Test Topic 3

Looking at the differences in Twiki and media wiki

1. The signature gets automatically entered.
2. No formatting icons above the edit box (looking at an implementation for rookies, here) although the help is below
3. Preview is on a separate screen
4. Maybe Mediawiki has more special pages than Twiki
5. Maybe Twiki has easier database access for other stuff, than Mediawiki
6. QuietSave^? is an obvious option in Twiki but not in Mediawiki
7. Numbered lists are easier in Twiki, IMHO.

Not sure yet why to select one instead of the other

-- GeorgeThompson^? - 29 Aug 2006

TWiki doesn't use a database at all; it's just flat text files on the web server, with RCS for revision control.

Personally, I prefer MediaWiki^?'s

# first thing
# second thing
## sub item one
## sub item two
# third thing

to TWiki's

   1 first thing
   1 second thing
      1 sub item one
      1 sub item two
   1 third thing

While the TWiki looks better in wiki/raw text, I find MediaWiki^?'s way is easier to edit. And since in most cases, the only time you're looking at wiki text is when you're editing, I think MediaWiki^? wins. I do prefer TWiki's inline font formatting. bold, italics, and fixed are easier than MediaWiki^?'s '''many single quotes'''.

I also prefer MediaWiki^?'s link syntax. That is, I prefer

[[target]] and [[targer|other text]]

over

TarGet and [[target][other text]]

I also find auto-linking WikiWords^? tends to be more annoying than helpful. Just look at all the question marks on this page.

I also dislike TWiki's disabling of links in preview ("Oops, this is just a preview"). While I can see the benefits for newbiws, it makes checking my links in preview impossible.

You might want to bring this to the gnhlug-discuss mailing list, where more people are likely to see it and comment. The only reason I noticed is that I'm the web janitor, so I monitor edits.

-- BenScott - 29 Aug 2006
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