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| Project: | PEAR Wiki Filter |
| Version: | 6.x-1.0-beta1 |
| Component: | Miscellaneous |
| Category: | task |
| Priority: | normal |
| Assigned: | Unassigned |
| Status: | active |
Issue Summary
Hi,
in the recent report about the Origo project there is a mention of a highly interesting "Custom module mediawiki_filter" which "wraps MediaWiki's library for parsing and rendering MediaWiki syntax" - that sound very cool.
However, this custom module is hosted outside of drupal.org, possibly because of legal reasons (the README.txt doesn't give a license; Origo itself appears to be licensed under the MIT License).
The mediawiki_filter appears to be highly interesting since the roadmap lists a bunch of interesting features, e.g.: Section editing [marked as "Done"]; Table of content Support [Done]; Table Support [Done]; Distinction between internal and external links [Done]; 100% Media Wiki compatibility [Done]; Media Wiki import [not yet done].
This raises lots of questions (and some hope for Users of PEAR Wiki filter):
- Is there any chance to get PEAR Wiki filter and mediawiki_filter merged into an official release hosted at drupal.org (to get support for tools like update_status and drush)?
- Would a migration path be possible (to support Drupal-specific syntax like [[path:node/nid]])?
- Which steps would be necessary to replace PEAR WIki filter with mediawiki_filter?
- Has anyone attempted such a switch already?
- Could mediawiki_filter be a full alternative to the PEAR Wiki filter?
- What are the practical differences between both approaches (besides that rötzi seems to be involved in both projects), especially to which degree does mediawiki_filter offer better support for image.module than PEAR WIki filter?
Thanks & greetings, -asb
Comments
#1
As the author of both pearwiki_filter and mediawiki_filter I should give some information:
1. A release of mediawiki_filter for Drupal was initially intended. Given my lack of time, and thus the lack of maintenance I give to pearwiki_filter, I didn't want to put up another unmaintained project.
2. Migration should be relatively easy. Origo started out with pearwiki_filter and switched about half a year ago. There are some formatting issues, because the PEAR library does not implement the correct formatting for MediaWiki (the most annoying difference are empty lines, which are handled differently).
3. The module was written for Origo, and there are almost no configuration options yet, as the defaults were basically chosen for Origo. The module was written with a Drupal release in mind though, so I did include the basic facilities to do customization.
So the question is how to proceed from here. I can release the module on drupal.org, but I will not be able to maintain it (at least not alone). So I am happy to hear your opinions on this. Also, if anyone is interested in maintaining/co-maintaining it, please tell me.
adam-griffiths - which just got approved CVS access to pearwiki_filter - told me that he is developing a similar module which uses the MediaWiki API (I hope he doesn't mind that I tell this here). I don't know the state of the module, but this should be taken into consideration as well.
#2
Hi,
thank you very much for your quick answer (and my apologies for bugging about the status PEAR Wiki filter)!
IMHO MediaWiki syntax is the only feasible option to open websites to a wider public, if you want to avoid the overhead of WYSIWYG editors; currently there seem to be basically two officially released modules to accomplish this (PEAR Wiki filter, Flexifilter) which are both not actively supported and/or developed, and especially not ready for production use in D6. Additionally there are two new approaches (mediawiki_filter and adam-griffiths' project) which currently also are not ready for production use for a wider public (outside of the Origo project). Also there's Textile which offers some Wiki-like editing features, is well maintained, but does not target MediaWiki compatibility.
To me - judging solely from the perspective of an end user - it sounds quite natural to get rid of dead ends (like Flexifilter?), join forces and get one solution to provide MediaWiki syntax compatibility into a well-maintained and actively developed package hosted at drupal.org. Of course the interests of the maintainers and developers mighty vary greatly (since you most probably do the work in context of other/own projects); also other users of PEAR Wiki filter might need other syntax styles provided by the PEAR package than MediaWiki.
However, those 600-700 users registered for PEAR MediaWiki filter most probably simply need a working solution for an easy to understand and widely accepted (through it's use in the Wikimedia projects) input format. So the question might be, (a) what we users can do to help getting that solution - e.g. some sponsoring/fundraising, some testing? - and (b) what would be the best starting point to go on (merging pearwiki_filter and mediawiki_filter, hoping for adam-griffiths new approach, dropping pearwiki_filter in favour of mediawiki_filter etc.).
It'd be nice to hear comments from other users and - of possible - by coders interested in MediaWiki compatibility.
Thanks again & greetings, -asb
#3
I have indeed started the project http://drupal.org/project/mediawiki_api and hope to make an official release shortly. I have also made some notes regarding the various wiki filter options which I will try to publish if I get time.
#4
I think we should see if we can bundle our forces to improve/create one good module for this.
I also posted this here http://drupal.org/node/632444
#5
Hi,
I switched to rötzis 'mediawiki_filter' on a couple of D6 sites, and it is a great improvement. While it's still not perfect (e.g. image handling), but IMHO it's by far the more reliable solution compared to the 'PEAR MediaWiki filter' for D6.
An official release at d.o would be great, merging with 'mediawiki_api' could be even better ;)
Greetings, -asb
#6
No reply at #632444: Merging with mediawiki_filter?, so no progress on this end.
Would it maybe make sense to abandon pearwiki_filter in favour of an official d.o release of mediawiki_filter?
mediawiki_filter IMHO is far more advanced than pearwiki_filter, can be seamlessly upgraded from pearwiki_filter, plays well together with other filters like Geshi, and for sure is stable enough for an official (beta) release at d.o...
Greetings, -asb
#7
I would +1 bring mediawiki_filter in to the fold... =)
#8
Anyone?
#9
+1. I would love an alternative to the abandoned PEAR wiki module.
#10
@elBradford: There is,
mediawiki_filterfrom Origo (see my inital post from 2009), I'm using it for years, and it's working great.This issue is about an official project for the
mediawiki_filtermodule at drupal.org. For that we need some feedback and probably a co-maintainer.#11
I'm happy to be co-maintainer.
#12
Thanks, Rafal! I contacted the Origo developers and hope to get a response soon.
#13
That's great.
#14
I got a response from Julian Tschannen (rötzi), one of the original authors of 'mediawiki_filter' (cf. #1 from August 20, 2009 at 9:08am). In short: Julian has no objections against a d.o project, he supports the idea and it matches his initial plans for the module. However, because of time constraints Julian has completely dropped out of Drupal development and is not available as maintainer. So we have an informal permission to use the code, but have to take care of everything else ourselves.
For starters I've created a sandbox for mediawiki_filter and gave kenorb full access. This gives us a Git repository and an issue queue - and two major tasks to solve:
#15
Thanks.