Does anyone here use a personal wiki?

[MarjaE]

I'm thinking it would help me organize my writing.

I could cross-reference things, I could tag articles based on status (stub, cleanup needed, references needed, references would be nce but no more are strictly needed, etc.), or based on whether they're relavant to my projects.

But it's hard to know which ones are good, accessible, and easy to use.

Because of my neurological issues, I need to avoid blinking cursors, as well as flashing and a lot of animation. But I'm using a Mac, where there's no single system-wide fix. There are some apps with their own fixes, there are some which use NSText where a hidden setting can change blink rate, there are some apps like Calibre which don't use NSText but do check for that setting. (Thank you, KG, for that!) So I'm going to need to know whether that's an issue. Also open formats, and easy export to epub, mobi, and pdf would be very helpful.

[gmw]

Most of the ones I have tried were Windows only and/or or intended to be set up as part of a server. On that front, you may like to read about Bitnami's application stacks which make it fairly easy to set up a large variety of options, including most mainstream wikis. It's still a steep learning curve if you're not familiar, but much easier that assembling your own from scratch.

There are some non-system specific personal wiki solutions like TiddlyWiki and a derivative Wiki On A Stick (WOAS), but neither of these have received much attention for a few years. Back when I tried these they seemed a bit too fragile for my tastes.

And ALL the local install wikis I tried were all very basic in their features - nothing even suggesting they might consider export to epub.


When it comes to features I think your best bets probably lie with some online options ... but I leave that to others to comment on, as I have not tried them. (I use my own database software for notes, it implements a multi-format text editor capable of dealing with markdown, html, text and some others. It's Windows only - in case you were wondering.)

[MarjaE]

Thank you.

I am having a lot of trouble with each website. e.g. The TiddlyWiki one has smooth-scrolling and non-scrolling elements, the Stick one doesn't have search functions.

I understand Scrivener has Wiki support, but I gave up on it w/o buying due to its habit of saving on quit.

Apparently Word also has Wiki support, but I don't have it.

[MarjaE]

I guess my biggest concerns are:

1. Being able to use the software at all,

2. Being able to handle footnotes,

3. Being able to tag pages or chapters for completeness and types of work needed, and ideally

4. Being able to export a selected sub-set of chapters.

P.S. Preferably being able to keep full and abridged versions of some chapters.

[gmw]

I wasn't aware that Scrivener knew anything about wiki. They appear to offer some form of support for multimarkdown, but that's a different beast. There is no standard for wiki - there are many variations. Markdown doesn't have a standard either, although commonmark is close, but multimarkdown is probably close enough to get along with.

I suggest you need to be wary of "supports wiki" claims. Because there is no standard wiki syntax I'm guessing that while some software might offer limited support for importing a single page of wiki syntax text (of one style or another), it is unlikely to make sense of an entire wiki.

Regarding your biggest concerns...

1. I can't help with 1. Only you can tell what works for you and what doesn't (which, it is worth noting, is true with whether we suffer from an medical issues or not).

2. Apparently multimarkdown syntax supports footnotes. This suggests Scrivener might go some way toward what you want.

3. Page/chapter status is a project management issue rather than a document syntax issue. So it falls back to evaluating each product of potential interest.

4. Exporting ditto.

[MarjaE]

Well, yes, it's all project management.

I want some type of wiki or equivalent so I can tag chapters. I am not too concerned about the exact syntax as long as I can import from my existing files, mostly odt, edit easily enough, and export again.

[gmw]

I'm hoping someone will join in with some thoughts about online solutions, because that's one area I have not explored. You might find that you can solve some of your user interface issues with an appropriate selection of browser for accessing an online solution (perhaps, or perhaps that's wishful thinking).

I've tried many of the locally installed options, and while Scrivener impressed me with its end-to-end capability and visual sophistication, and yWriter impresses with the level of detail, I am still writing my manuscripts using LibreOffice, and I keep my notes in my own separate database. There is no centralised management of my projects because I have not yet found a project management solution that I actually want to use.

