Have you ever noticed how many different kinds of configurations you have to learn to manage a website? Or how every different configuration comes with its own set of rules?
Wagn hasn't been all that different from most wikis and CMS applications in this way. Some configurations (like layout) applied to the entire site, some (like table of contents) to a single card, some (like autoname) to a specific type of cards, etc. Learning to "Wagneer" meant learning the boundaries of each setting.
Our new Wagn 1.3 changes that by taking advantage of our everything-is-a-card approach. Now any Setting can be applied to any Set of cards. The set of cards can be as inclusive as all cards or as narrow as just one card, so you can be as general or as specific as you like.
Take layouts for example. When we introduced custom layouts in 1.2, you could only change the layout for the entire site. Now you can apply layouts to any set of cards. So I can a special layout for all User cards, or all cards ending in +address, or for that one card with the huge image. This means you can now create special areas of your Wagn site for administrators or any other role.
In Wagn 1.3 we're introducing the first round of sets and settings by converting several of the simplest site configurations into Wagn's new system. Captchas, edit help, tables of contents, autonaming, and several pointer configurations (like input type and options) are now all controlled by settings. In the process, almost all of those settings became more powerful. For example, you can now specify the minimum number of headings needed to autogenerate a table of contents --- for any set of cards!
If you want to try these new settings out, click on the "Options" tab on any card, and then click on the "settings" subtab. (Sandbox.wagn.org is a great place to try out new features). There you'll see the current settings for that card. If you open any given setting, you can see all the sets that the card is in and change the setting value as narrowly or broadly as you like.
These few settings are just the beginning. In coming releases we'll be converting all kinds of card configurations into Setting cards, from favicons to formatting to permissions. Not only will this greatly increase your power as a Wagneer, but it will also make it easier for wagn developers to create elegant interfaces for controlling this elegant settings sytem.
Custom layouts and more powerful forms mean Wagn 1.2 will help you get even more creative and organized.
With our new custom layouts, you can arrange cards (including newly "virtual" cards like search bars, alerts, etc) on pages however you see fit. It all works just like any wagn card: you edit, you include, you save.
Wagn 1.2 also features an upgrade to our forms system with a trimmer look and a lot more pointer interface options (dropdowns, radio buttons, checkboxes, etc). And we've made it easier to create links that prepopulate forms. Smarter default values makes for smoother workflow.
Wagn's a great canvas. Paint away!
Fabulous! Thanks for your work!!
--Patrick (Not signed in).....Sun Oct 25 13:00:44 -0700 2009
Couple of questions about input options. Is there a multi-select mode where I can have the select widget, possibly multi-line with scrollbar, but also select more than one option like checkbox. I know there is such an option on select in html.
Where would you add the link for +*input and +*options, on the "config tab" under related? I didn't see it, but I figured that is just an oversight to be added later.
--Gerry Gleason.....Mon Oct 26 14:52:42 -0700 2009
Not 100% sure i get what you mean, but you may mean the multiselect option.
+*input and +*options now appear (where relevant) in the settings subtab of the Options tab.
--John Abbe.....Sun Jan 03 09:06:39 -0800 2010
Monitoring your website is great. Scanning every 5 minutes in case you missed something? Not so good. You need a way to get notified when important things happen when you're not watching. So now Wagn can "watch" for you.
As of Wagn 1.1, released on Aug 12, 2009, signed-in users can click "watch" on the footer of any card to receive emails about changes to that card. You can also watch card "types" (Blogs, Tickets, Images, etc) and get updates about changes to any card of that type.
The 1.1 release, which runs on Ruby on Rails version 2.3, also improves installation and image uploads.
Learn more about using notifications.
See Wagn 1.1 for upgrade notes and full details.
Wow, 1.0 is finally here (see the press release). We've pondered, crafted, refined, and gotten organized, and now Wagn's ready to help you do the same things on your projects.
It's been a long journey. We had the idea three years ago at a wiki conference called Recent Changes Camp. We wanted to build a consumer education website called Hooze that used all the "together fuel" of a site like Wikipedia, but was better at breaking information into smaller bits — few of us want to read an encyclopedia article before we buy crackers or a lightbulb, right? But how do you make patterned information simple and fun to use?
So we started with smaller units than webpages, and we decided to call them "cards." We're all familiar with lots of kinds of cards: playing cards, postcards, business cards, library cards... They're all different sizes and hold different amounts of information, everything from a picture to a filing record to a complete story. The same goes for cards on Wagn.
As we started organizing cards of information about companies and products, we quickly saw patterns emerging. We wanted company cards, for example, to include logo cards, address cards, etc. This has been one of the driving ideas behind Wagn: cards including other cards in patterned ways.
