer has the current version of the page. And worse still, when the second session saves the page it has the effect of deleting the session ones changes.

Possible solutions include:

Lock the Page When someone clicks on the edit link on a page the system could lock out every one else for acquiring the edit control. This has problems if the editor does not complete the edit or a comment box is on the page.

Resolve at Save The system could check if any edits have been made while an edit was in progess then present a some kind of resolution dialog if there was a problem.

Combination A warning could be given if some one is already editing the page. If the warning is ignored then a 'Resolve as Save' strategy would be inorder.

This is a medium-high priority fix - John Cumming

• Visible Wiki Files Files inside a group are not protected.

• Email Gateways It would be cool if you could email directly to a wikipage and/or the commenting parts. It would also be great if I could get an email when a page or group I was interested in changed.

Yes it would be cool and great. I have had both these ideas on my long term plan for sometime now. I have partly implemented the email alert feature, but it needs more work. Low priority - John Cumming

• Does Got Wiki keep logs? Can I see processed server logs?

Yes and No, Got Wiki currently aggregates all hosted wikis into the same server log files. I can create separate virtual hosts and logs for accounts that need this service. Or, process the master log files on a daily basis to split it for each hosted wiki. Or, create an internal wiki module to track all activity. Some thought required. High priority - John Cumming

Update: The log file generated by Apache does not contain any host information. Without, host information it's impossible to determine from which wiki the request was servered from. A Custom Log? file can be created that does record host information. Custom Log?'s unfortunately are not supported at my provider. I can record a log inside Got Wiki, but this would not work for file accesses. Working on a solution, more to follow - John Cumming

Update: Brand new server dedicated to Got Wiki has been cleared by purchasing and is really for testing. Sometimes the solution to a problem is to abandon the old broken methodology and find something new. -John Cumming

• Better Calendar How about changing the calendar to be more like the staric one you designed for Tulelake's website.

First class suggestion, I have been very unhappy with the calendaring system. It's time for a complete rewrite. High priority - John Cumming

• Hiden Comments Can the comments that are created be placed into a private area.

No, or not yet. It's added to my todo list as medium priority. - John Cumming

• Search Results Is it possible to sort the search results based on modified date of page. I could then search for someone's signature wikiname and see want pages they have been listed on in reverse chronological order.

It's not possible at the moment, but it's a very good idea. But is a low priority for now - John Cumming

• Style Override's It seem the %color% setting overrides the default "link" color. Is there anything that can be done about that?

Yes, I noticed that too. Unfortunately it's the way the underlying CSS has been implemented. I would like to investigate but it is a low priority - John Cumming

• Inline styles should be checked for statement/expression consistency. Did not check the external stylesheet.

I am not sure about the styles just yet. They do need some work. -John Cumming

• Site/Group/Page mapped to geographic region
• WYSIWYG editing
• Server side image processing
• Server side zipping and unzipping of files
• Non destructive file change management
• Online spellchecker

Added or Changed

• Why do I need 'www' When I use the URL 'mctv15.org' it takes me to the www.gotwiki.com website. Why?

Oversight, It now works as you might expect. Both 'www.mctv15.org' and 'mctv15.org' take you the MCTV 15 webiste homepage.

• Nested tables Got Wiki does not handle nested tables. As a web expert I need my nest.

You are correct. I am also a web geek, I too have missed my nested tables. It's added to the to do list. -John Cumming

• 404 Wiki Style I think that bad wiki names should result in a redirect to the sites homepage or a fuzzy match made to the 'best' wikipage.

Agreed, I have seen very ugly URL's cause problems for Got Wiki. High priority - John Cumming

Got Wiki 404's be gone. No more 'broken links'. Got Wiki does it's best to resolve all URL references. As a last resort it will take the visitor to the homepage. -John Cumming

• Username Marching When I put in my username sometimes it does not work. I think it might be extra spaces at the end or something to do with capitals.

Good observation. If any white spaces are pressent it will not recognise your name. I will rewrite the user authentication checker to be more lax. High priority - John Cumming

Good news, now it's easier than ever to remember you own name and how to spell it. Got Wiki now ignores spaces and case. So now 'John Cumming' is the same as 'john Cumming'. Your password is still case and space sensitive. One more cool addition, URL's are friendlier for example you can get to this page by typing:

http://www.mctv15.org/ board / Got wiki Suggestions

Check out all them spaces and mixed case. Got Wiki makes our bad keyboard skills good. -John Cumming

• Comments are not updating the change logs It's impossible to find newly created comments without the logging function.

