NYCPHP Meetup

[charles at softwareprototypes.com]

Hello Hans,

a wiki is a collaborative, adaptive environment. The last thing you
want to do is set up multiple copies. That would defeat the purpose...

How stock is your wiki install? 

What's the persistence mechanism? Did you create/use MySQL tables?

You might want to let me onto your box and set you up properly. For
one thing the site looks anemic. There are several attractive themes
to choose from (I use MacOSX myself at
http://wage.packet.org/phpwiki-1.3.3/index.php though Hawaiian is
very nice,) or we should create a distinctive NY php User's Group
theme.

I have already played with the wiki. Its the latest version and we
have GOT to get it looking like it belongs so it can earn its place
on the site's menu bar. :-) 

I'm not going to mess around any more until I know its running on
MySQL and getting backed up every day (I burn mine to a rotation of
CD-RWs with weekly burns to CD-Rs I've got some community groups
actually starting to use it so I take it seriously now.)

- - - -

A weblog is like "/.", or www.MacSlash.com , www.RadioFreeNation.net
or www.sensibleerection.com where items get contributed by the
community, get read and commented on by site visitors, scroll of the
end of the site lead page and pretty much disappear for ever. 

A wiki is VERY different. 

Its a 'soup' of web pages generated from database records/rows. These
pages can be linked in a network of relationships. These pages don't
persist unless you get really sneaky and know how to implement cache
registration and invalidation and put it in the wiki engine,) but the
database record/rows which were used to generate them does persist.

Creating pages is ridiculously easy. Edit a page that seems like a
good place to create a page at (a subtopic or sumt'in',) create a
PageName (a string of contiguously catenated Capitalized Words, like
'CapitalizedWords') and save the page. It will reappear with a '?'
following the CapitalizedWords. Click on the '?' and you'll get a new
page to create.

Type away and save the page and you have created the page and a link
to it.

Edit any other page and anywhere you have the CapitalizedWords you
will have a link to the CapitalizedWords page. A page can have
several kinds of links. I have created a page which links to the
phorum. Check out the RecentVisitor's page too. Its got a table with
an animated graohic in one of the cells. 

That page should also contain META-information about the phorum (WTF
is it? How you use it? Administer it? Install it? Where can you
obtain it from? etc.)

- - - -

Somebody will have to decide what phorums we might want to have. I
suggest nothing until I read some more (did you install the docs?)

- - - -

I'm not sure about phpWeblog. If they're using it to run their site,
I'm not greatly impressed. Actually, I don't think people use "/."
like systems for anything serious. You might want to go with phpNuke
instead. I have actually found a site that uses phpNuke (Be warned
its a self-styled "Portal of Porn" at http://portal.900.ee/ ) Its
very "/."-like in format if not in, uh, content. At least it shows
that phpNuke works. Does anybody know of a less embarassing site to
use?

- - - -

You might want to get snipegallery
(http://www.snipe.net/geek/scripts/ ) installed to set up galleries
of images, pictures of events, members who are't camera shy, etc.

- - - -

You have, of course, installed phpMyAdmin I hope.

-Charles-A.