Wiki review: DokuWiki

I’ve been looking for a simple, lightweight wiki application for my website since my recent redesign. Here’s what I wanted:

* quick, no-nonsense install and configuration
* easily restrict editing access (me, and perhaps a small handful of friends)
* clean interface and pleasant markup that doesn’t make me want to scream (TWiki, I’m looking at you!)
* easily themeable to look like the rest of my site
* runs on Perl or PHP for preference

Someone on IRC last week (sorry, I forget who) suggested DokuWiki so that’s what I’ve gone with, and it’s looking great so far.

I particularly liked the simple, one-step install procedure. Check this out:

The three access control levels are simple and just what I needed, and the filesystem-based storage mechanism — no database needed — meant that the whole thing was done in a single step. No mucking around with MySQL!

I set a few configuration options in the admin screen after that, most importantly URL rewriting to make the page names neater and more search-engine friendly, but such configuration is optional. (Bonus point: configuration is entirely web-based, not requiring the editing of PHP files.) One item that I think should’ve been in the configuration and wasn’t, however: the Creative Commons license. I changed mine from the default CC-BY-NC-SA to CC-BY-SA by editing `dokuwiki/lib/tpl/default/footer.html`.

The user interface and look-and-feel are customisable via templates (i.e. themes or skins), and there are a number of attractive ones available. I suppose I’ll probably be developing my own, but for now I’m using the default template until I get a good feel for the interface and what I want.

There are also a number of plugins available, but again, I’m holding back on those til I see what I need. I suspect that the tag plugin will come in handy, along with one of the improved code markup ones.

From a user perspective, DokuWiki’s syntax seems to be quite similar to MediaWiki’s. In fact, the whole thing has the feel of a lightweight MediaWiki. If anyone ever tells me, “I tried to install MediaWiki but gave up,” I’ll definitely point them in this direction.

In summary: if you want something that looks clean and professional, is easy to install, and doesn’t need to be massively scalable, DokuWiki looks like a great choice.

(If you’re interested, you can take a look at my embryonic Infotrope Wiki in action.)