* Fixed a bug with previews of subpages having broken links to top-level

[git.ikiwiki.info.git] / doc / features.mdwn

diff --git a/doc/features.mdwn b/doc/features.mdwn
index 4c138f3c8f0ba15714ab175ee3cbd8687a6fcd6b..92773f3c98dafb03137148953223eb251f7f0b89 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/features.mdwn
+++ b/doc/features.mdwn
@@ -1,37 +1,155 @@
-Currently implemented:
+Some of ikiwiki's features:

 
 

-* [[Subversion]]
+* Uses a real RCS

 
 

-  Rather than implement its own system for storing page histories etc, ikiwiki      simply uses subversion. (Supporting other revision control systems is also possible, ikiwiki only needs $FOO add, $FOO commit, and $FOO log).
+  Rather than implement its own system for storing page histories etc,
+  ikiwiki uses a real RCS. This isn't because we're lazy, it's because a
+  real RCS is a good thing to have, and there are advantages to using one
+  that are not possible with a standard wiki.

 
 

-  Instead of editing pages in a stupid web form, you can use vim and commit changes via svn. Or work disconnected using svk and push your changes out when you come online.
+  Instead of editing pages in a stupid web form, you can use vim and commit
+  changes via svn. Or work disconnected using svk and push your changes out
+  when you come online. Or use git to work in a distributed fashion all the
+  time. (It's also possible to [[plugins/write]] a plugin to support other
+  systems.)

 
 

- ikiwiki can be run from a [[post-commit]] hook to update your wiki immediatly whenever you commit.
+  ikiwiki can be run from a [[post-commit]] hook to update your wiki
+  immediately whenever you commit.

 
 

-* [[MarkDown]]
+  Note that ikiwiki does not require a RCS to function. If you want to
+  run a simple wiki without page history, it can do that too.

 
 

-  ikiwiki supports pages using [[MarkDown]] as their markup language. Any
-  page with a filename ending in ".mdwn" is converted from markdown to html
+* Supports many markup languages
+
+  By default, pages in the wiki are written using the [[MarkDown]] format.
+  Any page with a filename ending in ".mdwn" is converted from markdown to html

   by ikiwiki. Markdown understands text formatted as it would be in an email,
   and is quite smart about converting it to html. The only additional markup
   by ikiwiki. Markdown understands text formatted as it would be in an email,
   and is quite smart about converting it to html. The only additional markup

-  provided by ikiwiki aside from regular markdown is the [[WikiLink]].
+  provided by ikiwiki on top of regular markdown is the [[WikiLink]] and 
+  [[PreprocessorDirective]].
+
+  If you prefer to use some other markup language, ikiwiki allows others to
+  easily be added by [[plugins]]. For example it also supports traditional
+  [[plugins/WikiText]] formatted pages, pages written as pure
+  [[plugins/HTML]], or pages written in [[reStructuredText|plugins/rst]].

 
 * support for other file types
 
 
 * support for other file types
 

-  ikiwiki also supports files of any other type, including raw html, text,
+  ikiwiki also supports files of any other type, including plain text,

   images, etc. These are not converted to wiki pages, they are just copied
   unchanged by ikiwiki as it builds your wiki. So you can check in an image,
   program, or other special file and link to it from your wiki pages.
 
   images, etc. These are not converted to wiki pages, they are just copied
   unchanged by ikiwiki as it builds your wiki. So you can check in an image,
   program, or other special file and link to it from your wiki pages.
 

-* [[SubPage]]s
+* Fast compiler

 
 

-  Arbitrarily deep hierarchies of pages with fairly simple and useful [[SubPage/LinkingRUles]]
+  ikiwiki is fast and smart about updating a wiki, it only builds pages
+  that have changed (and tracks things like creation of new pages and links
+  that can indirectly cause a page to need a rebuild)

 
 

-* [[RecentChanges]], editng pages in a web browser
+* [[blogging|blog]]

 
 

-  Nearly the definition of a wiki, although perhaps ikiwiki challenges how much of that web gunk a wiki really needs. These features are optional and can be enabled by enabling [[CGI]].
+  You can turn any page in the wiki into a [[blog]]. Pages matching a
+  specified [[PageSpec]] will be displayed as a weblog within the blog
+  page. And an RSS feed can be generated to follow the blog.

