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Features / Usability


using TXT files as content ?

Hello Folks.
I have been collecting info that I use and re-use as plain TXT files for some time and this has gotten out of hand !

I was using another type of wiki lately, but it required for me to carry it on a USB stick, and then I lost the stick too many times...so I want something to help me use this info in a web-based way which will keep it available to me always (and I cannot loose it !!!).

What I would like to do - please tell me if these things are possible with Tiki Wiki, and how ?

1. Upload and produce folders of files as separate sections, like=> car, house, personal, tech tips, etc.

2. Use WYSIWYG editing to change/update the content.

3. Have an index (preferably on the left) which can show the tree of headings/sub-headings, etc.

4. Make & edit new entries as needed.

This will be a closed project for my use only and as such needs nothing fancy looking - just functionality.

Thank you.

Hi smallhagrid,

Two and a half strategies to consider:{

1.) mainly manage documents
2.) manage information on Wikipages (WYSIWYG and/or WikiSyntax)

2 1/2) combine both

documents:

  • use the 'file gallery' feature and build up any document tree you want.
  • upload your files and replace them with new versions, if anything changes
  • show images and pdfs on wikipages, if you want and use the mediaplayer for audio and video
  • manage your OpenOffice/LibreOffice files and view them online


With .txt you will not have so much possibility (not any) to show and to edit online.
BUT
As we use WebODF, which is a quite new OpenSource project, you might get near there where you want.
WebODF is not yet usable to do WYSIWYG editing online or to setup new files and the files are not looking exactly the same than locally opened.
Anyway WebODF IS usable to show your OpenOffice files in Tiki and to edit at least existing text - for minor changes like typo or changing an address this should be absolutely enough

onlinetexteditors:

  • Our WYSIWYG Editor has been improved massively in the last few month
    > a good choice if you like to wor similar than in office.
    > all WYSIWYG Systems have its limitations, so ours aswell, but as it is based on the CKE Editor, you can solve most issues very quickly by switching into the HTML source code mode (for. ex. adding a tag to divide two 'glued' tables

  • Our WikiSyntax is very stable and has many advantages, which you never want to miss, if you are more a plain-text-guy, if you like coding in a basic texteditor with (wiki)syntaxhighlighting.



QUOTE(replyto=>smallhagrid)}Hello Folks.
I have been collecting info that I use and re-use as plain TXT files for some time and this has gotten out of hand !

I was using another type of wiki lately, but it required for me to carry it on a USB stick, and then I lost the stick too many times...so I want something to help me use this info in a web-based way which will keep it available to me always (and I cannot loose it !!!).

What I would like to do - please tell me if these things are possible with Tiki Wiki, and how ?

1. Upload and produce folders of files as separate sections, like=> car, house, personal, tech tips, etc.

2. Use WYSIWYG editing to change/update the content.

3. Have an index (preferably on the left) which can show the tree of headings/sub-headings, etc.

4. Make & edit new entries as needed.

This will be a closed project for my use only and as such needs nothing fancy looking - just functionality.

Thank you.{QUOTE}

Wow Torsten - this is alot for my old brain, Thanks !!!

I would love to use the 'file gallery' to build up a document tree.
I would also prefer to upload my files and then make any changes to the info in them online, always.

This stuff:

  • show images and pdfs on wikipages, if you want and use the mediaplayer for audio and video
  • manage your OpenOffice/LibreOffice files and view them online


May be for later, but not right now, thanks.

Hmmm:
> With .txt you will not have so much possibility (not any) to show and to edit online.

OK, then I ask, please:
Is there any file format I can convert (batch) these files into that WILL directly display & edit using WYSIWYG ?
(I have an app that would easily batch them all to HTML, for example...)

YES !!!
onlinetexteditors:

  • Our WYSIWYG Editor has been improved massively in the last few month
    > a good choice if you like to wor similar than in office.
    > all WYSIWYG Systems have its limitations, so ours aswell, but as it is based on the CKE Editor, you can solve most issues very quickly by switching into the HTML source code mode (for. ex. adding a tag to divide two 'glued' tables


Questions, please:
1. How do I make sure I have this latest editor ?

