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