I’ve written about evaluating TikiWiki and MediaWiki for use as a way to create and manage internal documentation for a client.  The former fell short on implementation and the latter wasn’t a good fit for the project.

After checking a number of wiki applications listed in Wikipedia’s wiki comparison page, I spotted DokuWiki.  According to the site, it’s designed specifically for documentation.  I read through some of the documentation, and found that it has support for granting users different levels of access to different parts of the site.  Moreover, it looked to have an actual administrative interface, rather than forcing one to edit code or requiring that configuration information be written in a page as if it were text.  The latter is worse than editing code, as it’s likely just as cryptic to users and more error prone.

I downloaded and installed the software.  The installation consisted of extracting the archived files into the desired directory.  The installation instructions link to useful security tips that are simple and clear.  After following them, I ran the installation script, which required answering a few questions and configuring the administrator’s account.

Once the program was up and running, it was fairly easy to create user accounts and start assigning permissions.  One inapparent function is that of creating user groups.  You would think that there would be a form for doing so, much like creating a user.  However, groups are created “on demand”.  If you add a user to a group that doesn’t exist, the group is created.  It strikes me that this is prone to creating groups by accident by way of typos, but I suppose that’s easily remedied.

After getting the security set up, I created a few pages to hold some information about the project itself.  It was quick and easy, much like working with MediaWiki.  Even embedding images in a document was smooth.  I ran into a few questions during the process and was able to quickly find answers via the DokuWiki forum.

There seem to be quite a few plugins available, though I haven’t tried any of them.  Wikipedia cites sources that claim DokuWiki is one of the most popular wikis in use.  I myself ran across it recently as the software behind the Rails Wiki.  It seems to have a vibrant community behind it.  That, plus the functionality that it supplies means that I may have found a great tool for creating and managing internal, collaborative documentation for my clients.