2. When I create a page I get this message:
"Thank you for trying the new ckeditor implementation for Tiki 6
Some of your preferences should be set differently for this to work at it's best. Please click this to apply the recommended profile: WYSIWYG_6x"

I do not understand what to do about this - could you please help me ?

3. How can I make page attachments appear inline (thence becoming editable text...) ?

4. I wish to enable Dir (vs. DB) file storage=> but the text box for this does not say what sort of path it wants.
Does this mean complete or absolute or URL - may I have an example of the correct path entry, please ???

I am a very, very, very plain kind of guy, thanks:
> *Our WikiSyntax is very stable and has many advantages, which you never want to miss, if you are more a plain-text-guy, if you like coding in a basic texteditor with (wiki)syntaxhighlighting.

Just the info/text is what I need, so I can keep it someplace instead of my old brain - because it falls right out of that !!!

Thank you Very Much, Once Again Torsten.

Hi smallhagri9d,

filemanagement and editing

'I would love to use the 'file gallery' to build up a document tree.
I would also prefer to upload my files and then make any changes to the info in them online, always. ..."
To make some minor changes the system is already usable, but really any changes online always, we are far away from. I am pretty sure, that WebODF will have this capabilities someday, but development needs time. And I do not know how many people are in this project.:
But generally for now and midterm you still download the file, edit it in the office software and upload it as replacing new version.
=> Note: maybe, as you only use plain text, you might be fine with online editing.
=> But then, if your plain text containes code, you would not have code highlighting via WebODF
=> in your specific case, using WebODF and ODT files but use them just as .txt-alike without any formatting it might work in the way you wish - so just and only online after once created and uploaded.

> With .txt you will not have so much possibility (not any) to show and to edit online.
"...Is there any file format I can convert (batch) these files into that WILL directly display & edit using WYSIWYG ? (I have an app that would easily batch them all to HTML, for example...) .,."

As said, you should use the "textpart" of ODF, so ODT, which is the format used by OpenOffice Writer, LibreOffice Writer, KOffice and further more applications.

"Questions, please:

"... 1. How do I make sure I have this latest editor ?"


Latest Tiki Latest Editor
Tiki has an All-In-One-Modell and we upgrade always the whole software included all modar elements, functions, ...
In Tiki we have not things like forum 4.3 works or works not with editor 5.7 or articles 4.8

"... 2. When I create a page I get this message:"

"Thank you for trying the new ckeditor implementation for Tiki 6
Some of your preferences should be set differently for this to work at it's best. Please click this to apply the recommended profile: WYSIWYG_6x"
I do not understand what to do about this - could you please help me ?

It is easy to apply a profile - whilst you should know about what you are applying before you use profiles in a productive environment.

Go to the admin area - direct link: yourdomain.com/tiki-admin.php

There you look for a button "profiles" and click (it's between "community" and "look and feel")
direct link: yourdomain.com/tiki-admin.php?page=profiles

right hand there is kind of a searchform where you type in: WYSIWYG

On a list of results you click on WYSIWYG_6x

Then you should find a button "apply"

With the given information, the whole thing should be quite selfexplaining and need not more than 3 or 5 minutes.

"... 3. How can I make page attachments appear inline (thence becoming editable text...) ?"


I do not work much with wikipageattachments. But I think it should work the same way as with files from file galleries, which I explain below.

Generally you can use the Plugin Media Player, which is explained here:
documentation: http://doc.tiki.org/PluginMediaPlayerQuestion

Very nice with mp3 and videos stored in the file gallery.

pdf: I got it not working with pdf in the file galleries -> in my setup they did not show up inline
But if I store pdfs in a normal folder on my server with a subdomain and link to them from the Plugin Media Player as src="sub.mydomain.com/filename.pdf" the pdf are shown inline aswell - seems to be some improvement needed

odt/odf: you can access odf files directly from the file galleries. afaik WebODF is not integrated in the way to be shown inline in pages.
But you can show inline a list of files out of a file gallery with the Plugin Files and use the show/edit WebODF functionality in the wikipage from there
documentation: http://doc.tiki.org/PluginFilesQuestion

"... 4. I wish to enable Dir (vs. DB) file storage=> but the text box for this does not say what sort of path it wants. Does this mean complete or absolute or URL - may I have an example of the correct path entry, please ??? ..."


