Wiki -- Why?

Posted by Daly de Gagne
Sep 1, 2006 at 07:23 PM

Wes, thanks for the post.

I think with CT’s need to have a non-wysiwyg edit mode and WikiPad not having word wrap it’s like stepping way back in time.

I’ll give ZuluPad a try.

I’m willing to accept in theory that some databases may lend themselves better to wiki and others to outliners—but I am not able off hand to imagine what kind of database is better with wiki. I think this is a reflection of my lack of appreciation or intuitive understanding for wiki.

I use MDE Infohandler for a lot of my work, and it is not a true outliner, though there’s a way to see infoitems in an outline made up of groups and categories.

Back to my main stumbling block with wiki—why can one not have all the linking features without having to have an edit view that is non wysiwyg, and with the formatting limitations that went out the window with the advent of the GUI?

Daly

Wes Perdue wrote:
>Daly,
> >That’s an excellent question. I think the best answer for me is a wiki’s lack of
>structure. I use WikidPad for certain types of information. I like how the structure
>isn’t strictly tree-based even though it shows the hierarchy in a tree. I also like how
>the structure naturally develops as the database grows. It’s much less restrictive
>than an outliner, and the automatic linking is nice to have.
> >I very much want to like
>ConnectedText, as it seems so feature-rich. But I always seem to use WikidPad. I think
>it’s because I don’t like having to switch between viewing mode and editing mode.
>That’s required in ConnectedText, as you can’t navigate hyperlinks in edit
>mode.
> >WikidPad has both an edit mode and a view mode, but I almost never need to use the
>view mode, as hyperlinks are navigable in edit mode.
> >Thanks to Chriss’
>recommendation, I’ve found that ZuluPad has only an edit mode, and automatically
>links hyperlinks. I’m going to give it a try. Its one big advantage versus WikidPad is
>word wrap. A lack of automatic word wrap in WikidPad is to me one of its biggest
>weaknesses, and makes it difficult to use for long-format text creation.
> >I’ve
>found that certain projects or databases lend themselves better to outliners, and
>others lend themselves better to the free-form Wiki-style applications.
> >I
>remember a while back that Manfred Kuehn made a very good defense of the use of
>ConnectedText as a general-purpose PIM in the outliners-pims Yahoo
>group.
> >Regards,
>Wes