Updates on PBwiki 2.0
Create Your Own PBwiki 2.0 Wiki
- Go to https://secure.pbwiki.com/signup.wiki
- Log in or create an account
- Choose a wiki name
Demo wiki for PBwiki 2.0
The purpose of this wiki is to demonstrate some of the key features of PBwiki's 2.0 release.
About PBwiki 2.0
PBwiki designed 2.0 to improve the usability of PBwiki for collaboration within larger organizations.
Virtual Folders
2.0 extends the traditional flat structure of wikis with the concept of virtual folders. These folders allow companies to better organize wiki content for different groups within the firm.
More Granular Access Controls
As a corollary to this improved organization, 2.0 also adds much more granular access controls, allowing management to use a single company-wide wiki while appropriate restricting access and edit capabilities to specific groups.
User- Rather Than Wiki-Centric
In addition, the new PBwiki 2.0 is much more user-centric. In contrast to the traditional model of the freely editable public wiki, organizations that use wikis for collaboration need a robust system of individual user accounts to maintain accountability and control. Rather than focusing on many different wikis, 2.0 lets the individual log into a single user account, and centralizes access to his or her various wikis.
Streamlined, More Professional UI
Finally, the basic user interface has been redesigned based on a year's worth of user feedback to present a more professional, polished appearance. We've even made it much easier for users to customize the look for their company--just upload your company logo by using the "Logo" link under "Settings," and PBwiki can create a custom color scheme based on your logo's colors. You can also use a traditional color picker to modify the default color scheme. This saves our customers a lot of work. In addition, full custom CSS continues to be supported for those who want total control over appearance.
Under the hood, the WYSIWYG editor has also been substantially upgraded.
Demo Script
Folders
First, let's take a look at setting up virtual folders. Let's take the example of a hypothetical company, PBwiki, with three employees:
- David, CEO
- Ramit, Marketing
- Nathan, Engineering
In PBwiki 1.0, there was no way for Ramit to clearly identify all the marketing-related pages, or for Nathan to do the same thing for all the engineering-related pages. With 2.0, however, each employee can create their own virtual folders for their pages.
For example, Ramit might have pages for:
While Nathan might have pages for:
With folders, instead of trying to remember all the relevant pages, searching through all the pages on the wiki using "View all pages," or working around the problem by manually creating a links page, users can create folders that organize wiki content.
To see the pages in a folder, just click on the name of the folder in the right navigation block.
To show how this works, let's log in as Ramit and create the "Analyst Relations" page in the Marketing folder.
User Access Controls
Now that you've divided your pages up into folders, how do you control who has access to them? Unlike PBwiki 1.0, which only offered wiki-wide access controls, 2.0 lets you set per-folder and per-page access controls.
For example, Ramit can set up his Marketing folder so that he and David have read/write access, while Nathan has read-only access. We can see how this works by looking at the folder security settings.
And these new access controls aren't just for folders. You can even set them up on a per-page basis. If you set up per-page access controls for a page within a folder, the page-level access controls override the folder-level controls.
Let's say David has a special Strategic Issues page that he wants to keep secret. He can set up a special page so that no one else (other than another wiki administrator) can access it.
On the other end of the spectrum, he can also make a folder or even a single page on the company wiki visible to the public, such as a statement of the PBwiki Philosophy, while keeping the rest of the wiki completely private.
Logos and Colors
To modify the appearance of your wiki, go to "Edit Wiki Settings." Here on the settings page, you can add your company logo to your wiki, or pick one of our pre-loaded color schemes. To add your company logo, click "Logo" and upload your logo from your hard drive. You can either go with a custom color scheme calculated based on your logo colors, or modify it manually (you need IE7, Firefox, or Safari to use this manual color picker).
To select one of our pre-loaded color schemes, click "Colors" and select the color scheme you prefer.
Comments (1)
Demo Account said
at 9:49 am on Mar 19, 2008
I love PBwiki.
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