PHP Programming Language - Cultural View

PmWiki 255
Wiki structure
In PmWiki, wiki pages are contained within "wiki groups" (or "namespaces"). Each wiki group can have its own
configuration options, plug-ins, access control, skin, sidebar (menu), language of the content and of the interface.
By default, PmWiki allows exactly one hierarchical level of the pages ("WikiGroup/WikiPage"), but through recipes,
it is possible to have a flat structure (no wiki groups), multiple nested groups, or sub-pages.
Special wiki groups are "PmWiki", Site, SiteAdmin and Category which contain the documentation and some
configuration templates.
Templates (skins)
PmWiki offers a template scheme that makes it possible to change the look and feel of the wiki or website with a
high degree of flexibility in both functionality and appearance.
Access control
PmWiki permits users and administrators to establish password protection for individual pages, groups of pages or
the entire site. For example, defined zones may be established to enable collaborative work by certain groups, such
as in a company intranet.
Password protection can be applied to reading, editing, uploading to and changing passwords for the restricted zone.
The out-of-the box installation uses "shared passwords" rather than login names, but a built-in option can enable a
sophisticated user/group based access control system on pages, groups of pages or the whole wiki.
PmWiki can use passwords from config files, special wiki pages, .htpasswd/.htgroup files. There are also user-based
authorization possibilities and authentication via various external sources (e.g. LDAP, forum databases etc.).
Customization
PmWiki follows a design philosophy [5] with the main objectives of ease of installation, maintainability, and keeping
non-required features out of the core distribution of the software. PmWiki's design encourages customization with a
wide selection of custom extensions, known as "recipes" available from the PmWiki Cookbook. [6] Creating and
maintaining extensions and custom installations is easy thanks to a number of well documented hooks in the wiki
engine.
System requirements
Prerequisites for running the PmWiki wiki engine:
• PHP 4.3 or later
• Any webserver that can run PHP scripts (e.g. Apache, Microsoft IIS, Lighttpd)
• Write permissions for the webserver user account in the PmWiki tree (required for off-line editing only)
• No file type extension restrictions on the webserver (sometimes a problem with free web hosting providers)
PmWiki has been reported to work with the following OS/webserver combinations:
• Apache 1.3 or 2.2, on roughly anything (Unix, Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X)
• Microsoft Internet Information Server, on Windows
• Appweb [7] (a very small, php-enabled webserver) executing on a Linksys NSLU2 Network Storage Link device
(running Unslung 5.5 beta, a Linux derivate for embedded systems)
• x86 Linux + LiteSpeedWeb Server Standard Edition
• There is a "recipe" to allow running PmWiki "Standalone", without a webserver, for example from a Flash USB
stick. [8]