Sharepoint Wikis

Question

Ok, I\'ve seen a few posts that mention a few other posts about not using SP wikis because they suck.

Since we are looking at doing our wiki in SP, I n

Answer 1

I have a much more positive view of Microsoft's Sharepoint Wiki. In many ways it reminds me of FrontPage 98 -- and that was an unfairly maligned product.

The comment about using a list is misguided. Sharepoint Wikis ARE Sharepoint lists, in which each page is a list item with an HTML attachment.

It's true that you can't link into a page, but if the pages are short I don't see that as a problem. SP Wiki makes it very easy to have short pages.

You can manipulate the Wiki attributes from access 2008 if you wish, and you can add attributes to the wiki list items as desired. For example -- do you want categories? Just add them by editing the list. Want specific views? of list items. Create them too.

There's real genius in the way Microsoft built their Wiki framework atop Sharepoint lists -- which are undeniablly well done.

The TRUE drawback of Sharepoint Wiki was mentioned by famerchris. The approach to image management is surprisingly awful. It's such a serious problem that you should consider other Wikis for this reason alone.

There is a convoluted workaround that I use. It takes advantage of the superb Sharepoint support and image editing integrated with Windows Live Writer.

1. Create a SP blog that will hold the images that will be referenced in the wiki.
2. Use Windows Live Writer to post to the wiki-image-blog. Drop your image into WLW, resize it as needed, etc. If you like, use WLW to write your image associated wiki text first draft as well.
3. After you post to the Wiki, copy and paste image and text into the Wiki editor rich text field.

This takes suprisingly little time, far less than any other option I've read of. I admit, it is convoluted.

Other than the image problems I'm pleased and impressed with the product. If only Microsoft had thought harder about images ... if only ...