Ok, it is strongly recommended not to store files in the database - a) security, b) size of the database.

Standart directory for the database is /files in the tikiroot, which is also strongly recommended not to be used.
We just have it to prevent loosing files.

You should use a files directory for example a level higher than the tikiroot - so "outside" the are that you can access via the domain you applied to your tikiroot.

I show you how I do that (just textbased - I will have to do some screenshots and a documentation page for that lateron (should have done since a long time 😉 )

Advance Information / Prerequisites:


In my projects I start always from the server root of my webhost or from the webserveraccount with a folder/directory /tikiwebsites.
Then I put in several containers /tikiwebsites/website1 /tikiwebsites/website2 /tikiwebsites/websitex and so on
now in /tikiwebsite/website1 I have a directory /files and a directory for each tikiversion - I alsways upgrade with a fresh installation (where I do not run a site from svn, which is a bit advanced. so leave it for now with normal download tiki as zip and unpack in the appropriate directory on the server)
Keeping the original installation and upgrade in a new directory with a copy of the database has some advantages, but to explain that in detail would be too much for the moment 😉

i do not know which version you are using - I pretend Tiki 8.3 Stable

So in my case you would find the tikiroot here:

/tikiwebsites/website1/120225_83_STABLE/tiki-8.3

/tikiwebsites
/website1
/120225_83_STABLE
Are directories which I created by myself as preparation for the tiki installation.
They are just containers which help me to organise several Tiki installations in one server account and keep the serverroot clean.

/120225_83_STABLE as just a container, is not necessary, but has some advantages in respect of exactly knowing what is where, in respect of using .htaccess and so on
/tiki-8.3 is the folder that you get automattically when you unzip your downloaded tiki file into /120225_83_STABLE - /tiki-8.3 is your tikiroot (maybe named slightly different - I do not know exactly, as I am working with the developmentversions all named /trunk 😉 )

Standart files directory is now:
/tikiwebsites/website1/120225_83_STABLE/tiki-8.3/files
Database credential are here:
/tikiwebsites/website1/120225_83_STABLE/tiki-8.3/db
Styles/Themes are here:
/tikiwebsites/website1/120225_83_STABLE/tiki-8.3/styles
and so on

Setting Up:


With FTP acces you now setup a set of empty directories
EITHER in
/tikiwebsites/website1 (Case 1)
OR in
/tikiwebsites/website1/120225_83_STABLE (Case 2)

you need a directory
/files
and subdirectories
/files/batchupload
/files/filegallery
/files/wiki
/files/tracker
/files/forum
/files/podcast
/files/podcast/audio
/files/podcast/video

The path for the filegallery to type in into the adminpanel would be as following:

Case 1:
../..//files/filegallery
Case 2:
../files/filegallery

Wikiattachments go here:
Case 1:
../../files/wiki
Case 2:
../files/wiki

The two dots .. befor the slash / will tell your server to "move up" a directoirylevel.
If you would not type the two dots - only one dot ./files or no dot /files, then your server would stay in the tikiroot and look for the files there.

with ../files the server goes up on level into the container directory /120225_83_STABLE
with ../../files the server looks for the files directory two level higher in the directory /website1

Both cases have advantages and you can move the whole directory /files lateron up or down and just need to adjust the path in the admin panel, for that the tiki finds the files again.
So just chooes one of the two options, like you want.

"... Just the info/text is what I need, so I can keep it someplace instead of my old brain - because it falls right out of that !!! ..."

Wiki

So why working with textfiles at all?
Couldn't you aswell could work with wikipages instead of txt files?

Cheers
Torsten


What I just forgot:

depending on the settings of your server you mostlikely have to set CHMOD rights to the folders you created, for that the webserver allows Tiki to read and write files in the folders.