Unfortunately, we never really found funding for our ambitious consumer education website idea, but in the process of looking for support, we found Meyer Memorial Trust. Brandon Sanders, a board member at the time, walked up to Marie Deatherage from Meyer and said "I've got to meet the only other person in the room with a stripe of pink hair." Pink hair, in our experience, correlates strongly with vision. Before long, Meyer was using Wagn to launch connectipedia.org, a website that helps do-gooders of all stripes connect and share resources.
That was over a year ago, when Wagn was running version 0.9. At the time we thought 1.0 was right around the corner, but we just...weren't...quite...ready. We wanted to speed things up a bit, improve some usability, nail down that one bug. So 0.9 was followed not by 1.0 but by 0.10. And then 0.11. Version 0.12 was used as the conference wiki for Recent Changes Camp 2009. With version 0.13 we introduced a major upgrade to our hosting and consulting services, which has brought in some great new projects, like academic paper tracking for a national research group.
And now, many tweaks, fixes, and enhancements later, we think Wagn is ready. Oh, it's far from done — we've got literally hundreds of design ideas in our tracking system (which we built using Wagn), and our community continues to offer more each day — but Wagn is now too strong to hide behind a zero. 1.0 is here.
There've been plenty of bumps in the road. We've had a few development pauses, lots of funding lapses, and long stretches without a full-time programmer on the project. So we feel some extra pride in pushing through to 1.0 in the middle of an economic downturn that saw the end of our grant funding and the relocation of our core team from one state to three. But we all believed in the value of our work, as did a much bigger "we" of supporters, idea people, advisers, code contributors, interns, testers, and friends.
We really hope Wagn will continue to do good in the world by making it easier for people to collaborate on, organize, and trumpet their ideas in profound and meaningful ways.
How can you use Wagn to help build a thrivable world?
Comments
Yeah! So happy to see 1.0 meet the world. <<<<< >>>>>
I plan to use my wagn to build a new space for thrivable.org to co-create a thrivable world. ;)
--Jean (Not signed in).....Wed Jun 10 10:50:15 -0700 2009
I too, am so thrilled to see where wagn is today on big happy launch day! Getting familiar with the structure and playing with the many possibilities for organizing information is what makes our wagn- http://connectipedia.org such an amazing resource for the nonprofit community.
--Phoebe Owens (Not signed in).....Wed Jun 10 12:01:46 -0700 2009
Have only hours ago landed here (first visit). After a short initial glimpse or clickabout, I find that wagn looks impressive.
So, onwards into the vast frontier ahead, ye sifters and shakers!
--stedawa (Not signed in).....Wed Jun 10 15:07:47 -0700 2009
mazel tov! I look forward to playing with our new (little, green) Wagn.
--misuba (Not signed in).....Wed Jun 10 17:25:37 -0700 2009
Interesting. Reminds me a lot of the server sided TiddlyWiki ideas. It will be neat to see what comes out of this.
--Ken (Not signed in).....Fri Jun 12 15:35:51 -0700 2009
I'm trying to play in your sandbox, but I'm lacking documentation on cardtype forms. Where can I find out more about those? And yes, wagn looks awesome - it's the server-sided tiddly-style app I kept thinking I should write... :)
--Anonymous (Not signed in).....Tue Jun 30 10:54:13 -0700 2009
See formatting. Glad you like it!
--John Abbe.....Tue Jun 30 11:01:01 -0700 2009
efdsqfdswx
--Anonymous (Not signed in).....Wed Oct 07 10:22:32 -0700 2009
0.13 is here. 1.0 is next.
After three years of exploration, innovation, and refinement, Wagn 1.0 is now less than a month away. Our basic toolkit for our "Wiki on Wheels" is ready to roll. All that's left for 1.0 is a little time to breathe in, sweep out corners, squash a bug or two, and then throw open our doors.
Starter Kit
With our 0.13 release, getting going with a new Wagn is faster and friendlier than ever. New wagns come with configuration cards, simpler initial account setup, and a lot more cues to help ease your way in.
Improving our Images
For our existing users, new image and file handling is the most significant interface change. No more crazy giants. Images are now automatically resized into four sizes for use in different contexts: icon, small, medium, and large. We now also retain old versions of images and files.
One Sleek Wiki
Wagn's getting slimmer. We streamlined an already svelte application quite a bit, from around 15,000 lines of original ruby code (excludes plugins and migrations) to about 14,000. Some of that came from spring cleaning, some from refactoring (like WQL, our query language, which lost weight and built muscle), and some from moving old code into new cards, which gives Wagneers powers once restricted to coders. Non-coders can configure their own Wagns, collaborate on default content for new Wagns, and help us internationalize our software.
On a Related Note
Our new Related tab, once a scary sight to newbies, is now like a mountain lake: clear (lots of inline cues), deep (subtabs), and broad (includes discussions and tagging). And you can even customize your own subtabs. In the typically Wagny way, the subtabs themselves are arranged and formatted by cards that you can edit.
