Re: [seul-edu] Setting up a Wiki: Collaboration on the Net

[Bruno Vernier <vernier@vc.bc.ca>]

On Sun, Nov 12, 2000 at 09:44:20AM -0700, lp wrote:

> Thanks for the tip, Bruno. I've downloaded Zope and I plan 
> to check it out next week. One question. Can the wiki in 
> Zope handle html or math notation via Hevea or anything 
> like that? The tclkit wiki is great for text and links, 
> but (complex) math expressions would be problematic to put 
> directly into the page. The tclkit wiki has its own special 
> markup for fonts and links and as far as I can tell does 
> not use html markup directly.

I use HeVeA with Zope (I created an external method) in a project to create
online math exercises/tests ... ALthough I have not tried it, it should work
with ZWiki pages (the latest version is 0.7.1) because we can define wiki
pages to allow DTML methods and therefore calls to external methods.  I like
your idea because it would allow a group of math students to work
on a math problem and publish their results cooperatively.

> The WIMS message boards handle math notation, html, even tex 
> and latex markup very nicely but I have avoided opening up a 
> public math message board because of the headaches it might 
> involve. A public message board in WIMS would be a close 
> alternative to a wiki - that's something I haven't thought 
> about until I got involved with tclkit.

Yes, WIMS is ahead in this area... I am hoping to make a zope version that
is compatible at the OEF level with WIMS so that we can interchange our
exercises.

> The advantage to the tclkit wiki, I guess, is that it is so 
> small and doesn't require installation of anything else like 
> Zope or WIMS.

That is the 3rd serious alternative.  I agree. Tcl is also the basis for the
arsdigita openacs platform.  So we have 3 opensource options for the
Math platform and I hope that whatever we individually choose to become 
good at, we plan on compatibility at the data level with each other.

Bruno