Most assumingly you need for your
tikiwebsites/website1/files
or
tikiwebsites/website1/120225_83STABLE/files

chmod 777

obviously you need to do that recursively for all subdirectories (batchupload, filegallery, wiki etc.

I assume a Linux or unixbased webserver - Ihave no idea how it would work on a windows machine (but far most webhosts are unixoid).

Cheers
Torsten


Hello Torsten.
My reference to using the plain TXT files was unclear, I apologize.

So, where you asked:
> So why working with textfiles at all?
> Couldn't you aswell could work with wikipages instead of txt files?

What I should have made clearer is that I don't need for them to STAY as .TXT files - they merely already exist as that and my hope is to IMPORT them as individual, separate pages and to have an index as well.

Once they are imported and online, as long as they are LIVE content - editable and save-able, then all will be well indeed !!!

BTW, my prior mention of the WYSIWYG editor forgot to say that it works fine for new pages, but in editing all I get is a blank space after that error message wanting me to apply a 'profile', which I am not sure I want to do after already making so many changes to things very carefully...?

I've posted a summary of my idea as well, here:
PostingQuestion

Thank you.


Hate to say this as I have been using Tiki for many years and love it, but it is super overkill for what you want -especially as it's just for you and you aren't really using a Wiki's main feature of linking to other pages. Tiki is indeed powerful (and very cool!) but with that power comes a bit of learning that frankly, I don't think you need to bother with. My suggestion would be Google Docs.

-You can upload your .txt docs and then edit them with Google's editor which is as WYSIWYG as anything else online (and more Wysiwyg, and less quirky, than the CK editor/Tiki integration in Tiki.)

-You can make nested folders at The Google just like you want. Click the Create button and choose Collection (Collection = folder). In that folder create the next level...

-It's free -i.e. you don't have to pay for hosting and install Tiki.

-If you want to share docs you can invite people one by one.

Just seems a more appropriate solution and you can be up and running today!

Hi Unclegeo,

as far as I understood him, smallhagrid HAS lots of .txt files and WANTS wikipages as replacement, BUT import them instead of copy and paste one by one.

As far as I understand, he wants the content OF his .txt files as content of his Tiki and NOT the .txt files AS content, what seems to be a misslead from smallhagrids first headline / topic.

Must have been txt files for content instead of as content.

But finally you are right in what you are saying, if he wanted to use the .txt files itself AS content, maybe google docs might be still a more convenient solution - just if he would want.

Cheers

--ToF


PS:
See here=> http://keepnote.org/Question

Another fine example of a multi-platform app that does this, but it does not have a version which runs on hosted space...yet...


Hello Folks.
Thanks for the replies.

It just amazes me how many times I've asked for help in doing what I desire only to have someone tell me:
'DO SOMETHING ELSE !'.

For example=> Google docs.
NOT even close to what I seek to get.

I want:
MY content on=> MY hosting=> for MY use/re-use. ONLY.

Yes, I think very highly of the soon-to-be-dead Google Notebook (http://www.google.com/notebookQuestion).
Yahoo had one too.
Then there's Evernote, Workflowy and maybe 1000 others.
Those are services on somebody else's site.
No thanks.

As I said before, an unacceptable solution for this desire is Dokuwiki; it uses the plain TXT files and all one does is plop them into folders correctly, and BANG, ZOOM! => they appear as editable content.
It would be great - but it fails, crashes, and their support is quite useless to help fix it; I tried this.
It crashed. It stayed crashed. I deleted all of it.

I know there are many other non-coders like myself desiring to keep & use their content privately via internet.
There are also a great many coders who have wild dreams of out-competing existing SERVICES with their newer, but nearly identical ideas.

As relates to the above...:
Sadly, once a man gets $$$ signs behind his eyes he can no longer see other ideas, and that prevents truly new ideas from birthing and growing...

I'll keep asking all around until an answer surfaces.

Could be I'll be too old to use it by then, but that's OK too - it is a quest which I shall continue.

Thank you.

Hi smallhagrid,

maybe you are giving up too quickly?

