WikiFarm

The WikiFarm is an architecture for BlueSpice wikis that can be used to manage multiple wikis. Wikis can be created, cloned, deleted, and suspended. An administrative interface is provided for this purpose. The architecture also facilitates the maintenance of the wikis, since all wikis in the farm can be updated in one go.

Important Terms for WikiFarm

• WikiFarm: Central administration of all existing wikis
• Wiki instance: A single wiki in the farm
• Master wiki: A wiki that provides the content for pre-filling and can be copied by cloning
  
  

Where Can I Find the WikiFarm?

The WikiFarm is implemented like a standalone and complete BlueSpice wiki and can be accessed at a certain URL. On the special page Spezial:SimpleFarmer you can find the farm management, where the wikis can be managed. In the list of all special pages (Special:SpecialPages) you can find the farm management in the section "BlueSpice".

The farm management displays a complete list of all existing wiki instances with information about:

• Site name (links to the wiki)
• Date of creation
• Keywords (meta information)
• Description (meta information)

The list is filter- and sortable.

Features of WikiFarm

In the administrative interface you can

• Create wikis
• Clone wikis
• Remove wikis
• Suspend wikis (archive)
• Annotate meta information for each wiki

Create a Wiki

Using the button "Create Wiki" you get a new wiki without any content or other data. So it's a wiki like a new installation.

All you have to do is specify a site name - the name for the wiki - for the newly created instance. Confirm with "OK" and the wiki is created.

The individual wiki instances need a unique URL to make it accessible in the browser. This is generated from the entered site name and consists of this and the URL of the WikiFarm.

An example:

The WikiFarm is accessible at the URL

https://wiki.bluespice.com

While creating the wiki instance, the site name "hallo welt" has been chosen. Due to this, the following path - and therefore also the URL - of the new wiki instance will be generated:

https://wiki.bluespice.com/hallo-welt

Clone a Wiki

To clone a wiki, you must first select an already created wiki from the list. Clicking on the list entry marks the selected wiki and activates the "Clone Wiki" button. A click on the button opens a dialogue to create a wiki. In this case, proceed as described above at "Create a Wiki". The only difference in the dialog is the additional specification of the source path, which is automatically inserted by the system and can not be changed.

In contrast to creating a new wiki, content and data will already be transferred during the cloning process. This concerns both articles, as well as users, settings, namespaces, etc. This is therefore a one-to-one copy of the source wiki. This makes it possible to create master wikis, pre-fill and easily duplicate them when needed.

Both when creating and cloning wikis, the search of the newly created wiki must be initialized. To do so, go to the admin area in the main navigation and to the "Search options" list point under "Administration".Click "Re-create index".

Remove Wikis

Deleting a Wiki is easy: just select a wiki in the list, click on the button "Remove Wiki" and the corresponding dialogue will open. Only the path to the wiki needs to be entered here. This corresponds to the name of the wiki instance as it is listed in the farm manager. Enter this in the correct notation (delimiter, uppercase and lowercase) in the field and confirm with OK. The wiki will be deleted completely.

Suspend Wikis (Archive)

If you do not want to delete a wiki directly, but want to keep the contents for a while, you can also suspend and therefore archive it. The shutdown causes that the wiki becomes unavailable. When trying to access it via the URL, you will be redirected to the farm management.

Suspended wiki instances remain in the list of the farm management, but they are crossed out and the site name no longer links to the instance (see also 1. screenshot in this article under the group "closed").

Provide Wikis with Meta Information

The individual wikis can be provided with additional metadata via the button "Edit wiki meta". These meta information is possible:

• Description
• Group
• Keywords

All three fields can be edited. If there is any information from other wikis in "group" and "keywords", this information is also offered for selection in a drop-down menu.

The description and the keywords will be displayed as additional information in the list of the farm manager. This makes them filterable and sortable. The group is different to these information, because it is just a grouping of the wikis in the list. The groups can be folded in and out (see also 1. screenshot in this article).

Tips for Working with WikiFarm

Correct Site Names and Paths

When creating and cloning a wiki, you can also use spaces or umlauts when entering the site name. Spaces are automatically converted to hyphens and umlauts according the right notation, e.g. "Ü" to "ue". Also upper and lower case is possible and is taken into account.

When removing a wiki instance, the system is not as tolerant. The input must match one-to-one with the path specification so that the wiki can be deleted.

Security

All actions are stored in a logfile so that they can be tracked.