karla's dashboard

Nathan Schmidt whipped up a quick pbwiki 2.0 API call for rendering wikistyle text into html, and I used that to create a classic editor for 2.0 wikis.

instructions for putting it on your wiki can be found here:

http://getsatisfaction.com/pbwiki/top...

Interesting point about the lack of wikistyle making the site more like something like geocities...

Going to the Oxford English Dictionary definition of a wiki: A type of web page designed so that its content can be edited by anyone who accesses it, using a simplified markup language.

pbwiki definately is straying away from being a true wiki.

So I just started playing with PBWiki today and I agree that the lack of WikiStyle is a real hinderance for people who write long documents - which is much easier to do offline in a simple text editor. Sure, writing docs offline and then uploading in one giant shot isn't very collaborative, but that's how a lot of things get started.

I understand the issue with WYSIWYG editors destroying WikiStyle (I've seen this with Confluence, SocialText, MediaWiki, etc.) but that seems solvable by constraining edits to what you can do in WikiStyle if the admin chooses to support that.

glad to see that you're taking the "expert user experience" into account since that's what everybody becomes eventually if they use your product as much as you'd like them to... Can't wait to see this stuff go in.... the return of mobile support will be awesome too... when I first started using pbWiki I read and updated it all the time through the web browser in my PSP... but those days are gone, and it'll be exciting if they return. – Tim, on May 16, 2008 20:46

Who's idea was it to require that an administrator have an email address for every single person they want to be able to use his or her wiki... how do we invite people to use the wiki without putting their email address in that little box? – James, on May 16, 2008 20:26

I'm also loving the classic editor, especially creating links is extremely fast.
I use a private wiki with over 100 pages and over 1000 links, links are the core of my wiki and beeing forced to use the new editor would be really a problem.

It's not only the time you need more when using the mouse for links (even shortcuts are much slower and more intricate than classic editor) - the problem is the bad feeling everytime you make a link that it was much easier in the past and that is now called "improvement".

I know there is a problem that the classic formatting gets "destroyed" when someone uses the new editor once - so you can't relly switch back anymore then.
But why don't you make the new editor default and an option in the wiki settings to enable also classic editor which the wikiadmin can turn on and set write permissions to pages so that someones "classic" pages don't get broken.
At least on a private wiki classic editor should be available !

Hey John, we're working on it. In the meantime, when the file downloads you can rename the file to remove the .ps and it'll open just fine. – Rachel Pennig, on May 11, 2008 16:34

We have this problem where users try to open a PDF we've uploaded to the wiki and it causes a dialog box to open that says it's a PostScript file and offers Acrobat Distiller as the default file to open it. Using that just results in an error message. It's possible to browse through the dialog box to find the exe for Acrobat Reader, but a lot of users wouldn't know how to do that. The OS and FF obviously know which program to use to view PDFs because the exact same file opens fine from the hard drive or when posted to another Web site. So it must be something with PBwiki. Please get it fixed! – John, on May 11, 2008 14:23

Creating a SECURE way to use invite keys is something we're working on. We changed a LOT about how PBwiki works in 2.0, which means that the same security measures we took in 1.0 don't work as well in 2.0. That means we have to re-do the whole thing, in a way that satisfies as much of the feedback we've received as we can.

There's no way we can please all of the people all of the time. And I'm sorry that it's taking so long to do this, but we want to do it right. If someone finds a loophole into your classroom wiki and vandalizes it, or even worse, gets access to your login information, or anything like that AT ALL, we might as well pack up and go home. I, for one, don't want to be out a of job. I don't want you to be out of a wiki. I don't want you to feel like using PBwiki is a security risk.

So I'm going to hope that you can be patient for a little while longer while we make sure invite keys are up to our standards, security and usability wise. The people in the office are fond of the saying "eating your own dogfood" - if we won't do it, we don't expect you to, or that you would even want to.

Invite keys in 1.0 still work, although they do require an email address. We've already addressed several ways of going around this.

I'm sorry for all the inconvenience this has caused you.

Someone explain to me again, why "invite keys" are not a good idea for education wikis?

What was the problem? It worked before. Why is it a no-go NOW?!?!

"It seems that Casey is completely out of touch with real schools in real communities".

Hey, now, don't be hatin' on Casey. She doesn't make any of these decisions; she's a very new employee. She has the unenviable position of gathering community opinions, communicating those opinions to management, and then taking the heat when mgmt drags their feet doing anything about it. I think she does a very professional job of community relations (one I know I couldn't do).

Ditto. Time to switch to another wiki. Shame.

I am really concerned with this answer. It seems that Casey is completely out of touch with real schools in real communities. Yes, the nice schools in the nice suburbs will have ways around this but a poor rural or inner city school with 3rd graders is not going to be able to access their wiki. True, it would be nice if the government could provide everyone with a nice suburban home and school but that's not going to happen any time soon. In some areas the parents don't speak English and may not read or write. In a rural area there may not be a public library. Some areas of the country don't have any access to high speed internet because it just doesn't go there. But our kids will need this technology for their future. Please do what you can to make this accessible or I know, as a teacher of teachers, you will lose your K-12 educational base.

Mmm... 'invite keys' were pretty much the whole reason I was hooked on PBWiki. This kind of sucks.

I miss WikiStyle too. WYSIWYG is the devil. It's so much more complicated and time consuming than just typing what you want on to the page. I don't get the point.

"losing that style of editing causes the service to no longer really be a wiki. It's just HTML pages (a la geocities) with a built in HTML editor."

Thank you.

I agree with Guy and others who are upset to see Wiki markup disappear. To me, losing that style of editing causes the service to no longer really be a wiki. It's just HTML pages (a la geocities) with a built in HTML editor.

Something that I like about wiki markup is the limiting factor that it puts on layout. As well as some of the automatic features such as creating tables of contents for the Headings on the page. This also allowed for anchors for each of those headings automatically. Of course, I might be recalling features that MediaWiki has and not PBwiki.

This strikes me as a difference between myspace and facebook in a way... Facebook was successful in part because it didn't let the user create super-ugly do anything-they-want-to pages. All Facebook pages follow the same formatting rules. Almost all myspace pages I've ever seen look terrible. Wiki markup when followed has a similar effect... It restrains craziness and focuses on the content.

I suggested PBwiki to a friend expecting him to be able to create real wiki pages on a real wiki service. I'm very disappointed to come look at the pages he made, click source, and see this inscrutable HTML appear behind the pages. I'm sorry to say that I regret recommending PBwiki now.

Hey everyone, as Vu mentioned at the beginning of this thread, we really are looking at the best way to get educator wikis used by students without e-mail addresses. Unfortunately when you have an internet-based tool like a wiki, other internet-based issues will come up (like access to an internet connection and e-mail addresses).

I am going to make it my personal mission to help you get a good login system for your students. Let's hear your thoughts here: http://getsatisfaction.com/pbwiki/top...

It looks increasingly as if pbwiki is going to be useless for poorer school districts, that cannot/will not supply email addies for their students, and whose students are extremely unlikely to have internet access and/or local internet-connected libraries (in safe areas) nearby.

What a shame.

I really hope that pbwiki finds a way to provide email-addy-free access for students in its education wikis. Right now it increasingly appears that this will not work in 2.0 *sigh*

It only gets worse. We have official confirmation that PBwiki is going to stop allowing you to create 1.0 wikis in the next few weeks, so if you want one, you'd better grab one now, before they lock you out.