I think a solution for your problem is not so difficult, as it sounds upfront - maybe it is quite simple.

You got a good bunch of replies and all what is going, is a brainstorming to find a solution for your idea, which is in no kind seen as nonsense or such.

There is no routine yet to import textfiles into Tiki wikipages / Tiki wikipage mysql-tables.

If you want to make people becoming interested in this problem and elaborate a solution together with you, you should not stamp on the floor and head off because you didn't get a 24 hr solution donated.

I believe, this must be possible to be done with a bit of Linux and a bit of MySQL knowledge - it is just plain text!

Maybe you head off to the next forum/project/community, but maybe same time I have a .txt to wiki solution in just a few weeks, because ... just because.
Btw. I have a few .txt files aswell and I start to use Tiki as online PIM aswell since a while.

And yes, you are right about the services - I want my stuff on my own private host aswell and design everything around my needs!

If you are already discouraged, I tell ya "thx, that you called in and left a very good idea - simple but I might not have been thinking on that for a long time"

So back on track to find a solution together?



The approach of Dokuwiki sounds - as you discribe it - to make the software kind of "understand" the .txt file.

I do not know much about Dokuwiki and would have to ask one of the lads I met at the WikiFests in Berlin and in Strasbourg.

But we are on Tiki right now and my approach would be different:

basically i would try to "convert" a single .txt file into a Tiki mySQL table just by adding a few characters into the textfile and then rename it into a .csv file.

I recently had a similar problem as I had to rename a domain name into a subdomainname throughout hundrets of .html and .php files and finally solved that with one line of code in my linux shell.

I even did not need to download the files from the server, as I just made it there via ssh access - three days of research and trial and about 5 minutes for the initial job.

It was just necessary to grap the string (REGEX, Regular expression) in the file with the 'find' command and execute the renaming with the 'sed' command.

would be s.th. like:
please mind that this is not yet working code, but just thoughts to find the right algorythm

Copy to clipboard
find parameter regex -exec sed parameter regex


This as said could be done for hundrets of files in one action.

Mind now, that you can import and export mySQL tables not only as .sql files, but also as .csv files.

.csv files are nothing else than renamed .txt files

renaming a hundret .txt into .csv would lead to a shell command like:
please mind that this is not yet working code, but just thoughts to find the right algorythm

Copy to clipboard
find parameter .txt -exec rm .csv


or similar -> it must be not hard to find the right line of code in the linux forums out there in the www

Bringing this together we have to look how a Tiki wikitable is looking as .csv file - actually all wikipages are store in one table, one line for each wikipage - mind the string " " marks a filed and , divides two fields of one line of the table:

Copy to clipboard
"1","HomePage","7","HERE IN THIS FIELD IS THE ACTUAL WIKISYNTAX, RESPECTIVELY THE CONTENT OF YOUR .TXT FILE",,"1330179298","Tiki initialization","1","0","admin","0.0.0.0",,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,"admin", "4175","de",,"0","1330179298","n",,NULL,NULL


analyse the first part:

"1","HomePage","7","WIKITEXT"

  • "1" is the Id of the page - for an import this field should mostlikely contain a zero (0) to be granted a new Id number -> we have to ask in the Tiki dev list for this detail.
  • "HomePage" the name of the wiki page -> that coul become the real problem, because we have to convert the .txt files in a way, that the filename of the.txt will finally become the second field of the contained table in the .csv
  • "7" is the number of hits, can be 0 aswell
  • "WIKITEXT" is the content of the .txt file and will become the content of the wikipage


analyse the second part:

"WIKITEXT",,"1330179298","Tiki initialization","1","0","admin","0.0.0.0",,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,"admin",
"4175","de",,"0","1330179298","n",,NULL,NULL

  • "WIKITEXT" as above
  • empty field description
  • "1330179298" date of last modification
  • and so on ...


in fact everything after "Wikitext" can be the same for each .txt file



How the Code must look like now?
please mind that this is not yet working code, but just thoughts to find the right algorythm

