YesWiki

YesWiki is a wiki engine designed to facilitate cooperation. It is widely used by associations, collectives, and social economy organizations. Its ease of use and functional features also allow it to be used in corporate environments. It is a free software under GNU GPL and AGPL license, written in PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Twig programming language and using a SQL database.

History


Born from an evolution of Wakka, a very simple German wiki whose development stopped in 2003, which had itself given birth to Wikini, YesWiki was born from the will of an association from the south of France to take over the Wikini project and to make it evolve towards a more flexible and more aesthetic solution. Since then, the project is supported by a community of French and European developers, users, trainers, and the YesWiki3 association.
Name

The name YesWiki was chosen by the designers for its symbolic meaning. Indeed, it allows to say "yes" to all kinds of web projects, from the simplest to the largest wiki farm. It is written in CamelCase, like the name of the pages in some wiki engines.

Logo


The YesWiki logo represents the index and middle fingers of a hand spread out in a V shape, and symbolizes victory and peace. [logo in SVG]

Versions


YesWiki's versions do not follow a classic numbering system, but take the name of an insult or swearword of Captain Haddock, from the Adventures of Tintin, in alphabetical order:
Anacoluthe 2009 Initial version
Bachibouzouk April 2013 Graphic redesign
Cercopithèque July 2016 UTF8 support, internationalization
Doryphore September 2021 Graphical redesign, code rewriting and components implementation
Ectoplasm To come Graphic editor in markdown, better file management
Flibustier To come -

Main features


YesWiki presents itself as a website creation tool designed to facilitate cooperation4 and as such, it is easy to use. For example, the Wikini principle, which was to modify pages with a simple double-click, has been kept. As for the wiki language, it integrates a light and easy to use markup language. YesWiki being an interoperable software, it allows to integrate other software or Internet services. For example, it is possible to insert and display in the pages a co-writing tool such as a [pad], an online calendar or a video.

Implementation


The installation is very simple and is described in the documentation5. It requires to have a hosting with PHP, a MySQL database and the associated rights.

Internationalization


YesWiki is by default in French, but supports any language that can be encoded in UTF-8. Since the Cercopithèque version, YesWiki has become an international project with support for several languages. As of 2022, it is being translated into English, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Dutch.

Usage


YesWiki allows you to create cooperative databases to collect information using forms, which can then be rendered as a calendar, map, directory, news feed, photo album, etc.

YesWiki allows for the encapsulation of external sites, thus presenting the ability to design a "central station" or "marshalling yard", a place where all the information necessary for the functioning of an organization can converge6. It can be used as an intranet as a tool for collaborative work and knowledge engineering.

Page names can be written in CamelCase, as in many wiki engines, but also in lower case. The organization of pages by subdirectories, as found in some CMS, has been improved: instead, YesWiki has a keyword system that allows pages and files to be grouped by topic, regardless of the menu structure.

Advanced features such as columnar page structuring, additional menu, colors and fonts can be implemented easily without requiring special skills.

YesWiki's community-driven forum helps solve user problems and leaves few questions unanswered.

Management


YesWiki relies on open-source libraries like Symfony, PHPMailer Visual_Understanding_Environment7,8.

Access rights management can be done at the level of each page or multiple pages, reading, writing, commenting and this, by users or by groups.

The page backup system makes it possible to restore a previous version and facilitates the comparison of the current version with previous versions. Several management interfaces allow the administrator to manage access rights, graphic aspect, default themes...

YesWiki has many templates for various needs. YesWiki templates, called "themes", are made of a skeleton and a style. The skeleton defines the general layout (e.g. responsive, full page, one or more columns, etc). The style associates a style sheet that defines the font, size, color, titles, paragraphs, etc. Several skeletons and styles are available per theme. The templates can be customized page by page, as well as the menus, headers and footers.

Extensions (tools) allow to use YesWiki as an LMS e-learning platform, to add a book or fanzine generator, to create a wiki farm, to generate pdf pages for publication, to connect via LDAP or SSO protocols. A "hibernate" mode is available to freeze the collaborative space and avoid content modifications.

Community


There is a large and active community of developers, editors, translators and contributors who organize regular sprints to improve the software. The community is supported by the YesWiki association, whose goal is to "contribute to the development of cooperative practices, notably through the development of the YesWiki free software and any related computer application, and to the animation of the community (users, developers, financiers...) "9. It has financial means that allow it to develop projects according to identified needs.