Most widely used corporate wiki
TWiki claims to be the most widely used wiki behind corporate firewalls and gets downloaded more than 10,000 times per month. It has more than 300 extensions. TWiki is more a classical wiki with editing done in wiki markup although it has a functional WYSIWYG editor. It is highly extendable with a wide range of plug-ins. From the success stories on the TWiki site, it appears to be most often used by IT, scientific or engineering communities. My list of features here is a guide only. There are plug-ins for almost every use you can think of but not all of them have been tested on the latest build of TWiki. I have asked the administrators at TWiki to check this page out and let me know of any changes that need making.
TWiki provider statement
” TWiki is a flexible, powerful, and easy to use enterprise wiki, enterprise collaboration platform and knowledge management system. It is a Structured Wiki, typically used to run a project development space, a document management system, a knowledge base, or any other groupware tool, on an intranet or on the internet. Web content can be created collaboratively by using just a browser. Users without programming skills can create web applications. Developers can extend the functionality of TWiki with Plugins.”
TWiki is downloaded on to your own server
TWiki is not a hosted wiki but downloadable software. You could upload it to a web-hosting server but is most often used on company servers. Because TWiki is open source, it is customisable in every aspect. However, you need to be highly skilled to do this. Lesser mortals can write applications to use on TWiki.
Access to TWiki wikis
Can be as flexible as you want to make it.
TWiki Security
TWiki sits behind your own firewall and you can make whatever security arrangements you want.
Keeps out spambots - Plug-in
Blocks vandals - Plug-in
Lockable pages - Yes
Can review changes to pages - Yes
Can revert to a previous edition of a page - No
Can restore your site from a local back up - Not relevant
Censored word list - No
Privacy policy - Not relevant
Secure information transfer - No
TWiki language options
Translations - No
International characters - Not supported
Right to left writing - Not supported
Help language - English
Editing an TWiki wiki
TWiki is usually edited in wiki markup. The WYSIWYG editor is functional but limited.
WYSIWYG - Limited WYSIWYG editor
Markup - Yes, usual form of editing
HTML - Yes
CSS - Yes
Spellcheck - Plug-in
Content supported
TWiki has a wide range of plug-ins for just about every purpose. This is, I think, a reflection of the scientific and technical community which supports TWiki.
Images - Easy upload and insertion of images with limited placement in WYSIWYG. Galleries plug-in available.
Flash - Not supported
Audio - Not supported
Video - Not supported
Chat - Yes
Instant messaging - Not supported
Mathematical notations - Plug-in
RSS feeds -
Diagrams - Plug-in
Attachments - Yes
Task lists - Plug-in, also for project timelines
Calendars - Plug-in
Maps - Not supported
Shopping basket - No
Content restrictions - No
TWiki is a working wiki
TWiki is a gutsy working wiki. Not the sort of thing you would use to keep your family and friends up to date with your latest overseas trip.
Search engine friendly Keywords and description for your site, control of headers and layout.
Access by mobile - No
Looks match topic - Templates provided, can pay for more
Easy to read - Yes
Provider placed Ads - No
Clear navigation - Search, menus. Breadcrumbs plug-in available
Effective wiki search - Yes
Recent activity list - Yes
Wanted pages list - No
Custom template for new pages - Skins available for download
email pages to friends - Yes.
RSS feeds - Yes
Easy to make and read comments - Plug-in
Save as pdf - Plug-in
Wiki Management
Automatic save - No
Site statistics - Limited
email notifications - Yes
Income from Ads - Not supported
Technical support - Your responsibility
Server support 24/7 - Your responsibility
Stable provider company - Open source community
TWiki is not managed or supported as such once it is on your server. However there is a strong open source community available to discuss and help out any issues that may arise.
Help and Support
TWiki has very enthusiastic community who like the total flexibility that TWiki supplies. Most users appear to be from the engineering and scientific community.
Loyal wiki community - Yes, very strong
Community forum - Yes, here is where you can >find out what’s going on
FAQs - Yes
Help - Yes .
It is free but the fact that companies like Disney and British Telecom are using it indicates that this is not the only reason that it is so popular.
Investigate and download TWiki
Tagged with: Review • TWiki
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One Comment
Thanks for pointing me to this valuable resource.