The Tightmost Sitehost
A little more arcane but at least as important is our new support for hosting multiple wagns in a single Postgres database. This is already making our hosted Wagns snappier and our administrators happier.
Thank you ever so much. When can we hope for 1.0 release?
--Jean (Not signed in).....Mon Jun 01 15:40:30 -0700 2009
We're aiming for June 10. Some of the delays have been due to client work, which is a good thing.
--John Abbe.....Tue Jun 02 10:01:26 -0700 2009
The latest Wagn release hushes old noise and removes old barriers.
The most prominent change in Wagn 0.12 is the big new search box — we integrated the two separate Search and Goto boxes at the top into one. We've also added RSS feeds on all searches, including Recent Changes.
A bit more hidden is the fact that accounts are no longer tied exclusively to User cards. Cards of most any type — like Company, for example — can now have accounts added to them. Conversely, it's possible to create User cards for people without having to give them accounts, and add accounts for them later. Also, Wagn administrators can now choose to let people sign up with or without invitation approval.
0.12 also ushers in some big improvements in adding new cards within cards, including smarter defaults and rendering them more attractively. Similarly, lists of items in Searches and Pointers look a lot better, and it's now possible for cards created through a Pointer to default to a given cardtype.
Full details at Wagn 0.12
--Anonymous (Not signed in).....Sat Apr 11 07:37:40 -0700 2009
RecentChangesCamp is a wiki-lover's feast. It's a conference about wikis in a very wiki-like conference format full of people passionate about the Wiki Way.
Several members of Wagn's core team, John Abbe, Lewis Hoffman, and Ethan McCutchen, helped get the first RecentChangesCamp going back in 2006, which is where they first started exploring the ideas for Wagn. This year all three returned to Portland, OR for the event, where Wagn itself was being used as the conference wiki.
With all the wiki fanatics playing around with Wagn, we got to see Wagn really put to the test. Looks like things turned out well -- the organizers of a new RecentChangesCamp event in Australia are going to be using Wagn too. And John came up with some creative ways of organizing Session Notes that made great use of Wagn's simple dynamic features.
Thank you to everyone involved in RecentChangesCamp for giving Wagn a shot, for exploring, and for the terrific feedback. Long live the Wiki!
Happy New Year. And a happy new Wagn release.
Wagn 0.11 emphasizes making the user community visible to itself. User names now show up in recent changes, user names in comments are now linked, and user edits and roles can now be queried.
We've also fixed lots of bugs, including some weird stuff that used to happen with funky characters in card names. As part of that change, we now have more attractive URLs.
Also, we now support the Universal Edit Button
Full details at Wagn 0.11
--Anonymous (Not signed in).....Tue Sep 15 23:59:01 -0700 2009
Ask anyone in web development, and they'll tell you: your own website often comes last. Nothing against Drupal, but shouldn't GrassCommons.org, the website of the organization behind Wagn.org, be a Wagn?
We thought so, and we're happy to have made the switch in time for the New Year. We expect that making it a Wagn will lead to our being much more active on the site -- one of many of our resolutions. Have a look at GrassCommons.org and tell us what you think.
--Anonymous (Not signed in).....Sat Jun 13 16:56:35 -0700 2009
RecentChangesCamp, an open space wiki event in Portland, OR, is using Wagn as its event wiki this year.
The Wagn Project was conceived at the first Recent Changes Camp. Recent Changes continues to cultivate new ideas and new connections in the Wiki World, and we're honored to be supporting the event.
--Anonymous (Not signed in).....Tue Sep 15 23:52:28 -0700 2009
--Anonymous (Not signed in).....Tue Sep 15 23:52:31 -0700 2009
--Anonymous (Not signed in).....Tue Sep 15 23:52:31 -0700 2009
--Anonymous (Not signed in).....Tue Sep 15 23:52:33 -0700 2009
--Anonymous (Not signed in).....Tue Sep 15 23:52:35 -0700 2009
Wagn: it's not just for Firefox anymore.
The big news for this release is that Wagn now works in Safari and IE6 and 7. We also have improved page download speeds and fixed lots of annoying bugs.
See Wagn 0.10+3 for details.
Table of Contents
Thanksgiving
"Truly appreciate those around you, & you'll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life, & you'll find that you have more of it." --Ralph Marston
Wagn 1.0 update
With the recent leaps forward in Wagn's performance and browser support, we're starting to hear the question: why are you still calling it 0.10.3? Why not go ahead and call it 1.0? Well, we're getting close, and we expect to reach that milestone in early 2009, but we're still working to make that an extremely high quality release. The key areas of work remaining include some bugfixes (like restoring our nifty auto-save feature), community visibility (like showing user names on the recent changes page), and the kinds of features expected from any Web 2.0 site (like RSS feeds).