And I know you've been joining in here on MR for long enough to have tried most of the obvious options too. The dedicated options you already know about (Scrivener, yWriter, Sigil, Calibre etc. etc.) are all significantly better in their writing related features than any of the wiki (and similar) software I tried.

None of which helps you very much, but the point is that I am not aware of anything that's likely to be a good solution for you. It's not an easy problem, even for people with no complicating accessibility issues.


Three years ago Hugh Howey announced he was wanting to support development of a new editor for writers ... but it doesn't seem to have gone very far. If the "Neo" project I found on GitHub is it then it's not going to overwhelm anyone.

[VydorScope]

I use MS OneNote which I am PRETTY SURE will not meet your needs since it saves as you go, and I doubt there is any good export from it (never looked). I do not know about the cursor.

But I mention it to ask if that style of program might work for you? There are a few in the space but you would have to check them to see if they meet your specific accessibility needs.

I have ALL of my notes about what projects I am working on in it now. For me it works great, that is all I can truly claim.

[VydorScope]

As for Wikis, I have not found any, online or local, that I like at all. I gave up on that space years ago so can not help you there. Sorry.

[j.p.s]

I guess this is a long shot, but fossil source code management has a built in wiki. I don't have any experience with fossil other than confirming that it could indeed import a git repository.

fossil was written by the same guy that wrote SQLite and a fossil repository is an SQLite database.

http://www.fossil-scm.org/

[Quoth]

Git, Wikis, fossil etc are collaborative tools. A bit overkill for one author.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Git, Wikis, fossil etc are collaborative tools. A bit overkill for one author.

I have multiple git repositories at both work and home that I alone use. I have found that to be tremendously helpful.

I did not claim fossil to be ideal for this case, but that it might be the least unuseful.

[MarjaE]

Thank you.

I want to be able to check the status of different chapters of my work, cross-reference it, more easily switch between sections, and select relevant chapters for export.

I think a Wiki might make things more manageable. The traditional document approach does not-- either I try to add my notes to one working document, 200 pages, and it's hard to find the relevant sections, or I scatter them among several documents, and it's hard to find relevant sections that way too. I realize the wiki approach is designed for collaboration, but it looks like it might be better for personal research too.

I can't find anything about footnotes, endnotes, or reflists in the Fossil markdown guides: http://www.fossil-scm.org/home/doc/t...ikitheory.wiki

[MarjaE]

P.S. I tried Tomboy Notes, but couldn't stop the blinking cursor. I don't know whether it supports footnotes.

Zim does not yet support footnotes.

Tiddlywiki is supposed to have add-ons to support footnotes, but neither the Tiddlywiki page nor the SlidesnStories page are accessible.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by MarjaE

Thank you.

I want to be able to check the status of different chapters of my work, cross-reference it, more easily switch between sections, and select relevant chapters for export.

I think a Wiki might make things more manageable. The traditional document approach does not-- either I try to add my notes to one working document, 200 pages, and it's hard to find the relevant sections, or I scatter them among several documents, and it's hard to find relevant sections that way too. I realize the wiki approach is designed for collaboration, but it looks like it might be better for personal research too.

I can't find anything about footnotes, endnotes, or reflists in the Fossil markdown guides: http://www.fossil-scm.org/home/doc/t...ikitheory.wiki

Have you tried asciidoc? asciidoc is similar to markdown and can be processed into HTML,
PDF, or epub, and supports notes with backreferences. Even if your final form is not HTML, you can be continuously be editing your text, save it, process to HTML, refresh your browser and move around via search or link following. In the source text you can search on the note labels or back reference labels, so it is easy to find any note or reference.

The command asciidoc is a python script that produces HTML from asciidoc source text and a2x is a python script that produces PDF or epub from the same source text.

The command asciidoctor supports a super set of asciidoc syntax is in ruby.

I don't know whether this eliminates your need for a wiki of if the fossil wiki would integrate with a workflow including document source version managed in fossil.