SharePoint University

I have been using an open source wiki (Media Wiki) that has some nice features, but I am been directed by the powers that be to implement the Sharepoint wiki.  My admin tells me that we're using WSS v3.0.

We want to create several document libraries within a single wiki site; different teams will be largely (but not exclusively) responsbile for the documents in the library.  It's pretty clear how to create the libraries to get the structure we want.

1) The first problem comes when we try to create links between pages in different libraries.  Is there a square-bracket syntax (e.g., "[[PAGE NAME]]" ) to reference a document in a different library?

2) We would also like to be able to define the search scope to various libraries.  Can you limit searching to documents in the same library as the page you are on?  Or to search all document libraries?

I have other questions about how we can simulate or match functional features of Media Wiki, but these two are the big barriers that are keeping us from moving forward.  Thanks for any help you can offier.

> It's pretty clear how to create the libraries to get the structure we want.

I would start by questioning that assumption. If you are creating a structure of separate libraries, how can the square-bracket syntax be used across libraries? I know that's repeating one of your initial questions, but it looks as if you would be relegated to hand entering links to other libraries unless you want to do some kind of programming.

Let's look at another possible solution: one library with entrance pages for each of the library types you currently have. Use the main entrance to the wiki as a master menu, pointing to an entrance page to each of the types of information you want to segregate. Those entrance pages can be ultilized as if they are the front of a new wiki, using the square-bracket syntax. Then, create custom views in the wiki library for each of your information types and search across those views.

One of the advantages to this approach is that now you only have to maintain one library when creating views, adding/deleting columns, etc.

Regards,
Mark

I am interested in the final struture for your SharePoint wiki project. How did you end up implementing it?

Mark

My department comprises 5 teams.  I lead a cross-team group charged with making our technical documentation available to all teams.

We ended up creating a Wiki Library in our department's Sharepoint site that serves as an index/overview of all of the high-level documentation.  Two of the team prefer to use Sharepoint for WYSIWYG editing and familiarity with MS tools.  For them we created a sub-site for each team; and each sub-site has as separate Wiki library in which the team is creating more detailed documentation.

The other 3 teams want to use more of the features in MediaWiki (especially categories and semantic markup) to make it easier to organize and find documents.  Most of these teams are programmers, so prefer simple Wiki markup (text based ) rather than the MS WYSIWYG editor.  (In fact, they often cut content from a highly formatted document, paste it in a simple text editor to strip the fonts, bold, and other visual markup, before cutting and pasting into a simple editor to do semantic markup.)

So our hybrid solution puts the main index in Sharepoint (where management wants it), but allows us to link to the more powerful, full-featured wiki.  It's a kludge, but in this world of many links, it works.  Now if we can refine federated searching (across all platforms), everyone will be happy! (NOT!)