For some project with some friends, I've looked for some time for a way to build some text in common. Wikis answer the questions, and I tried to build from scratch a local wiki, using wikipedia's scripts.
Let me clarify that up to yesterday morning I had no experience with http servers, php, mysql, or wikipedia's scripts. OK, that's quite arrogant (or courageous, or plain dumb) to try to jump so high from so low, please be kind with me... Moreover I use a not so young PC (Pentium III 450 MHz)...
I must say that things went quite well! I managed to get all what I wanted (I can browse the base and modify pages), which is positively surprising. Most of the hurdles were negotiated with the various help and doc files, and looking in the php scripts.
In the process I noticed a few things, and it remains a malfunction with page modifications.
Before going further, here follows the bare bones of what I tried to set up:
OS : ms windows me (no comment, please)
browser : ms ie 5.50...
server : xitami (could'nt manage to install ms PWS - might not be possible on win me -, and couldn't find a simple install of apache...) no pb at all, neither installing or running.
php: version 4.2.3 for win32; some pb's, solved by tinkering in php.ini, in particular, set with cgi redirect off
mysql : 3.25.55 for windows; no pb at all, neither installing or running
wikipedia : the last versions of the files found on source forge, loaded one by one (how to dump the CVS??)
Points to note:
a) The script createdb.php fails if there is already a db. This is due to lack of deletion of table user_newtalk in buildTables.inc
b) The database as obtained starting with an empty directory and running the script createdb.php is such that the search function always answers that it found nothing.
Running rebuildindex.php corrects that. May be this is the normal policy, and rebuildindex.php must be run regularly??
c) I loaded the current state of the french articles (smaller than the english, and I'm french btw). There again, basic functions runs correctly except for the search.
I tried to run rebuildindex.php, but it aborts, seemingly some timer in the server (message is an overload indication). Is there any way to do that without invoking the server? For instance, a MySQL script would be handy!
d) When I edit a page, the submit yields a blank page after a long time. Likely to be a pb in the php scripts, but this seems beyond my competence.
e) After a submit on a new page, I can see the modification only after deleting the IE cache and recalling wiki.phtml. I set the browser to checking most recent version at each page download, but the behaviour is the same.
Thanks in advance for any help!
This being said, congratulations to all of you (and also Xitami, php and MySQL). It is quite impressive that the code and docs allowed me with my limited experience to go so far in so little time!
M. Mouly
(Michel Mouly mmouly@wanadoo.fr):
wikipedia : the last versions of the files found on source forge, loaded one by one (how to dump the CVS??)
Get an account on Sourceforge. Install CVS (I have no idea how to do this for Windows). Then use:
cvs -d <name>@cvs.wikipedia.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/wikipedia checkout phpwiki
to get the sources all at once. Then just "cvs update" to get new ones whenever they change.
a) The script createdb.php fails if there is already a db. This is due to lack of deletion of table user_newtalk in buildTables.inc
Thanks; fixed.
b) The database as obtained starting with an empty directory and running the script createdb.php is such that the search function always answers that it found nothing. Running rebuildindex.php corrects that. May be this is the normal policy, and rebuildindex.php must be run regularly??
It has to be run once; it became a separate script because those tables and that functionality were added recently. I'll update the docs.
c) I loaded the current state of the french articles (smaller than the english, and I'm french btw). There again, basic functions runs correctly except for the search.
I tried to run rebuildindex.php, but it aborts, seemingly some timer in the server (message is an overload indication). Is there any way to do that without invoking the server? For instance, a MySQL script would be handy!
Hmm. Yes, if you load pages through SQL, you have to rebuild the indexes again. Maybe the French SQL dump was in an old format? Brion?
d) When I edit a page, the submit yields a blank page after a long time. Likely to be a pb in the php scripts, but this seems beyond my competence.
e) After a submit on a new page, I can see the modification only after deleting the IE cache and recalling wiki.phtml. I set the browser to checking most recent version at each page download, but the behaviour is the same.
Got me there. I'm afraid I can't be much help for Windows.
This being said, congratulations to all of you (and also Xitami, php and MySQL). It is quite impressive that the code and docs allowed me with my limited experience to go so far in so little time!
Well I had never used PHP or MySQL before I wrote it; no doubt our shared ignorance helps us communicate.
In all honesty, though, I don't think the Wikipedia software is really good for personal use. There are a lot of smaller, simpler Wikis that do a great job--I use UseMod for my personal site, for example. I really wrote this one for one and only one goal: to run Wikipedia. If it's useful for other things,I certainly don't mind, but that's not a goal I ever had.
On Tue, 2003-03-18 at 12:10, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
(Michel Mouly mmouly@wanadoo.fr):
wikipedia : the last versions of the files found on source forge, loaded one by one (how to dump the CVS??)
Get an account on Sourceforge. Install CVS (I have no idea how to do this for Windows). Then use:
Supposedly there's a program 'WinCVS' which has a windows interface that some people use. As a unix-head, I just run Cygwin and use the unix-style tool. :)
I tried to run rebuildindex.php, but it aborts, seemingly some timer in the server (message is an overload indication). Is there any way to do that without invoking the server? For instance, a MySQL script would be handy!
PHP generally has an execution time limit (default is 30 seconds I think). This makes sense for web stuff which should generally never take that long, but is obviously not something you want for your admin scripts which might take an hour or two for really big things.
I run these scripts from the command line: php rebuildIndex.php
This avoids the timeouts, gives me regular job control (well, under Unix), and most importantly does not require the maintenance scripts to be web-accessible!
Make sure your PATH is set appropriately, or use the full path to the php executable, ie: c:\webserver\php\bin\php rebuildIndex.php
(or something like that? I've never run these things on Windows, I always use Linux for my servers.)
Hmm. Yes, if you load pages through SQL, you have to rebuild the indexes again. Maybe the French SQL dump was in an old format? Brion?
It should be current... As a reminder, the SQL dumps only include the 'cur' and 'old' tables. The link, recentchanges, and search index tables are recreated by the rebuild scripts: rebuildLinks.php does links, recentchanges rebuildIndex.php does search index.
These, I think, rely on the tables already existing, so you should run the createdb.php before importing the data. (Michel I think is already doing this part right.)
Hmm, it occurs to me that we don't have a clean backup/rebuild system for the uploads. Probably someone should look into that.
d) When I edit a page, the submit yields a blank page after a long time. Likely to be a pb in the php scripts, but this seems beyond my competence.
No idea...
e) After a submit on a new page, I can see the modification only after deleting the IE cache and recalling wiki.phtml. I set the browser to checking most recent version at each page download, but the behaviour is the same.
Got me there. I'm afraid I can't be much help for Windows.
IE has the crappiest reload button ever, in that it doesn't reload unless you hold down control. Help with workarounds for this is welcome...
In all honesty, though, I don't think the Wikipedia software is really good for personal use.
I do agree. There hasn't been a public, packaged, numbered software release for a reason: it's idiosyncratic, built for a single site, has a lot of assumptions (like all those hard-wired strings talking about Wikipedia and GNU FDL license for text!), and way overkill for most purposes.
I'm not going to say, "don't use it!" But keep the same caveats that you would have for an early pre-alpha release of any large application with a lot of weird features. It's fragile, and if you're trying to get real work done it might not be for you unless you're willing to put a lot of effort into it.
There are a lot of smaller, simpler Wikis that do a great job--I use UseMod for my personal site, for example. I really wrote this one for one and only one goal: to run Wikipedia. If it's useful for other things,I certainly don't mind, but that's not a goal I ever had.
UseMod is also fairly easy to set up -- one perl script. :D
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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