Host wiki online for multiple users?

[Zenai10]

Hi,

So i'm sure this has been asked many times but I cannot find what I need. I'm trying to set up a wiki server so several users can connect and edit a wiki online as we are across the country. 

I have only been able to create local network server wiki's using node.js. Is it possible to host online to allow multiple editors, or t the very least a viewable link for anyone else to see.

Thanks very much

[TonyM]

Zenai,

There are many ways to do what you ask and there is no clear winner in my mind, The best for you will depend a little on the work requirements and the facilities available to you. There is work in progress right now that will increase the possibilities.

Sharing on a local network only is quite simple using node, TiddlyServer Bob even I believe TiddlyDesktop.

TiddlySpot.com is possibly the best immediate general solution.

There are ways to share a tiddlywiki as a file online from share storage such as dropbox, one Drive Google Drive and more however these tend to be file based wikis so multiple serial editors is ok but there is a danger one user would save over the other.

https://tiddlywiki.com/#GettingStarted will help you get started and so can the newly created setup http://setup.tiddlyspot.com/

Since TiddlyWiki single file is html it can be posted anywhere on the internet for read only access

Noteself allows each user to have their own instance with a browser but it does not help with collaboration unless you connect it to an online CouchDB database or people export their tiddlers and send them to you.

The bees knees I can see is hosting the Multi-user Node version called bob online, but an additional layer of security is required and not all people have this hosting ability.

Depending on your needs, you could have the editors access your wiki in you local network and upload a copy to a html server in releases, for read only users.

Many of us know the possibilities, and some have implemented them, Jeremy is even working on Deploying on Amazon Web Services, I do th

[Mark S.]

I wonder if two users, each with their own Bob implementation, could share the same DropBox folder, essentially creating a nearly-multi-user system (taking into account various lag times). ??

-- Mark

[TonyM]

Mark,

Perhaps Jed can answer that. It could be great, 

I think at the moment Bob (the single Host) is dealing with the possible contention between multiple users on a per tiddler basis. There may need to be an extension to allow two hosts to share the one file area, but its a bloody good question. However on the current model if you can get a node server accessible on the Internet both can happily visit the one tiddlywiki and both work on it, with only changing tiddlers where contention is managed.

I recently hosted NodeJS on the internet, and plan to make this bob however I am cautious because it can be a very high security risk. But Jeremy is working on a Login security component.

With Vanilla Node or even TiddlyServer  it can auto-save every change quite quickly, I think it would be quite easy to, check it is available for checkout,  save a tiddler indicating I have the wiki checked out for editing, so others can view but not save, until I check it back in, then they can check it out.

I believe this is possible with the current technology. Bob can help in this scenario to avoid the need to save and reload the wiki. 

Another method that may work in some use cases is to force people to "login" to the wiki, basically providing their user name, them allow them to create and edit tiddlers created by them but not others (unless they check it out as above). Ie check it out to edit system tiddlers, or others tiddlers, otherwise use it "not checked out" knowing users will not step on each others toes.

Just some recent thoughts of mine

Tony

Basically this would allow multiple user edits over time if not at the same time, or what I would call "serial editing". In many business cases this is often more than enough.

Regards

Tony

[Mark S.]

My thought was that the parties would each have their own Bob. Then all the security is handled by DropBox, which has experience.

Security is a big deal these days. Consider EquiFax, whose entire business is supposed to be that of information security, and yet they exposed 150 million people's private information.

A gentleman's (or gentlewoman's) agreement re naming conventions could allow people to share, without a 100% multi-user system.

Still, if it was something you planned to do a lot of, it might be better to just use wikimedia technology.

-- Mark

[Ste Wilson]

An instance of bob or some such on sandstorm.io? Sandstorm takes care of the multi user bit.

[Jed Carty]

First, it is a not a good idea to have multiple people using Bob to access the same wiki at the same time. They would fight over file changes and you would get a lot of phantom tiddlers that you can't properly delete and infinite loops of different instances making changes to the same tiddler again and again.

Unfortunately the security components that Jeremy is working on probably won't play well with Bob. Supporting multiple wikis simultaneously makes reusing the single wiki server components difficult at best and I don't think that the normal server anything for the websockets.

I am currently polishing up my online version of Bob. It has better security than most online services, but given the horrific state of online security that is a pretty low bar. I wouldn't trust it with plans to overthrow a national government, but I think it is secure enough for most things short of that.

We have been using it for OokTech things for a few weeks now and it hasn't given us any trouble. It is on our server and accessible online and we haven't had any trouble yet.

It is Bob with secure logins and proper access controls so you can configure who can see or edit wikis individually and I have fine grained controls over what each person can do in each wiki.

We were hoping to have the public demo up this weekend but progress is slow because I have very spotty internet access at my home right now. Also the rest of OokTech is insisting that I make it a bit polished before I open the public demo.

[boreas93]

Dear Jed, do you have updates on a multi-user access to an online tiddlywiki?

Because i am also trying to find a way for multiple people to be able to collaborate online on a tiddlywiki.

Thanks for the reply

[Jed Carty]

I made a server that is for Bob that is accessible online. The code is here https://github.com/OokTech/SecureWikiServer

I have been using it for ooktech.xyz for a few months now.

[@TiddlyTweeter]

If only I had competence ... Jed's work is brilliant. I'd love to run a "Twitter-like" for TiddlyWiki  ... or  a Bob Builder that assembled custom wiki. Unfortunately I'm fairly faulty on security as I don't exactly know what I'm doing.

Josiah