Frequently Asked Questions

Problems installing/running Wikka

• I'm having problems during the installation procedure. Can anyone help me?
  • Please take a look at WikkaTroubleshooting to see if your problem has already been discussed.

• When I try to logout, I get the message "This page doesn't exist yet. Maybe you want to create it?"
  • Your base_url and rewrite_mode settings in the Wikka config file are probably incorrect. See ModRewrite.

• When creating a new page I get an extremely small editing form in WikiEdit. It happened rigth after new installation of 1.1.6.2.
  • Style settings are not lost in 1.1.6.2, they have only been moved to the stylesheet, where they belong (textarea#body in wikka.css). So try to empty the cache of your browser and reload the page to see if the problem persist.

Wikka and free hosting

• I've installed Wikka on a free hosting service, and all I get is a blank page. Other (non-Wikka) pages do work, and show a banner of the hoster.
• I have a Wikka site at a free host, but all pages are truncated: the comments block doesn't appear.
  • When a (free) host inserts a banner, it interferes with two things Wikka does by default:
    • when Gzip-encoding is active, inserting a banner just messes things up (causing a blank page); and
    • Wikka calculates content-length for a HTTP header - which will be incorrect after the banner is inserted, so you would see a truncated page when Gzip is not active.
  • See BlankPageWorkaround for a solution to both of these problems.

FreeMind maps

• I'm trying to display Freemind maps on Wikka under Mac OS X? The latest version of Java is installed on my system and the freemind applet works fine under Safari but not under Firefox or Mozilla: it simply doesn't load. Can you explain why?
  • On recent versions of Mac OS X, Java 1.4.2 is available but can't be seen by browsers other than Safari, Mac OS X's default browser. To visualize Freemind maps in Wikka using Mozilla, Firefox and the like, you need to install a small java plugin enabler that will tell the browser to look for the most recent Java version installed on your system.

Wikka

• Where did the name "Wikka" come from? Is is based on "Wicca"?
  • The name was chosen for several reasons by Jason Tourtelotte when he started the project:
    • It is similar to Wakka. The goal with keeping the name similar was to recognize and honor the code heritage.
    • It is fun to say in combination with Wakka -- "Wikka Wakka". Which led to...
    • Having a good reason to make the "Powered by" link at the bottom of every page "Wikka Wakka Wiki". Which led to...
    • The intentional search engine optimization benefit. Try these Google searches: Google:Wakka or Google:WakkaWiki. Who's number one? Jason's plan worked perfectly. ;)
    • The obvious phonetic association with Wicca -- yes, this was intentional. Wiki engines have a magical quality. Just click the "Edit page" link and within seconds you are creating new content. Compared to the experience of editing a page with a monster like Dreamweaver, it seems a bit like magic. -- JsnX
• Where is Wikka going, when will the next Wikka release happen?
  • Take a look at ANewHomeForWikka -- DarTar

Text formatting

• How do you get a pair of double-quotes (without any text between them) to display properly ?
  • Use the entity literal " - &quot"
    • Use of the latest ColorAction code breaks this ... quick work-around is to use a double-single-quote to simulate a double-quote .. but noting that part of this last code change started with someone asking about using a single-quote for 'action' key-words - WazoO

Links

• How do you un-WikiName a word ?
  • Add two pair of double-quotes around the word: WikiName

• How does WakkaWiki know to what URL to send a visitor to if it wasn't specified ?
  • The link is to a forced WikiPage. That means a link to a page in this wiki is generated.

• So why does [[LALA_LELE]] send me to http://LALA_LELE ?
  • The underscore breaks things. [[LALALELE]] doesn't have this problem.

• Is it possible to create a forced link with more than one word?
  • Sure. [[HomePage This is the home page]] will produce: This is the home page.

• Rather than use the WikiName, can you force a page name to be two words as in: [[Home Page]]
  • No, page names cannot have spaces in them; but you can always use a forced link to make the link text have spaces - see the answer above.

• Can I use unicode characters in a forced link?
  • Yes [[HomePage 홈페이지]] will produce: 홈페이지.

• Use [[HomePage 首页]] is very inconvenient for using unicode charaters in some countries, e.g. China, because few person can use english even though just a single word for a page. Can I crack the code to make unicode to be a force link? And how?

Home Page

• How do I change the default title in the top nave of my WikkaWiki (currently MyWikkaSite)?
  • Find the following line in your wikka.config.php

    	"wakka_name" => "MyWikkaSite", 

    and thange the name (after =>) to whatever you want it to be.
• How do I include an image in my header file, like the Wikka Homepage does?
  • Applying background-image: url("../images/w.jpg"); to the .header in the css file will add the image to the header.
  • You will need to adjust the padding in the .header section as appropriate to your image size
  • If you do not want the image to repeat, you will also need to add background-repeat: no-repeat; to the .header section of the css file as well.
    • I still can't get my image to even show up. I tried editing the css/wika.css but the image doesn't load. I'm also not seeing any error messages. Am I missing something?

Comments

• When I click on the [Add comment] link, wikka asks me, if I want to create this page instead of showing the comments-form
  • Look into your wikka.config.php and set the entry 'rewrite_mode' => '1', to '0'. That should solve the problem .

• The search function (see: SearchHelp) does not find any hits in the comments sections. Am I missing something?
  • No. The search function only searches the wiki page name and page content for hits and not its comments. [I have a hack to include comments in the searches on my homepage. The code hasn't been tested in 1.1.6.0 yet but works in 1.1.5.0 --GmBowen]

Translation

• When will Wikka support other languages/utf-8 ?
  • An internalization/localization project is currently under discussion, but it requires a major overhaul of the code, so don't expect it to appear in the very next releases.

Compatibility

• Which kind of operative system is required to run Wikka?
  • Wikka is platform-independent, it runs on any server with PHP/MySQL support. See SystemRequirements for further details.

ACL management

• I accidentally set the read access of UserSettings-page to "registered users only". Now I can't log in anymore (using the login page requires that you have already logged in). How can I resolve this?
  • You'll need to modify the ACL settings for that page in the database. Assuming you use the default configuration the table name where these settings are stored is wikka_acls. Alternatively, you can set the default write settings to * in your config file, create a new page with {{usersettings}} as content and login from that page using your wiki admin username. This will allow you to change the ACL configuration for UserSettings (admin users override any ACL). Do not forget to restore the default ACL settings to + or !* once you're finished, unless you want to let anyone free to edit content on your server (which we do not recommend).