Web Design & Development Guide

WikiServer

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WikiServer is a WikiEngine that is completely self-contained - it includes its own HTTP server, and so does not require CGI support, Perl, or even a separate Web server such as Apache or IIS. As such, it is one of the easiest ways to install and run a wiki; even people without any knowledge about the system can set up a wikiserver without many problems. WikiServer is also sometimes used as a general term that is used to describe any WikiEngine with a built-in server.

History

Eddie's WikiServer

The first WikiServer was developed by Eddie Edwards around 1997. It was continuously improved for few years until development was halted due to unknown reasons.

Eddie's WikiServer borrowed most of its Wiki Syntax from Ward's Wiki, but it had a few of its own extensions:

• 1: made a table, and increasing 1 made each consecutive row. You could do the same with 1;, only this made a table without a border

Eddie's WikiServer (as it is called on WikiWikiWeb) was Windows-only and needed to be compiled using Microsoft Visual C++. It was a command line application that had its server settings configured with command line arguments.

Further WikiServer development

Eddie ceased development at version 1.1 (beta). Other people have continued the development:

1. Michel Van De Wetering had finished a set of mods on EW 1.1, though still beta. This mod was long considered to be the latest version of the wikiserver: Wikiserver 1.2 (beta), but the development has been taken up by Ryan Norton and has now reached version 1.6 status (see below).
2. Elrey Ronald V. modified Eddie's Wikiserver 1.0 for his simple group collaboration. In addition to 1.0 features, it had several new features.

WxWikiServer

Several years later, around late 2003, development was started again by a developer named Ryan Norton. Because he was a developer for the WxWidgets project, he decided it would be a good idea to capitalize on his WxWidgets experience and make WikiServer with it. He named his fork WxWikiServer.

WxWikiServer had several major differences between it and Eddie's WikiServer:

• It was no longer Windows-only - it could run on all major platforms
• It was no longer command-line driven... initial configuration was done through the WikiServer.ini file
• It had a TaskBarIcon, from which you could shut it down, restart it and see the server log, all without having to open a web browser

Eventually many features were added to WxWikiServer - such as full UseMod syntax capatability, improved security et al.

Current WikiServer

Until the 1.5.3 version, WxWikiServer was not as popular as the original WikiServer because it lacked a few features and was buggy, at least when used extensively on the Internet. Therefore some people decided to stay with the original WikiServer, or the 1.2 version.

However, with the help of several determined users, WxWikiServer was eventually restored to the stability of the original WikiServer. Later, when it became clear that Eddie's WikiServer was no longer going to be developed, Ryan Norton renamed his WxWikiServer back to WikiServer to avoid confusion. His latest version is 1.6RC18 (beta).

To this day the terms WxWikiServer and WikiServer are now used interchangeably by some people.

See also

• WikiSoftware

External links

• Official Site
• SourceForge project

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WikiServer
MediaWiki
TikiWiki