Pieter does not like when I quote Confluence wiki but, with Confluence there is an option, while editing a page, which allows to restrict viewing/editing to :

• "choose me"
• "choose users"
• "choose a group" amongst existing groups such as admins, mods, sales-dept or whatever

Obviously the first option allows the quiet drafting of a page…
When the page is ready, I remove the viewing restriction. And of course, all children pages inherit automatically the restrictions…

However, Confluence is a business wiki to be run on companies' own server, not exposed to the SnowLeopard syndrome…

But do not tell him… shhhhuutt.

It's not a bad way of working but ends up with per-page permissions scattered all over, which make fast and simple ListPages-style work impossible.

To be honest, I don't draft pages in Wikidot at all but offline using a normal text editor: it's faster, safer, and I can work at ease.

If you're drafting offline, then that obviously points to Wikidot's lack of a drafting option, doesn't it ;-) You shouldn't have to use other tools (e.g. a text editor) just to manage your website or blog! :)

Actually, that reminds me… a small textbox in the Site Manager where we can put notes would be nice :) And it wouldn't need to interpret wikidot syntax either, as it'd be a place to store code temporarily, or for text-based reminders.

Perhaps titled "admin notes" and shared between all admins?

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You shouldn't have to use other tools (e.g. a text editor) just to manage your website or blog! :)

True. There are two problems with the Wikidot editor. One, no autosave, so that it happens that I lose my edits. Two, it's annoying to edit large amounts of text in a small window.

An autosave feature would work as a drafting tool. We had started on a more complex draft workflow but it was overkill. All we need is a 'saved copy' of the page that editors can see and the rest of the world cannot.

The idea of an admin notes section is sensible, but my view of the Wikidot world is that the hammer is category/page/template/tag and every problem is a nut to crack with that hammer. So for inter-admin discussions, either a private chat category, or a private notes / chatter category.

I use Wikidot drafting in my blog. I use a NewPage module to create a page in the blog category with the tag _in-development. Everywhere in my blog where I use ListPages/RSS, I make sure that it excludes pages that are “in development”.

When I'm ready to publish my works, I simply remove the _in-development tag and BANG! It's published to my RSS subscribers and is linked to from my main blogging page.

This is a good solution, actually. I've used it in a few places. It's also a nice way to promote articles from a larger stream onto the front page of a site.

The idea of an admin notes section is sensible, (…) So for inter-admin discussions, either a private chat category, or a private notes / chatter category.

You may misunderstand what I meant by that. The admin notes idea is not meant to be for private admin discussion, and it is also not meant to have a history associated with it. It's just a temporary place to store some code.

If you're drafting offline, then that obviously points to Wikidot's lack of a drafting option, doesn't it ;-) You shouldn't have to use other tools (e.g. a text editor) just to manage your website or blog! :)

Sometimes, there are good reasons to work offline. A dodgy internet connection is the one that immediately springs to mind. Or simply, while travelling, using trains/planes/hotels etc. If you have a basic text editor, you can keep on writing regardless of the network availability.

[feeling-hard-done-by]
You see, in rural parts of Britain we really don't know what that "inter-web" thingy is all about. We don't see it that often! That's what people in cities have with their coffee, isn't it? Me, I prefer flapjacks.
[/feeling-hard-done-by]

Something like Live Writer support would be great, then? :) That is designed for blogs though, and wouldn't necessarily work well in a wiki context.

I don't know what Live Writer is. But it sounds as if you're suggesting that we might integrate support of a product into Wikidot. That means work for the developers, doesn't it? And I think they have enough to do already. There would have to be a major benefit to all, for me to support an action like that. For those that need or want to work offline, what is wrong with simply copy/paste from a text editor like gedit or notepad or wordpad? We can all do that and have the tools pre-installed on our pc's. No new syntax to learn, da, de, da, de, da…

We don't have to build every feature we can think of into Wikidot, just because it may be possible. Hell no, Wikidot's flapjacks could never be as good as mine! ;-))

""Me, I prefer flapjacks"", ""Wikidot's flapjacks could never be as good as mine"" Is it me or is there a theme developing here? By the way flapjacks.wikidot.com is still availalble!

I do offline work a couple of times a week on the train to and from Inverness where for an hour or so through the mountains you lose not only the interweb but also Radio 2! I don't know which is worse. I normally use Word for the offline work, include all the relevant syntax and then just copy and paste into the page when I next have a connection. It works well, is familiar and doesn't divert the developers away from the weneeds they are working on.

Rob

I wasn't serious when I mentioned support for it — mainly I was drawing on how useful a tool it is for bloggers, and that a similar tool would be useful for Wikidot.

I know such a feature is unrealistic and that's why I haven't added a weneed, community wish, pro wish , or roadmap pledge for it XD