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    • Writer's Community

    Posted by Chase

    Okay, for the last couple weeks I've been looking at building an online writer's community.

    I've tried XOOPS, Joomla, Drupal, Mkportal PhpbbPortal, and a few others so far, now I've come to tikiwiki.

    It seems to have more features out of the box than any other. I originally avoided tikiwiki because...well...I don't really like the way it looks, and am afraid it may turn away users. But, I suppose, I will worry about functionality at the moment and worry about how it looks later.

    I want to have multiple user levels. Admins, Editors, Writers, and Members.

    Admin can do anything.
    Editors can approve Articles.
    Writers can submit Articles.
    Members can read Articles.

    Is this kind of power structure possible with Tikiwiki?

    Is there any advice anyone here has for me on modifications or something I should read or anything?

    Reads: 2006
    Posted by Chase

    > Okay, for the last couple weeks I've been looking at building an online writer's community.
    >
    > I've tried XOOPS, Joomla, Drupal, Mkportal PhpbbPortal, and a few others so far, now I've come to tikiwiki.
    >
    > It seems to have more features out of the box than any other. I originally avoided tikiwiki because...well...I don't really like the way it looks, and am afraid it may turn away users. But, I suppose, I will worry about functionality at the moment and worry about how it looks later.
    >
    > I want to have multiple user levels. Admins, Editors, Writers, and Members.
    >
    > Admin can do anything.
    > Editors can approve Articles.
    > Writers can submit Articles.
    > Members can read Articles.
    >
    > Is this kind of power structure possible with Tikiwiki?
    >
    > Is there any advice anyone here has for me on modifications or something I should read or anything?


    Posted by George Greene

    You can do all of the above. You can set up as many "groups" as you like and assign them permissions down to very specific levels. You may want to experiment with features outside of the Article area too -like blogs or forums.

    As to the look of Tiki, two things:

    1) You can choose from a number of themes -some virtually unreadable (black backgrounds and other awful mistakes) to some very nice clean ones. 1.10 seems to have a few more to choose from and some nice tabbed features.

    2) You can edit the style sheet (CSS) and spiff up Tiki's colors and fonts, etc. yourself. You can also edit Template files which can also change the look and the placement of items on the page. Even as a power user (i.e. not a programmer) I found, after I learned a bit, that I could make some changes I needed.


    Posted by George Greene

    Wow!

    I've seen Ricks sites and they are very nice but you must have already done some tweaks on yours because it looks fabulous! I must study it and "borrow" ideas! Nice work.

    Geo


    Posted by Gary Cunningham-Lee

    > It seems to have more features out of the box than any other. I originally avoided tikiwiki because...well...I don't really like the way it looks, and am afraid it may turn away users. But, I suppose, I will worry about functionality at the moment and worry about how it looks later.

    Check out themes.tikiwiki.orgQuestion if you haven't already; maybe you can find something appropriate. More themes are in the pipeline. Actually if you have any suggestions about, say, open source theme designs, please let me know.

    In terms of function, probably the main thing that distinguishes Tiki from the others you listed is that Tiki is wiki-centric (but doesn't have to look like a "wiki"). I think this would be a natural plus for a writers' site.

    > I want to have multiple user levels. Admins, Editors, Writers, and Members.
    >
    > Admin can do anything.
    > Editors can approve Articles.
    > Writers can submit Articles.
    > Members can read Articles.
    >
    > Is this kind of power structure possible with Tikiwiki?

    One possible hitch here is that there is no pre-approval system built in to Tiki. I'm not sure about any way for admins to control the view permissions of new pages. In other words, what prevents a contributor from giving his/her page/story a permission allowing anonymous viewing right away, without waiting for admin approval? If the writers are willing to cooperate, then there's no problem limiting viewing permission until an editor approves (changes viewing permission to include Members). Maybe other people here have ideas about how this can best work.

    Tiki's CMS Articles feature, on the other hand, does have a "submit for approval" procedure. Whether this would work for a writers' site or not, in terms of procedure and page presentation, etc., I don't know.

    >
    > Is there any advice anyone here has for me on modifications or something I should read or anything?

    There's at least one site already using Tiki for fiction submissions; it uses the Planetfall theme and is nicely done. Sorry, but I don't recall the URL offhand.

    -- Gary