I’m implementing a new information-keeping system where I work, and trying to find something that will fit in with a number of requirements. Here’s a quick summary of the task and how I’m getting along:
Requirements
- Allow text
- Allow attachments (files and pictures)
- integrate with existing extranet signon
- re-brand to match extranet
- allow conversion of existing files from
- knowledgebase
- dokuwiki
- html pages
- fine-grained access control for groups of users – it, programmers, symphony users, customers, etc
- consideration for scaling of solution
- lowest possible effort needed to edit/add info
Preferences
- Oracle-driven if a database is needed
- powerful search functionality
- ideally free!
Products
TikiWiki
The only PHP-driven Oracle-backed product on the market. TikiWiki is relatively straightforward to install. It is very complex for the purpose as it is a fully-fledged groupware with CMS, the wiki is just one module
pros
- oracle-driven
- written in php
- skinnable
- support for output in PDF
cons
- overkill
- no fine-grained access control
- no hooks for adding our authentication or interface with existing standards
- rather buggy under Oracle (especially the installation!)
MediaWiki
Experimental Oracle support apparently – testing with MySQL
MediaWiki is the engine behind slashdot – it is widely used and understood. Traditionally PHP driven there is some support for Oracle however this is not widely used and not really supported by the project developers.
pros
- widely used product – plenty of community support
- good search functionality
- fine-grained access control (hides things you don’t have access to – very nice)
- LDAP authentication supported
cons
- horrible markup (not very strict, not block-level, hard to parse or convert from)
- difficult to convert existing documents
- standard of Oracle implementation unknown – I can’t get it to install! Likely to be poor and/or patchy
DokuWiki
Simple, text-backed storage. DokuWiki is the first information management system we implemented at Symphony to test the idea. It uses flat file storage, which we saw as a potential storage problem, however I’m seeing examples of people saying its fine up to 40k pages or so. http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/FlatFileAdvantages
pros
- lightweight, easy to install and brand
- text files can be readable with or without frontend
- simple and clear markup
- easy to convert documents to it
- syntax highlight in code blocks
cons
- poor search functionality, also slow due to the file access. Could use external spider e.g. http://www.phpdig.net
- potentially poor scalability as the file structure grows