Saturday, March 31, 2007

bLADE Wiki - 2.8.2 released

Added support for fullscreen mode

bLADE Wiki - 2.8.1 released

Fixed bug when enabling support for accented characters while on a page with an accent

bLADE Wiki - 2.8.0 released

Added feature to enable support for accented characters in page names

Friday, March 30, 2007

bLADE Wiki - 2.7.3 released

Fixed bug where https:// links not recognised by the new wiki parser

bLADE Wiki - 2.7.2 released

Fixed a few very minor bugs

Thursday, March 29, 2007

bLADE Wiki - 2.7.1 released

Fixed bug where white squares would appear in Edit view on mobile version

bLADE Wiki - 2.7.0 released

Added feature to export a whole wiki to a directory as static HTML pages

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

bLADE Wiki - 2.6.0 released

Added support for external links in mobile version, to open external webpages, send emails, etc

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

bLADE Wiki - 2.5.0 released

New icon, courtesy of famfamfam.com

Monday, March 26, 2007

bLADE Wiki - 2.4.3 released

Fixed minor bug with links to sections within a page

bLADE Wiki - 2.4.2 released

Fixed minor bug with Rename Page form on mobile version

bLADE Wiki - 2.4.1 released

Fixed minor bug with back/forward buttons on desktop version

Sunday, March 25, 2007

bLADE Wiki - 2.4.0 released

Added feature to generate list of backlinks (links to the current page)

bLADE Wiki - 2.3.0 released

Added feature to rename the current page (and all links to it)

bLADE Wiki - 2.2.3 released

Fixed bug in mobile Preferences dialog

Saturday, March 24, 2007

bLADE Wiki - 2.2.2 released

Fixed bug in recognising numbered lists

Friday, March 23, 2007

bLADE Wiki - 2.2.1 released

Added syntax support for images in wiki pages

bLADE Wiki - 2.2.0 released

Added syntax support for HTML code in wiki pages

Thursday, March 22, 2007

bLADE Wiki - 2.1.0 released

Added ability to display page-created and page-last-modified timestamps in footer

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

bLADE Wiki - 2.0.4 released

Fixed bug in wiki parser handling of strikeout markup

Monday, March 19, 2007

bLADE Wiki - 2.0.3 released

Restored feature omitted in wiki parser rewrite: [{ ignore all markup }]

bLADE Wiki - 2.0.2 released

Fixed bug in wiki parser where markup at the start of lines fails

bLADE Wiki - 2.0.1 released

Restored features (accidentally!) omitted in wiki parser rewrite: search highlighting and international character code support

bLADE Wiki - 2.0.0 released

Complete rewrite of wiki parser


Warning: This makes this a potentially risky update. If you're the nervous sort, you might want to hold off on this update until I've found the potential new kinks in the code. Or at least keep a copy of your current version. The wiki parser code is all brand-new and relatively untested!


I have now rewritten the wiki parser code from scratch. In theory, if I've done it right, you shouldn't notice any difference - your pages should look the same.

It should bring a number of benefits:

  • Faster

    On the desktop, you're unlikely to spot the difference, but when on Windows Mobile, it should shave a little time off the loading of larger pages. The new wiki parser uses a much more efficient approach to scanning the text.

  • Enable new features

    The structure of the new wiki parser should make it easier for me to add new features. For example:

    • Different syntax-highlighting to distinguish between internal and external links (use a.internal and a.external in the stylesheet to set how you want them to appear)

    • New user preference - should wiki markup be applied in links?

      With this option set to 'disabled', you wouldn't need to 'escape' a URL which you copy and paste into the wiki:
      e.g. http://dalelane.co.uk/page.php?id=33 wouldn't need to be turned into http://dalelane.co.uk/page.php?id==33 to work.
      But if you like the old behaviour, you can use Preferences to restore it

    • Export whole wiki to HTML

      This isn't quite finished yet, but should be soon - instead of exporting a single page, export your whole wiki to a directory in HTML format.

    • External links in the mobile wiki

      This isn't finished yet either, but you can click on an external link and then continue clicking around your wiki. In the meantime though, when you leave your wiki, you will lose the ability to edit any pages until you restart. This is a limitation which I'll sort out soon - but it's still an improvement on the old version, where you couldn't click on external links at all :-)


  • More flexible

    The old parser was very "special-case"-heavy - it essentially had a set of patterns it recognised, and carried out a fairly heavyweight set of search-replace's to turn them into the correct HTML. This meant that you were often limited to the special cases I had thought of. For example, it meant that you could not include links in headings.
    e.g.
    +This is my [heading] here
    wouldn't work before. But now it should be fine.
    The new version should have far fewer restrictions like these, as it's a bit cleverer in how it parses the text.

  • More error-tolerant

    Similar to the last comment above, the new approach to scanning the input wiki markup should mean that it handles invalid wiki markup better. For example, the old wiki app would have problems with mismatched link tags (e.g. [ without a ], or [ and ] in the wrong order - that sort of thing). The new parser maintains the current state, and should be able to cope with invalid wiki markup in a graceful way.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

bLADE Wiki - 1.12.4 released

Collection of minor bug fixes

Monday, March 05, 2007

What features would you like me to add?

The wiki is pretty much where I want it to be now. My todo list is basically made up of underlying changes to the parser to improve performance (particularly when running on Windows Mobile), and make the syntax a little more flexible (for example, currently links are not permitted in headings, because of the way that headings are parsed. I'd like to remove these and a few other such restrictions).

So these are a given - I will be doing these when I get round to it. But I have no other plans. I use the wiki every day, on both Windows and Windows Mobile and the interface and functionality has now reached the point where it suits my needs.

If the same is true for you, brilliant. Let me know if you ever come across a bug and I'll try and fix it, but otherwise the wiki is what we want.

However, if you want it to do more, now would be a good time to let me know. Is there any piece of functionality or change to the interface that would make your life easier, or save you time?

Let me know with a comment to this blog post what feature(s) you would like to see added.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Update

The wiki has been downloaded 672 times in the last few days.

Thanks to everyone who has given it a try.

Just a quick reminder of my plea from a couple of weeks ago - which is to ask you (if you find this wiki useful) to consider donating a little money to charity to say thanks for the work that has gone into developing it.

Go on! Just a little... even a quid. It's worth a pound, isn't it?

And you'll be doing your bit for a very worthy cause.

(And thanks to the one - and only! - person who has.)

bLADE Wiki - 1.12.3 released

Added 'Manage Locations' dialog on desktop version

bLADE Wiki - 1.12.2 released

Added control to show current page in default external browser