Wiki at GSI: Towards a collaborative application platform

Abstract

As it is growing GSI's TWiki installation is evolving from a free-text documentation system to a rapid development toolbox for web-based groupware applications. I'd like to present the TWiki features and extensions that enable this functionality and also give a report on the current installation status in general.

Start presentation

Slide 1: Welcome

TWiki as a toolbox for bottom-up web applications

Slide 2: Situation pre Wiki

  • No central documentation system in the IT department
  • Most of the knowledge esp. about workflows only implicit
    • You have to go and ask
    • People must be available

Slide 3: Wiki paradigm in brief

  • Collection of HTML pages (topics)
  • In place editing with simple markup (WikiML)
  • Easy cross-referencing using WikiWords (CamelCase)
  • Revision control

Prominent Wiki implementations:
  • Mediawiki
  • Moinmoin
  • TWiki

See my talk at last Hepix in Karlsruhe

Slide 4: TWiki praise

TWiki: A Wiki focussed on cooperate intranets

  • Integrated access control on a per web and per topic basis
  • Attachment support
  • Tracing of most recent changes
    • Syndication with RSS newsfeeds
    • Email notifications
  • Hundreds of plugins and add-ons
  • Implementation in Perl based on the UNIX toolbox:
    • Filesystem based
    • RCS for revision control
    • Search using grep
  • Powerful markup including macros

Slide 5: Current status

  • Central installation of TWiki since 2 years
    • Substantial growth during the last six month
      • Nevertheless satisfactory performance and usability (since upgrade to recent TWiki release and hardware)
    • Central documentation and coordination tool of the IT department
    • Separate wikis for CBM and Hades collaborations:
      • Virtual Wikis : run on the same server, common codebase
      • Distinct topics, attachments and users

Slide 6: Statistics

GSI wiki key figures for September 2005:

  • Total users: 270
  • New registrations: 50
  • Topics: 2600
  • Topic views: 90000
  • Topic edits: 4000
  • Attachment uploads: 800

Slide 7: TWiki pros and cons

Cons

  • Recent TWiki vulnerabilities
    • Debian package already secured by hardening patch cool
  • lock, modify, unlock (RCS) instead of copy, edit, merge
    • Content loss due to early lock release (only once?)
  • Editor a bit too simple:
  • No offline editing

Pros

  • Shallow learning curve
  • Tables are easily operated thanks to EditTablePlugin and TablePlugin
  • Inspirational like a good toy (a geek tool?)

  • (T?)Wiki is an excellent toolbox for modelling workflows
    • bottom-up approach

Slide 8: Vacation Calendar

 
Name
arrow_leftarrow_right
Oct
  Mo
3
Tu
4
We
5
Th
6
Fr
7
  Mo
10
Tu
11
We
12
Th
13
Fr
14
  Mo
17
Tu
18
We
19
Th
20
Fr
21
  Mo
24
Tu
25
We
26
Th
27
Fr
28
  Mo
31
Christo         indifferent, speechlessindifferent, speechlessindifferent, speechlessindifferent, speechlessindifferent, speechless  yes              
Hans      radioactive                        
Helmut                   coolcool  cool       
Sergei         yes          yes          
Walter         indifferent, speechlessindifferent, speechlessindifferent, speechlessindifferent, speechlessindifferent, speechless                 

  • 20 Oct 2005 - 24 Oct 2005 - Helmut
  • 10 Oct 2005 - 14 Oct 2005 - Walter - Hepix SLAC
  • 10 Oct 2005 - 14 Oct 2005 - Christo - Hepix SLAC
  • 07 Oct 2005 - Hans - ill - radioactive
  • 17 Oct 2005 - Christo
  • 10 Oct 2005 - Sergei
  • 21 Oct 2005 - Sergei

Slide 9: Meeting minutes à la TWiki

  • Topic name or full-text search, optionally with regular expressions
    • Display of search results may be completely customized
      • may contain partial content from of the search results using pattern matching

  • Retrieve a list of existing meeting minutes formatted as a table:
%SEARCH{"MeetingMinutes[0-9]{6}" scope="topic" regex="on" limit="12"
        nosearch="on" reverse="on" nototal="on" 
        header="| *Date* | *Minute taker* | *Latest change* | *Revision* |" 
        format="|  [[$topic][$pattern(.*? (\d+[ .]+\S+[ .]+\d+).*)]]  |  $createwikiusername  |  $date by $wikiusername  |    $rev  |"
}%

Slide 10: Meeting minutes à la TWiki

Templates and Forms

  • New minutes are created via a simple webform:
<form name="new" action="%SCRIPTURLPATH%/edit%SCRIPTSUFFIX%/%INTURLENCODE{"%WEB%"}%/">
     <input type="text" name="topic" value="MeetingMinutes%SERVERTIME{$ye$mo$day}%" size="23" />
     <input type="hidden" name="templatetopic" value="MeetingMinutesEditTemplate" />
     <input type="hidden" name="formtemplate"  value="MeetingMinutesForm" />
     <input type="submit" value="create" />
</form>

  • The created topic uses the given template

  • The meeting participants are listed using the associated DataForms:
| *Name* | *Type* | *Size* | *Values* | *Tooltip message* |
| Participant | checkbox+buttons |  7  | FirstParticipant, SecondParticipant, ... |  |

Slide 11: Meeting minutes à la TWiki

Finalization

  • Probably meeting minutes must not be changed after all participants agreed on their content (i.e. ISO 9000)
  • TWiki:Plugins/ApprovalPlugin models this workflow

Slide 12: List of server topics

  • %SEARCH{...}% again ...

  • Topic creation form
    • Special topic template

  • InterwikiPlugin: Shortcuts to GSI's hardware database web-frontend
    • GsiDbDetail:lxdv10

Slide 13: List of server topics

CommentPlugin for logbook entries

  • %COMMENT{type="logbook"}%

%TMPL:DEF{PROMPT:logbook}%
<textarea %DISABLED% name="comment">%MESSAGE%</textarea>
<input %DISABLED% type="submit" value="Add entry"/>
%TMPL:END%

%TMPL:DEF{OUTPUT:logbook}%%POS:AFTER%
| %DATE% | %URLPARAM{"comment" newline="<br />"}% | %WIKIUSERNAME% | 
%TMPL:END%

No such template def 'PROMPT:logbook'
08 Oct 2005
Condition clear

Slide 14: A light-weight Trouble Ticket System

ActionTrackerPlugin:
  • %ACTION{closed="10-Oct-2005" due="10-Oct-2005" creator="Main.ChristopherHuhn" state="closed" who="Main.ChristopherHuhn"}% Hepix talk at SLAC
Assigned to Due date Description State Notify  
Christo 2005-10-10 Hepix talk at SLAC (go to action) closed HpcGroup edit

  • %ACTIONSEARCH{...}% for todo lists
  • actionnotify cron job

Slide 15: A light-weight Trouble Ticket System

No such template def 'PROMPT:incident'
Assigned to Due date Description State Notify  
WalterSchoen 2005-10-17 Alles kaputt
- Created by Christo, 07 Oct 2005 21:28:56 (go to action)
closed edit

Slide 16: Carpool token management

Participant Tokens
Burkhard
2
Kilian
3
Michael
7
Marc
-4
Stefan
-8
Sum
0


Next driver (token count -8): Stefan
Modus operandi:
  • Drivers earn one point for each fellow passenger
  • Passengers must give away one point per ride

  • SpreadSheetPlugin for calculations: %CALC{"$IF( $SUM(R2:C2..R6:C2) = 0, Error! Sum must be 0! , )"}%

  • ChartPlugin for the diagram: %CHART{type="bar" table="carpooltokens" data="R2:C2..R6:C2" xaxis="R2:C1..R6:C1" yaxis="on" datalabel="box"}%

Slide 17: Next projects

  • Portal for system announcements
    • Replace all wall shell script mess
    • Form-based input
    • Distribution with RSS
    • Category-based cleanup

  • Email notifications enhancements
    • Immediate notifications
    • Subscribers list form
    • Plugin to automatically subscripe editors

Future: A portal for system announcements

Month wiki.gsi.de total hades-wiki.gsi.de total cbm-wiki.gsi.de total Registrations Topics total Topic views Topic edits File uploads
Nov 2003
6
6
6
6
135
560
93
4
Dec 2003
6
6
6
0
173
213
27
1
Jan 2004
6
6
6
0
237
0.1
0.1
0.1
Feb 2004
6
6
6
0
299
1009
84
5
Mar 2004
7
7
7
1
356
1049
225
15
Apr 2004
8
8
8
1
377
501
118
29
May 2004
8
8
8
0
384
443
64
17
Jun 2004
10
10
10
2
398
705
53
2
Jul 2004
13
13
13
3
458
2023
171
0
Aug 2004
13
13
13
0
606
4533
896
120
Sep 2004
14
14
14
1
631
1785
228
4
Oct 2004
16
16
16
2
644
1119
89
8
Nov 2004
19
19
19
3
687
3246
332
19
Dec 2004
20
20
20
1
703
1641
347
209
Jan 2005
29
29
29
9
829
7574
1614
382
Feb 2005
30
30
30
1
955
9573
1816
516
Mar 2005
36
36
36
6
1135
20419
2162
717
Apr 2005
78
78
78
42
1312
20316
1711
682
May 2005
81
84
87
9
1400
12335
1446
698
Jun 2005
104
126
131
44
1594
16683
1686
693
Jul 2005
139
170
175
44
1992
39954
4444
762
Aug 2005
171
209
214
39
2361
77543
2139
290
Sep 2005
202
256
268
54
2629
90517
4200
796
I Attachment Action SizeSorted ascending Date Who Comment
Wiki-stats.swfswf Wiki-stats.swf manage 8 K 2005-10-06 - 21:55 Christo Wiki statistics - SWF version
Wiki-stats.pdfpdf Wiki-stats.pdf manage 25 K 2005-10-06 - 21:27 Christo Wiki statistics - PDF version
Wiki-stats.pngpng Wiki-stats.png manage 72 K 2005-10-07 - 21:55 Christo Wiki statistics - PNG version
10-JG-04-hills-A074R1.jpgjpg 10-JG-04-hills-A074R1.jpg manage 73 K 2005-10-07 - 21:44 Christo Pre-wiki documentation situation?
scherbenhaufen.jpgjpg scherbenhaufen.jpg manage 323 K 2005-10-07 - 17:04 Christo Documantation sitation
Topic revision: r24 - 2022-02-21, ChristopherHuhn
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