 
 

-----
+  Ikiwiki's own [[TODO]], [[news]], and [[plugins]] pages are good examples
+  of some of the flexible ways that this can be used.
+
+  Ikiwiki can also [[plugins/aggregate]] external blogs, feeding them into
+  the wiki. This can be used to create a Planet type site that aggregates
+  interesting feeds.
+
+* [[tags]]
+
+  You can tag pages and use these tags in various ways. Tags will show
+  up in the ways you'd expect, like at the bottom of pages, in blogs, and
+  in rss feeds.
+
+* valid html and css
+
+  ikiwiki aims to produce 
+  [valid XHTML 1.0](http://validator.w3.org/check?url=referer).
+  ikiwiki generates html using [[templates]], and uses css, so you can 
+  change the look and layout of all pages in any way you would like.
+
+* [[SubPages|SubPage]]
+
+  Arbitrarily deep hierarchies of pages with fairly simple and useful
+  [[SubPage/LinkingRules]]
+
+* [[BackLinks]]
+
+  Automatically included on pages. Rather faster than eg MoinMoin and
+  always there to help with navigation.
+
+* [[PageHistory]]
+
+  Well, sorta. Rather than implementing YA history browser, it can link to
+  [[ViewCVS]] or the like to browse the history of a wiki page.
+
+* [[RecentChanges]], editing pages in a web browser
+
+  Nearly the definition of a wiki, although perhaps ikiwiki challenges how
+  much of that web gunk a wiki really needs. These features are optional
+  and can be enabled by enabling [[CGI]].
+
+* User registration
+
+  Can optionally be configured to allow only registered users to post
+  pages; online user registration form, etc.

 
 

+* Discussion pages
+
+  Thanks to subpages, every page can easily and automatically have a
+  /Discussion subpage. By default, these links are included in the
+  [[templates]] for each page.
+
+* Smart merging and conflict resolution in your web browser
+
+  Since it uses a real RCS, ikiwiki takes advantage of its smart merging to
+  avoid any conflicts when two people edit different parts of the same page
+  at the same time. No annoying warnings about other editors, or locking,
+  etc, instead the other person's changes will be automatically merged with
+  yours when you commit.
+
+  In the rare cases where automatic merging fails due to the same part of a
+  page being concurrently edited, regular commit conflict markers are
+  shown in the file to resolve the conflict, so if you're already familiar
+  with that there's no new commit marker syntax to learn.
+
+* page locking
+
+  Wiki admins can lock pages so that only other admins can edit them.
+
+* Full text search
+
+  ikiwiki can use the [[HyperEstraier]] search engine to add powerful
+  full text search capabilities to your wiki.
+
+* Commit mails
+
+  ikiwiki can be configured to send you commit mails with diffs of changes
+  to selected pages.
+
+* [[Plugins]]
+
+  Plugins can be used to add additional features to ikiwiki. The interface
+  is quite flexible, allowing plugins to implement additional markup
+  languages, register [[PreProcessorDirective]]s, hook into [[CGI]] mode,
+  and more. Most of ikiwiki's features are actually provided by plugins.
+  Ikiwiki's backend RCS support is also pluggable, so support for new
+  revision control systems can be added to ikiwiki. 
+
+* [[todo/utf8]]
+
+  After rather a lot of fiddling, we think that ikiwiki correctly and fully
+  supports utf8 everywhere.
+
+* [[w3mmode]]
+
+  Can be set up so that w3m can be used to browse a wiki and edit pages
+  without using a web server.
+
+----

 
 

-[[TODO]]
\ No newline at end of file
+It also has some [[TODO]] items and [[Bugs]].