Copy
Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.
Hello <<First Name>>,

welcome to the first DokuWiki Newsletter.

Here is what we have for you in this issue:


Greetings from Berlin,
Andreas Gohr
(DokuWiki lead developer)

Recent Development Activity

We're constantly working on DokuWiki. Smaller and bigger changes are committed to our software repository every week.

Just recently several changes were committed that aim to make the editing in DokuWiki easier and more structured.

The way how the headline toolbar buttons work was changed. Previously you had to count the equal signs of the previous headline to decide what headline level to insert next. But usually you just want to insert a headline on the same or one level higher or deeper. The toolbar now provides dedicated buttons to do exactly this.

Screenshot: Headline Buttons

The list mechanism was extended as well. You can now select multiple lines of text and convert them into list items via the toolbar button. And when you are in a list item already, you can now just press enter to add a new list item. List items can also be shifted between different nesting levels by just hitting space or backspace.

And finally a new link dialog for creating internal links was added. It allows you to quickly search for page names or to browse the whole namespace hierarchy. This makes linking to existing pages much easier.

Screenshot: Link Wizard

All these feature are already installed at dokuwiki.org and will be in the next release.

Special thanks to Matthias Grimm who created the icons for the new headline buttons. Finding talented graphic artists is always a problem for Open Source projects, so his contribution is greatly appreciated.

Featured Plugin: Wrap

Anika Henke, a long time contributor, just recently released a new noteworthy plugin named 'wrap'. The plugin does little more than wrapping any content in a div or span to create a styled box.

What makes the plugin so exciting: while being simple, it is so versatile that it replaces the functionality of over 30 other plugins! Including a few of the most popular plugins like the note or box plugins. The plugin homepage also shows how to extend the plugin with your own, custom styles.

Screenshot: Wrap Plugin

The plugin is very powerful already, but Anika has a few more plans for it, including ODT support (for use with the Open Office export plugin) and adding a toolbar picker to easily insert the more common box types.

Definitively worth to check out if you need some more formatting options in your wiki.

DokuWiki at WikiCamp Frankfurt

On 10th of November a WikiCamp is held in Frankfurt/Main (Germany). The Camp is in barcamp style which means attendance is free and everyone is invited to do a session. There will be representatives of various wiki engines and a broad session topic range is possible from social or legal questions, over deployment scenarios to technical implementation specifics - it all depends on the attendees. I'll be there and will do a session (or more) on DokuWiki. If you want to talk about future DokuWiki developments, meet other DokuWiki users or just see what other wiki engines have to offer I really recommend to visit the camp. You can register here.

If you attend you may also want to introduce yourself in this forum thread so DokuWiki users can easily meet up.

Tips & Tricks: userscript.js

You know that you can easily extend DokuWiki's features with plugins. But sometimes that isn't even needed - a few lines of JavaScript can make a difference, too.

DokuWiki provides a simple way to add your own custom JavaScript. It just needs to be placed in a file named conf/userscript.js (you need to create that file yourself).

There are several ready made scripts available at the tips page. For example you can add a word counter, enforce the summary or set the minor edit checkbox by default.

Getting involved & Future Newsletters

DokuWiki is an OpenSource project and thrives by community participation. There are several ways to get involved in DokuWiki and I invite you to join us.

Besides PHP developers the DokuWiki project also needs help by non-programmers. We're always looking for people who answer forum posts or improve documentation (even simple things like spellchecking helps). A few ideas what needs to be done right now can be found here.

Also this newsletter needs your help, I'd like to include short  success stories (4-6 paragraphs) of how DokuWiki is used in companies and organizations. We're especially interested in how DokuWiki is used in your organization, how you discovered it, what problems you faced and how you solved them.

I'd also like to establish a newsletter team to create the future newsletters. If you like to be involved in picking topics and writing, please get in touch.

Please post all your feedback, success stories and intends to participate in the newsletter feedback forum.
Socializing
Did you know? You can become a fan of DokuWiki at Facebook or join our LinkedIn and Identi.ca groups.

Going PHP5
PHP4 went out of life a while ago and is no longer recommended for use. DokuWiki officially supported PHP4 up to the last stable release and contains several workarounds for PHP5 functionalities missing in PHP5. This will no longer be the case in the future. The next release of DokuWiki will require PHP5! If you're still running PHP4 we recommend upgrading right away to be prepared.


Plugin Survey
DokuWiki user Håkan Sandell took the time to have a very thorough look at the over 500 existing plugins and created an interesting survey. E.g. did you know, that the majority (68%) of the plugin authors only wrote a single plugin, but the top ten authors created about 27% of all plugins?

Popularity Data
Please remember to submit your usage data through the popularity plugin in your wiki's admin area. Besides helping developers to better understand the various environments DokuWiki is used in, it also updates the popularity scores on the plugin list.
You get this mail, because you subscribed to the DokuWiki newsletter.

Unsubscribe <<Email Address>> from this list.

Forward this email to a friend
Update your profile
Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp