Wiki Extension

I’d like to see the creation of a wiki extension for OpenOffice.org.

You install the plugin, which adds a toolbar or palate to OOo on your computer. The toolbar contains specific tools useful for browsing, making, editing and managing wiki pages. Among these tools would be an address bar, such as found in web browsers, a link manager tool, and some others.

Since OOo is a WYSIWYG word processor, the wiki would also be completely WYSIWYG. Unlike other wikis, there is no difference between viewing and editing a page; there’s no need for different modes that are accessed using an “Edit” button.

The pages themselves are stored in an OOo Base database in your home folder and can be shared across a network using the Zeroconf (aka “Bonjour“) protocol.

The actual pages are stored in ODF instead of HTML, as used by other wikis. Using ODF gives more precise control over the elements on a page, and formats the pages for printing by default. Thus, it’s easy to take wiki content and print it out for sharing as hardcopy pages.

Using ODF also allows for wiki pages to be created from within Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw–something that has not been done with existing wikis, and which may add new workflows and possibilities to the wiki concept. (Although wikiCalc does combine the Wiki and Spreadsheet paradigms now.)

A small office or workgroup could make better use of an office suite wiki than an expensive, complex server-based content management system. It will cost less (since it’s free) and be easier for users to understand.

There should be a way to store a wiki on a WebDAV server such as OSAF’s Cosmo or any other.

In some ways, it’s an ad-hoc, lightweight version of the tools being developed by O3 Spaces or even Alfresco–useful when some collaboration is needed but those tools are overkill for the job.