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Creating a Wiki
2

Creating a Wiki

Creating a Wiki

(OP)
This is probably the wrong forum for this discussion. However, someone mentioned using a wiki as opposed to a database type system for keeping track of all your pdf references, etc. I can't seem to find this post and was wondering if anyone else had any suggestions on how to approach this. Currently I have all my reference files in Onedrive (i.e. cloud storage space). However if I could create a searchable wiki that could be used intra-office (and put online with log-in users) this would be a good thing to look into.

My first thought was Mediawiki which is the software that wikipedia uses and I believe it is free. At first I'm assuming the wiki will be most pdf files until someone can start filling with other content.

I suppose the first question might be, if most of the content will consist of PDF files, is a wiki worth it?

EIT
www.HowToEngineer.com

RE: Creating a Wiki

Wiki seems like a terrible way to organize something like this, especially if you've got hundreds or thousands of pdfs.

I've been playing with reference managers lately. They're aimed towards academic research, but they generally allow full text search of your reference database, annotation, tags, full bibliographic information and things like that. Some of them also have cloud components if you want to sync across multiple computers or access things on a mobile device.

Right now I'm playing with Qiqqa, which I'm not completely sold on yet because it seems to be stuck in a weird loop of doing OCR runs on the same file over and over again, but in concept it seems like the *type* of program I want.

Wikipedia has a big list of different reference management software:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_referen...

Some of the ones with the sorts of features we'd care about seem to be: Qiqqa, Mendelay, Papers, and Bookends

Mendeley seems to heavily bank on the online component, which worries me if they ever shut down and I've put a significant amount of labour into my organization. Qiqqa definitely works without the online component, and seems to have a way to export the library into different formats but I haven't tested it yet.

I haven't played with Papers yet.

RE: Creating a Wiki

I suggested the Wiki - I use TikiWiki as it was well rated, software is actively maintained and there was a full install package available, but there are several with different interfaces and features. Installing it for a group of people will be like setting up any intranet website.

A Wiki is four parts: A website, a database, a language interpreter, and the Wiki software itself.

TikiWiki uses Apache, MySQL, PHP, and the TikiWiki PHP script portions. Collectively the first three are called AMP.

See MediaWiki https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Software_bundles They mention XAMPP, which is what my TikiWiki installer came with. The extra 'P' is for Perl.

Here's one set of instructions; there are others. http://www.sfentona.net/?p=437

The problem I solved with the Wiki is the ability to associate the -why- of information, as in, why was a design choice made, and why alternatives weren't taken. Or why a document is a good one and should be preferred.

It also serves as a one-place to store, one place to look that is much better than dead-folder storage.

I have over 3000 entries, many interlinked so that I can follow any design trail very rapidly. Some of them have the extracted contents from PDFs, Word, web pages, all on equal footing and all able to have links added into them - something that is not possible with dead-folder storage. This is particularly helpful with older scanned PDFs where the OCR is terrible, so that I can correct the text of those sections that are important.

One thing that isn't required, once the text and image content is in a Wiki, is opening yet another application that is usually an editor. Word, Excel, and Notepad all have the chance to change and easily save the altered document back by accident. However, it's easy to upload a new version when the user wants to, leaving the old version available for comparison.

I can also manage to-dos by adding a link to a page called 'to-do' where I can look at all the back links to see which pages have outstanding issues.

You should be able to mass import the files into a file gallery to start with, to which you can create links from related pages. I did a lot of MIL-SPEC work, so it was advantageous to make links between specs and drawings and the contract requirements. This way only one time locating of specs was required, rather than the usual everyone finds their own copy, or different people have different versions, or one person makes one copy and that gets dead-foldered to dozens of places with different naming conventions.

RE: Creating a Wiki

(OP)
Thanks guys, very good feed back.

My original thoughts were along the lines of TLHS however Dave is slowly transitioning me. I need to do a bit of research. I'm not well versed in either option.

EIT
www.HowToEngineer.com

RE: Creating a Wiki

I just use a organized hierarchy of folders on my Google Drive. But, 3DDave, I like the sound of your method. Maybe it is time to change...

RE: Creating a Wiki

(OP)
@Dave - I'm finally getting around to setting this up. Just curious, did you use Collaborative Community or Company Intranet Profile or perhaps some other profile?

Thanks again!

EIT
www.HowToEngineer.com

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