Copy to clipboard
find .txt $allcontent -exec sed "0","$filename","0","$allcontent


and after that
please mind that this is not yet working code, but just thoughts to find the right algorythm

Copy to clipboard
find .txt $allcontent -exec sed $allcontent",,"1330179298","Tiki initialization","1","0","admin","0.0.0.0",,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,"admin", "4175","de",,"0","1330179298","n",,NULL,NULL


Now we would need to find a command or a little shell srcipt, that merges all contents of several files into one single file - for each .txt file a next line and write the result into another directory

after that we move to the directory and rename the file:

Copy to clipboard
cd path/to/the/directory mv mynewfile.txt mynewfile.csv


In principle this should be all - now we could try and import the .csv file into Tiki database and should have a good bunch of new wikipagges - all pagenames representing the original filenames.



To bring this to an extend:

If you have a certain system im marking your headlines, notes, warnings etc.you could even partially convert the content of your textfiles into Tikis WikiSyntax before you convert the .txt files into tables.

Copy to clipboard
For example, if your headlines would be like this: headline ******** or /*headline*/ You just make them !headline and your new wikipage is even a bit formatted.


So, now I put my ideas forward to discussion - all reply, critique, suggestions are appreciated.

Cheers

--ToF

Good Evening Torsten, and thanks !

No Sir:
> maybe you are giving up too quickly?

Great...I hope ?:
> I think a solution for your problem is not so difficult, as it sounds upfront - maybe it is quite simple.

Thank you:
> You got a good bunch of replies and all what is going, is a brainstorming to find a solution for your idea, which is in no kind seen as nonsense or such.

Oh dear:
> If you want to make people becoming interested in this problem and elaborate a solution together with you, you should not stamp on the floor and head off because you didn't get a 24 hr solution donated.

That was not my intention at all.
I remain quite interested in this as a solution.
If my reply came across as foot-stamping, that would ONLY be towards the idea of Google docs instead !!!

OK:
> I believe, this must be possible to be done with a bit of Linux and a bit of MySQL knowledge - it is just plain text!

I have a browser window left open to these posts, and watch for updates actually, I haven't gone away at all:
> Maybe you head off to the next forum/project/community, but maybe same time I have a .txt to wiki solution in just a few weeks, because ... just because.

I think that would be great !:
> Btw. I have a few .txt files aswell and I start to use Tiki as online PIM as well since a while.

Phew, I am very happy that you understand !!!:
> And yes, you are right about the services - I want my stuff on my own private host as well and design everything around my needs!

I've never gone, thanks:
> So back on track to find a solution together?

OK:
> The approach of Dokuwiki sounds - as you discribe it - to make the software kind of "understand" the .txt file.

It is identical to Zim in that respect - they are dropped in, and they just become items per position.
Perhaps if you try Zim you will see how it is easy to fall in love with this type of thing, but also to want it for online usage afterwards ?

But we are on Tiki right now and my approach would be different:

OK:
> basically i would try to "convert" a single .txt file into a Tiki mySQL table just by adding a few characters into the textfile and then rename it into a .csv file.

Wow !:
> I even did not need to download the files from the server, as I just made it there via ssh access - three days of research and trial and about 5 minutes for the initial job.

This would be easy for me as I have a program to do it:
> This as said could be done for hundrets of files in one action.
> .csv files are nothing else than renamed .txt files

I read the entire reply, and understand the following too:

> Now we would need to find a command or a little shell srcipt, that merges all contents of several files into one single file - for each .txt file a next line and write the result into another directory

> after that we move to the directory and rename the file:

> In principle this should be all - now we could try and import the .csv file into Tiki database and should have a good bunch of new wikipagges - all pagenames representing the original filenames.

OK:
> So, now I put my ideas forward to discussion - all reply, critique, suggestions are appreciated.

If there is a need to batch-edit all TXT files to add what is needed I can find a way to do that, I am certain.

Mostly I use XP, but I do have a netbook and an older desktop running Linux which I play with when I have the time...but I am not any kind of Linux expert at all - nor any sort of coder.

Thank You Again Torsten, and I remain both watchful and hopeful !!!