Hello <<First Name>>,
welcome to the DokuWiki Newsletter. In this issue we present:
Enjoy your reading,
DokuWiki Newsletter team
Recent Development Activity
This autumn started with a bug hunting weekend. Actually it only lasted a day but a bunch of bugs where hunted down while chatting on the IRC channel. Also two new features improving the page history functionality have been added. First, when making section edits, the edit summary is pre-filled with the heading making changes easier to follow. Secondly it is now possible to use permanent links to diff views. As always you can try it out at DokuWiki playground.
Two weeks ago, DokuWiki developers met in Zürich at the FrosCamp Hackfest. There was work done on refactoring the Javascript to use jQuery and the design of the new default template. Furthermore it was decided to switch to a fixed release schedule instead of the current "release when ready". Releases are planned for April and October each year.
![[New default template scribble]](http://gallery.mailchimp.com/72ec38d1614d3a63c1184f448/images/new_default_sketch.jpg)
Andi proposed on the mailinglist that we should form different task teams, for example "release", "documentation" and "plugins". By forming smaller teams with a clearer focus it should be easier to start contributing and add a feeling of responsibility. Teams was also discussed during Hackfest and a teams homepage has been created. The release team are now busy preparing next release candidate.
Make Sure Your Install Is Secure
Please take time to read trough the security page, it may have been a while since last time and page may have been updated. For example, is your data directory secure?
As you know, DokuWiki stores all information in files inside the data directory. This directory has to be properly secured. This means it shall not be directly accessible. Not only would this allow to circumvent any ACL settings it may also allow an attacker execute arbitrary code on your server under certain webserver setups.
DokuWiki comes with a preconfigured .htaccess file in the data directory. This is a little config file that tells your Apache webserver to not let anyone access this directory. However if you're using a different webserver than Apache or your Apache is configured to ignore .htaccess files, you need to manually secure your setup as described at the security page.
To check if you need to adjust the access permissions try to access http://<yourserver>/dokuwiki/data/pages/wiki/dokuwiki.txt. When you get a "Access Denied" everything is well.
Remote Editing With DokuVimKi
DokuWiki developer Michael Klier just released a new version of DokuVimKi, a vim plugin in Python that allows you to edit wiki pages of a remote DokuWiki instance using the XMLRPC API. This is a complete rewrite of the initial version and comes with a lot more features:
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syntax highlighting
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filebrowser-like tree to navigate the wiki
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command mode auto-completion for wiki pages
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insert mode omni-completion for wiki links and media files
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file uploads
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revisions & diff mode
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search with support for regular expressions
This is a good example how to integrate DokuWiki with other software using the XMLRPC API. The sync plugin also uses XMLRPC, but to connect DokuWiki instances on different servers to each other. The system integration possibilities are endless.
Featured Plugin: Graphviz
According to an old proverb, a picture says more than thousand words. This is especially true in documentation. DokuWiki already offers the option to easily upload and add graphics to your pages. But sometimes you don't have a graphic and need an easy way to create one without spending much time.
One solution is the set of tools provided by Graphviz. Graphviz will automatically create graphical representations of a graph you describe in a simple language called dot. Of course there's a plugin to make this available in DokuWiki. Originally written in 2005 by Carl-Christian Salvesen it was recently adopted and rewritten.
Here's a simple example:
<graphviz circo>
digraph {
wash -> rinse
rinse -> wash [label="repeat"]
}
</graphviz>
The plugin can use a local Graphviz installation or use Google's chart API when a local install isn't available.
Changes at dokuwiki.org
DokuWiki user Aleksandr Selivanov recently updated and translated large parts of the DokuWiki manual to Russian. This is a great example of how users can contribute without programming. Improve or translate the documentation on your own, or join the documentation team if you want company.
Have you noticed the little people of DokuWiki.org? Since beginning of September you can easily link to forum user profiles. Simply prefix the user's forum login with user> in the normal wiki syntax (interwiki style). For example the following will link to Andi's profile
[[user>andi]] and looks like 
When you hover over the name, a small overlay will display the full name, location and avatar picture of the user. The signature config was also changed to make use of the new functionality.
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Lazy Sunday
Preparation has started for new DokuWiki release candidate. It will be named "Lazy Sunday" and contain a lot of small goodies. Read more in the change list.
Translations Needed
With an upcoming release we need help with updating the translations. If you are interested just drop by translate.dokuwiki.org and check if your native language is at 100%. Right now you can pick your choice of working on Swedish, Hebrew or Chinese among several others.
WikiFest - Berlin
Next DokuWiki developer meet will be at WikiFest in Berlin at November, 12th-14th 2010. Please register if you are interested in participating.
Plugin Survey
The second DokuWiki plugin survey has been released. 133 new plugins have seen light since last year and more statistics are available. E.g. did you know, that almost 20% of the plugins are using GitHub as version control system?
Follower Counts
Get more DokuWiki news by following us on your favourite social network:
 Facebook: 296 fans
 Twitter: 147 followers
 Identi.ca: 58 subscribers
 LinkedIn: 47 members
 Xing: 84 members
![]()  GitHub: 133 watchers
 Ohloh: 163 users
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