Wikis have some similarities to the applications you’ve seen in earlier chapters, but they have some differences too. Like discussion forums and blogs, wikis facilitate collaboration among users. But whereas forums and blogs are controlled by individuals, wikis are controlled by a large number of users. And because the number of contributors to a wiki is potentially endless, wikis are vulnerable to abuse. Thus, the effective use of a wiki lies in its users’ honest use and adherence to certain guidelines.

Wikipedia defines “wiki” as follows:

As stated in the definition, a wiki is a web page or a collection of pages. Any user with appropriate permissions, which are generally granted by default, can create a new page and add it to a wiki. Ideally, this page should contain useful information that’s helpful to other users, but the accuracy of the information cannot be guaranteed in most cases. If the information is incorrect, though, other users can fix it. The wiki tracks the changes that different users make to each entry, so one can revert back to the original entry if the modified information is technically incorrect. A classic example of a wiki is Wikipedia, which is entirely authored and edited by a large number of worldwide users with expertise in different areas.

Wikis also prove useful in business. A large multinational corporation can set up wikis on their intranets to publish company policies. The regional changes made to such policies can be directly entered and edited by employees belonging to those individual regions. Such wikis can also be useful for sharing knowledge and experience among colleagues, especially since the wiki retains that information long after employees leave the organization.

The first wiki software program was developed by Ward Cunningham. The application was called WikiWikiWeb and was described as “the simplest online database that could possibly work.”1 According to Wikipedia, “wiki” stands for “What I Know Is,” but this is apparently a “backronym” (an acronym constructed for the word after the word had already been in existence). “Wiki,” incidentally, is a Hawaiian word for “fast” or “quick.”

The Liferay installation comes with an application called Wiki to provide wiki functionality on Liferay portals. You will now learn to use it. First, install the Wiki application on the ISI portal by following these steps:

1. Open the Community page that you created in the last chapter.
2. Add a child page called Wiki to the Community page.
3. Alternatively, you can create a public page called Wiki under the Fundamental Analysts community.
4. Select the Add Application menu.
5. Select the Wiki application under the Collaboration category.
6. Add the application to the page. Your screen with the Wiki application should look like the one shown in Figure 7-1.

 

As you can see in Figure 7-1, the Wiki application has created a default node for you and has added a page called FrontPage. The page is empty, so you will need to edit it to add some content.

A wiki consists of several nodes. You’ll now add a few nodes of your own.

You’ll add two nodes based on the classifications of our community users: Fundamental and Technical. The Fundamental node will carry information useful to fundamental analysts, while the Technical node will carry information for those who are interested in technical analysis. To add these nodes, follow the steps listed here:

1. Locate the small toolbox icon above the FrontPage heading (see Figure 7-2). You’ll see a tool tip titled Manage Wikis when you hover the mouse over this icon.

 

2. Click this toolbox icon to pull up the screen shown in Figure 7-3. The screen shows the list of currently defined nodes and displays a button to let you add new nodes.

 

3. Click the Add Wiki button to create a new node. You will see the screen shown in Figure 7-4.
 

4. Enter Fundamental as the node name.

5. Enter a description for the node.

6. With the Configure link, you would be able to set the user permissions for the node you’re adding. Leave the default settings for these. Note that the screenshot in Figure 7-4 shows the configuration options expanded, so the Configure link itself is not visible in the screenshot.

Click the Save button. You will return to the screen shown in Figure 7-3, where you’ll see the new node added to the displayed list.

 

7. Click the Save button. You will return to the screen shown in Figure 7-3, where you’ll see the new node added to the displayed list.

8. Go back to step 3 and add one more node called Technical. After you have added the two nodes, the screen will look like the one shown in Figure 7-5.

 

Now that you’ve added the desired nodes, you can customize each one by editing its pages. You’ll learn to modify the default pages created at the time of node creation, and you’ll also learn to add child pages and configure them.

When you create a node, a default Main page is created for you. You’ll now learn to edit the contents of this page.

You’ll start by customizing the Fundamental node you created in the previous section. To customize the node, follow the steps listed here:

 

3. Select one of these options from the Format drop-down list:

a. Creole: This is a markup language created by the WikiCreole community, which is headed by wiki inventor Ward Cunningham. This language is easy to learn, easy to teach, and fast to type. It uses readable markup that’s nondestructive.

b. HTML: In this mode, you will see the FCKeditor, which is a WYSIWYG editor for creating HTML text. It offers functionality similar to Microsoft Word or OpenOffice, although with limitations.

4. Select HTML format for the time being. Using this HTML editor, you can add text, images, and links to the page.


 

5. Enter a description as shown in Figure 7-8.

6. Add tags to the page if you wish.

7. You can add a short abstract using the Summary edit box.

8. You can preview the edits before saving the page by clicking the Preview button. If you’re satisfied with the edits, click the Save button to save your changes to the page. You should now see the screen shown in Figure 7-8.

When you define a wiki page and provide some description on it, you might want to support your contribution with external documents. You can do this by attaching the supporting files to the wiki page. To attach an external document to a page, follow these steps:

1. Click the Attachments link at the bottom of the page. If the page has any existing attachments, the Wiki application will display them onscreen. If this is the first time you are adding an attachment, the list will be empty.

2. Click the Add Attachment button. The resulting screen is shown in Figure 7-9.

 

3. Click the Browse button to pull up the file-selection dialog.

4. Browse the folder structure and select one or more files that you’d like to upload. After selecting multiple files, you’ll get a screen similar to the one shown in Figure 7-10.

 

5. You can cancel the upload of any of the selected files by clicking the Cancel Upload link to the right of the file name.

6. Click the Upload Files link to upload the selected files to the server.

7. Click the Use the classic uploader link to use the classic uploader, which lets you upload three files at a time. Alternatively, you can use the new uploader by clicking the Browse (you can select multiple files) link, which allows you to upload any number of files at a time.

The application checks the file extension before uploading the file and shows the message , if it doesn’t recognize the extension.

8. Return to the page view, where you’ll see the number of attachments associated with the page.

Generally, as an owner of a wiki node, you would allow your community users to add child pages to your node so that they can provide additional information on your topic or fill any gaps. Don’t worry about the permissions for now; just continue adding child pages with the owner rights that you have.

To add a child page, follow these steps:

1. Click the Add Child Page link at the bottom of the wiki entry (see Figure 7-13). Doing this pops up the page editor that you used earlier.

2. Enter the title, body text, tags, and summary in the editor.

3. Click the Save button to save your changes. You will return to the previous screen, which lists the newly added child page.

4. Add multiple child pages as desired. When you return to the wiki entry, you’ll see a list of all child pages displayed at the bottom.

5. Click the link of a child page to view it. The page will show up in full-screen view.

When you post a wiki page, your users might want to post replies to it. Such replies might consist of supporting content or even dissenting views. To post a reply to a wiki entry, follow the steps listed here:

1. Log in as a different user. For example, you can log in as another user that you created earlier. Make sure that the selected user account has permissions to post a reply.

2. Select the wiki page on which you want to comment.

3. Hit the Post Reply link at the bottom of the body text. This opens an edit box underneath the link on the same screen.

4. Type your comment in the edit box and click the Reply button. The application returns you to the previous screen, where you can see your reply at the bottom of the wiki page

5. When different users post their replies, all such replies will be shown in a tree hierarchy under the Threaded Replies heading. Click any of the displayed links to jump directly to that reply. You can always quickly return to the top of the reply list by clicking the Top link.

6. You can edit or delete a reply by using the corresponding links shown at the bottom of it.