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

Screwturn is wicked awesome - and it is C# / .Net.

Sharepoint 2010 is supposed to have better wiki features, and there is always the community kit of sharepoint. If you are able to leave the Sharepoint Wiki behind - you could always head over to the http://www.wikimatrix.org to find the wiki that works for you.

Answer 2

I fully concur with the above (Keng). Whatever that thing is within SharePoint (currently using 2010), it is NOT a Wiki by a long shot.

I am implementing an automated documenting solution, where I extract config and other info (like perldoc markup) from source code and XML config files. It inserts the info in a set of DokuWIKI pages, complete with formatting markup (including tables). It comes out perfectly formatted and works with a couple of tens of lines of perl, includes internal links to manually edited static doc pages, and support for namespaces so I can have my information logically organised. There is no way I could do that in SharePoint (sigh - company direction)...

The best I can do is try to make DokuWIKI template resemble sort of the SharePoint site (to keep the look and feel similar) and link out of SharePoint. :-(

Answer 3

The Sharepoint Wiki is essentially a list of Static HTML Pages, with the only Wiki-feature being [[article]] links. No Templates, No Categories, nothing.

We ended up having a separate MediaWiki and only use the Sharepoint wiki for text-based content that does not need much layout.

Answer 4

We looked at Sharepoint for a department wiki a few months ago. Even though we're primarily an MS shop, we went with DokuWiki. Open-source, so easy to keep up to date, great plugins, and a file-based back end.

Answer 5

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 ...

Answer 6

The default wiki included with Sharepoint doesn't support common wiki features well at all. There is no way to edit a single section of a page, and no way to link directly to a particular section on another page. The backend is in HTML so you lose the ability to edit in plaintext using simple syntax. The diff feature can't span multiple versions. Poor cross browser support of WYSIWYG editing. No way to auto-insert a table of contents...

There are, however, other wiki add-ins for Sharepoint which I can't categorically dismiss, for instance Confluence makes an add-in for Sharepoint. I haven't evaluated this software myself, and Confluence is somewhat expensive ($1,200 for 25 user license) although if you are already on Sharepoint I sense large corporate coffers :P. There also appear to be some free add-ins like CKS Enhanced Wiki but that appears to have a lot of the same problems mentioned above.