Features / Usability

> First though, do you have lots of time to wade through the maze of files these guys have created if you plan on customizing to any great extent and are you prepared for working with a huge hunk of software that has woefully inadequate documentation.

I'm in basic agreement with jonreb's assessment of Tikiwiki. I would just add that not only is it a brilliant piece of software with tons of great functionality, but, because of this, it is worth undertaking the difficult task of learning your way around in it. We use Tikiwiki at the pharma research lab where I work for the online Help (which I set up and maintain) of our major internal application. Here's my experience. It took quite a bit of effort just to get the system set up and a lot of this was indeed due to having to figure most of it out on my own with minimal (though some) help from the doc. I really don't fault anyone for this. Hey, it's freeware and it's a development system. My one big gripe about the design, though, is that you usually have to configure a feature on three or four different Admin pages (not always easy to find either — there are a ton of them!) So Admin navigation is definitely not fun or easy. But once you get used to this and "learn the ropes" you will discover that Tikiwiki does everything you want and more. The functionality is just incredibly rich and getting richer with every release. Lots of luck!

--John