Documentation

I'll try to document how I've made my wiki function. POG

Since I was a young lad, I knew I wanted to write a wiki. Ya know how sometimes if you have a disorder that deficits you of attention, you often get sucked into Wikipedia rabbitholes and have 500 tabs open from one page? I feel like that method of storing and relaying information works really well for me, especially so I can add notes when I think of them and not have to wait to get home and update a page..

I currently use DokuWiki as my wiki software.

In April of 2025, Dokuwiki was suggested to me by Kat. She said flat file is simpler than the database that MediaWiki uses. Plain txt files do sound lighter than whatever a database is. So here I am using Dokuwiki!

Kat set everything up for me on her server. I provided a domain name for her, and she provided the stuff I need for the A address. All I had to do after setting up the domain was log into my account on this site, and start making pages. I still have to occasionally poke Kat when I need changes to the CSS and PHP, but otherwise I can do the important stuff (infodumping) from my side.

PokeRogue's use of dokuwiki was very inspiring. They have their plugins listed, so I installed the ones that I liked. They have this page that shows how to use the syntax with their plugins, and that looks helpful. I should make a page like that so Shane can easily add stuff to pages.

I currently use the Kiwiki template.

The default template is cool. Most wiki templates look great to me out of the box cuz they are familiar and easy to read. I would probably have stuck with it, but I wanted a dark mode color scheme.

After trying some templates tagged for “dark mode”, I found the Kiwiki template best for my nerds.

I enjoy the Kiwiki template because it has everything I need out of the box:

• Dark color scheme that can be manually toggled on and off by the user, as well as automatically detected by the browser.
• Responsive design for mobile resolutions
• Sticky menu/table of contents sidebar

It is fairly easy to customize the colors to my liking, and the overall design is cute without need for too much tweaking.

Other templates I tried and liked:

• MindTheDark - same as default, with a dark mode. This would be my second choice.
• Minimal - nice and clean, no dark toggle
• White - nice and clean, no dark toggle

Here is a list of my plugins generated by the info plugin. I may have stuff I am not using that is still installed cuz I'm playing with things.

The Advanced plugin allows me to add CSS to the wiki without bothering my host about it. I have added several small tweaks to the CSS on top of the Kiwiki template, mostly small visual things like transparent backgrounds and invisible borders..

For some reason, the kiwiki template can't see any options on the advanced configuration page. So I have bookmarked thelink to all css styles for easy access lol.

As of April 30th, 2025, the issue with Kiwiki and Advanced plugin has been fixed.

You can use Entities as emotes. For example, typing

:pog: , :hulk: , :misery:

will summon , and . Thank you analori for the emote!

• Admins may add emotes by uploading them via the media manager, and then going into Entities and adding the string you wish to convert into an HTML <img>

Avatars on discussion-enabled pages are provided via the email address you entered, if it is linked to a Gravatar account. Otherwise, the user's avatar defaults to a preset icon provided by the avatar plugin.

Avatars may be uploaded after making a comment by making a Gravatar account. Avatars can also be changed whenever you want.

Dokuwiki has a styling plugin built in for simple color changes to templates, accessible via the admin panel.

The current unaltered version of the styling plugin has color swatch previews. When you click the swatches, they open up your system's default color picker.

I've asked my lovely landlord/host to install an older version of the styling plugin so I can enter hex codes for the colors, just like the image on the plugin page. I can't see the color swatch preview, but it's a lot easier to copy/paste hexcodes than it is for me to use the crappy MS Paint color picker that hasn't changed since 1995.

The Snippets and Wikimedia Style Templates plugin lets you reuse templates that you've written.

It's kinda confusing that Wiki Style Templates are called templates, but the styled theme is also called a template. Please bear with me. In this section I will use the term WST to refer to Wiki Style Templates, in order to differentiate it from the theme template.

Snippets allow you to insert pre-written text.

WST allow you to create a page, and re-use the exact layout on other pages.

There is a difference between them - which I am not smart enough to articulate. The way I'm currently using them is using Snippets to insert a skeleton for a page I will immediately edit, and “Templates” for parts I want to look the same on every page (like menus and navigation). The documentation of WST seems to say that you can replace parts of the templates, but IDK how to read the documentation lol.

For my wiki, I have created a rough template for character pages, which I have inserted into the Snippets namespace (I call it a folder in my head lol).

1. Navigate to the page you want to create or edit.
2. Create or edit the page by pressing the pencil icon.
3. Press the "Insert Templates" button that looks like a page with a ruler next to it.
4. Left of the “Character template with navbox” title, press the "Insert" button. It looks like a page with text being written.
5. This will close the window and insert the pre-written template into the editing box. Edit the page to suit the character.
6. Press preview to see what it'll look like, then save when you're done.

To make more snippets, add another linked item to the list in the Snippets folder. Whatever you write in that page will become a snippet you can select the next time you press the “Insert Templates” button.

1. Create a page in the template namespace. Name it for its function. For example, I have named the navigation for the character pages “character_nav”.
2. Edit the page with what you need.