I am working of a second type of log for use with the commenting system. Visitors will be able to chose to see changes to pages listed by editors or commenter. This way it will be easier to track changes by type. - John Cumming

Done: Decided a second log was a bad idea because it lead to increased complexity. I added comment logs to the recent changes pages. Page changes are now in bold and comments are normal. - John Cumming

• Changed URL Redirects Can you redirect URL's to wikipages.

As long as DNS directs to Got Wiki and an account has been setup. I can create a simple remap system. High priority - John Cumming

Update: Done via Apache's mod_rewrite. Can map any URL to any wikipage. - John Cumming

• Commenting System An easy way for site visitors to leave comments on a page.

Done, simply adding

• User based authentication and rights management A system to manage users and their rights to do actions in the website.

Fully up and running. Register and unregistered users can have roles assigned to them. Rights to actions on pages can be restricted to users with certain roles. Rights are managed at page, group and site level. The admin role has complete access to the wikisite. Actions include browsing, editing and uploading. Common roles include author, editor, commenter, board member. This is a very powerful rights management system that is designed as an administer function.

• Canceling an Edit after Preview After previewing an edit, clicking cancel returns you to the editing page, where you will need to click cancel a second time to return to the browser page. IMHO, a single cancel should take you to the browser page.

''I Agree, the Cancel button was implemented to be just like the browsers back button, which worked fine until the Preview was selected. For now, click the back button until your back to your starting point. -John Cumming

• No Spaces in Wiki Page Title All wiki word references get spaces separating the words when in browse mode, except for the title at the top of the page. It should be like the other wiki words and have spaces.

Fixed. -John Cumming

• Edit Preview needs to be more WYSIWYG than it is currently - specifically in regards to margins.

Now looks pretty -John Cumming

• Top right links. In line with the above, text links in the header do not contrast enough with the image used as that table's BG. IMO, vlink colors are pointless on a site like this, so maybe consider picking up a violet from the header graphic and using that for the header link color.

Updated link colors. -John Cumming

• Question marks appear to be treated as independent entities: http://mctv15.gotwiki.com/Main/YourShowOnTV

This is how Wiki works. Pages that do not exist will have a '?' placed after the reference. Clicking on them takes the user into the editing page. This is how pages are added to a wiki site. -John Cumming

• Text link to "home" at the top of each page is flush-left and on top of the logo. This makes it nearly invisible. Looks like some mungy code for that header section, maybe a bad rowspan definition. Appears the same in Moz 1.4 and IE 6.01.

Removed 'home' link and added a click-able region around the logo to make it link to the Main.Home Page. I was lazy, I had intended for the whole logo section top/left to be click-able but put up the 'home' link as a quick test. -John Cumming

• The 403 error: Access Denied should be more helpful to the totally clueless. Something along the lines of "In order to edit a page, you need to enter a user name when requested. This can be any name that you choose. Some areas of the site will require that you enter a password, but in most cases you can simply type a user name and click Enter." A reload link would be nice as well, with "Click here to enter a username and edit this page." or similar verbiage. I would bet that this page will be the first explanation of function for a majority of those interested in editing/contributing.

Great point, I have updated the text. There is added utility if the UserName is formed from the First and Last name into a WikiWord. A quicklink to the users page within a group would be automatically added to the top right navigation. In addition other users can quickly link to the editor/contributors from the changes page. -John Cumming

• Semi-trivial semantics, all pages, t-shirt ad: Nobody in the States uses the word "townmates". It sounds a little fruity. And the ALLCAPS words are annoying. "Show your community that you watch and support public Access Television!" might be a better choice.

This is a Wiki, you are free to change anything you please. I lifted the original text from the current http://www.mctv15.org website, and agree that the language is a bit odd. -John Cumming

• Author tracking

This wiki engine always has internally tracked edits by the client's IP. I have now added the basic user identity to the page attributes. Changed pages now show an edited by column, which will be the client IP or the user identity if defined at edit time. -John Cumming