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Les Orchard, who runs the 0xDECAFBAD blog, has come up with
something brilliant. (0xDECAFBAD comes up at the head of my blogroll,
at least until some other hex-inspired blogger does him 0x1
better.)
Les has created two MovableType plugins that allow
users to type content using Wiki tags instead of HTML tags. For
those who don't Wiki, Wiki systems use
simple-yet-powerful markup that Wiki systems translate on the fly into
HTML. For example, in a Wiki system, preformatted text may be
indicated by indenting the content two spaces. A list item may be
created by starting a line with '* ' --- you get the idea.
One of the things I've had to learn to do in order to use Radio
under Mozilla (no nice IE-based HTML tool) or MovableType is learn to
compose simple HTML on the fly. (Actually, if I'm going to type
anything of any length, I paste it into NT Emacs, edit it using the
html-helper mode, and paste it back into Radio/MT). It's not that
it's that hard, but it is an impediment to introducing others
to using these tools. I've been using UseModWiki for about two years,
and one thing I can say about Wiki text formatting rules is that they
are dead easy to use.
Les's plugins let you type Wiki-format text in your MT entries, and
then use either a local or an XML-RPC service to convert your Wiki
format text into HTML when you republish your pages. Weblogs
are great for the thought of the moment, but Wikis are great for
aggregating content around a given area, or remembering other kinds of
knowledge. Les has been publishing both a weblog and Wiki for some
time. For me, the combination he's put together has been interesting
but not compelling, but I think with this idea he's really onto
something very good.
The only downside so far is that Les doesn't quite support
UseModWiki yet. Les is TWiki guy.
(I tried TWiki once, but found the resulting sites a little too
cluttered.)
10:54:08 PM 
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