Looking for Leads
We're trying to fund continued development of Wagn through wagn-based web projects and would love references. We're reaching out to social media gurus who might put Wagn in their toolkit and to foundations, nonprofits, and academic institutions who can use Wagn to further their missions.
Becoming a Wagneer
Our Become a Wagneer tutorial project helps people teach themselves to become expert Wagneers -- people who build cool structures and systems using Wagn. If you're into it, be a guinea pig and let us know how it turns out.
Ethan, Lewis and John just had our weekly Wagn meeting. Justin will be joining us next week. We intend to send out an updates like this after each meeting [or two], as part of focusing more attention on the Wagn community (that would be you!).
- Recently we've made a *lot* of progress on performance (server- side averages down from 2-3 seconds to ~300 milliseconds on connectipedia.org!). And browser compatibility will be greatly improved in 0.10.3, bringing IE6, IE7 and Safari up to nearly par with Firefox (we're also starting to look at Chrome; anyone know how we're doing in Opera?).
- When the three of us were together in Chicago earlier this fall we got clear that we want to put a lot of attention on Wagneers -- to grow a community of people who build stuff in Wagn. This remains important to us, and, we've realized that a good end-user experience is just as important. So in the near term we will focus on fixing bugs and polishing up things that will make Wagn smooth and wonderful for regular users.
- By the time we release Wagn 1.0 we certainly want it to be easy for people to download and install. But for now, we're going to focus more intently on our hosting and consulting, both to build up our own Wagneering chops, and to get some income flowing.
So, new draft pricing is up at Hosting and Consulting. We want to make sure this works for current and potential Wagneers, so if the prices seem prohibitive in general, or for you in particular, let us know! We are open to adjusting the pricing to get the right balance, as well as to making special deals with people whose work we want to support.
(There will be no rate changes for existing users - and we would never do that without consulting with people first.)
Tangential Tidbit - Justin will be focusing on Wagn now. After he spent a few months working hard to secure funding for Hooze, we have made the sad but we think good decision to let Hooze go. We may come back to a project like that later, but it would be a fresh start.
DRAFT — To publish, remove this line and change this card's permissions to be viewable by Anyone.
We're very excited about the incremental releases we've made since Wagn 0.10. Wagn 0.10+2 introduces a new look — cleaner, bolder, less busy (what do you think?); we appreciate Paul Bloch's mockup for getting this started. With Wagn 0.10+3 we're taking compatibility more seriously — we're already well on our way to having things look good and work properly in Internet Explorer and Safari, and have started on Google's new Chrome browser too.
There are a bunch of changes that came with Wagn 0.10 that we want to share with you too, from the technical — we're compatible with Rails 2 — to the spectacular:
HTML cards are as powerful as the web itself, making it possible to embed videos, Twitter feeds, live chats, and any other web service that's out there directly into a Wagn card. Welcome, YouTube:
We also upgraded the text editor (now using TinyMCE). This made it possible for editing to work well in Safari, and handles a bunch of other longstanding annoyances, for example now you can resize text boxes. There's no link editor for now, so linking means learning to use double brackets.
Wagn is easier to customize now — you can decide what information will be requested of new users and what their welcome email will look like, and changing the sidebar is now as simple as editing *sidebar. These and other configuration cards which let you control the site logos, the Wagn's home page, etc. can be gathered into a *config card.
We changed names from "template" to "form" for talking about the cards that can control other cards' layout, card type, default permissions, etc. We also separated the two ways a form is applied — instead of using +*template cards in all cases, we now use +*tform cards for forms that are applied based on a card's Type, or *rform for forms that are applied based on the Right-most part of a card's name. (((((We also came up with more ways to apply forms — a given pattern of cardtype-cardtype or cardtype-rightside can now determine a card's form. ??not done yet, check)))))
You can now set the view of cards returned by a Search when you include a Search card. Until now they could only be in closed view. See "Specifying view of cards in lists" on inclusion for more details and an example.
In inclusions and WQL, you can now use _self to reference a card's name. On a plus card you can also use _left or _right to reference the names of a card's left and right parts. For more on both of these, see contextual references. This can be combined very powerfully with HTML cards and web services, sending variables based on the name of the card you're in to get back appropriate information for the context — you can see this in action at Connectipedia. The map, chart and tables there are pulled in from DataPlace, using an HTML card with an iframe with src="http://{ {Dataplace+uri base|raw} }table/{ {_left|name} }" (similarly, the link is generated with [ [http://{ {Dataplace+uri base|raw}}table/{ {_left|name} }|table] ] )
Simpler web addresses for searches and new cards — see web address for everything.
