BrigetteK just beat me to a post about DekiScript. I’m glad she did because her post is a lot better than what I’m posting about; so I encourage you to read her post below this one. The reason I thought to post about DekiScript is because I got a phone call from a Deki Wiki user today who was porting a knowledge base to Deki Wiki. He wanted to have on each wiki page a hyperlinked UID for that page and use this is a page reference and link that could be quickly shared. I’m not certain how his call ended up on my desk, but I’m glad it did. Upon hearing his question I hollered across the room to Steve for a solution, he came up with this solution in just a few seconds:

{{ web.link(page.uri, 'Document #' .. page.id) }}

This snippet of DekiScript dynamically generates link to the page and displays the page UID. Needless to say the fellow on the phone was impressed and is now purchasing support. Please do not take this as an invitation to call me with support questions without already having purchased support :-). Read more about DekiScript. If Deki Wiki doesn’t provide an interface for some functionality out-of-the-box it’s almost certain DekiScript can be employed to achieve the desired effect. Moreover, it’s important to note, primarily because so few people realize this, that every page in Deki Wiki is it’s own REST based web service. Yes, really. Think about that. Every page in Deki Wiki is an XML-based web service that can be operated on with standard HTTP verbs. Here is what the home page of OpenGarden, MindTouch’s developer community, looks like through the API. Wow, this creates a vast universe of opportunities for someone with some basic scripting skills and a little Curl know how. Or even better, if you really want to be dangerous use Bungee labs, you won’t even need basic scripting skills to do some amazing things. For more information read the API reference documentation. But adding new functionality is easier than operating directly through the API. It’s very easy to add extensions to provide just about any functionality you desire. In most cases this is as simple as integrating with another service, API, application, or widget. Read more about how easy this is at OpenGarden. Of course, once you have your external apps or services integrated you can mash them up with one another to create all kinds of interesting composite applications or data mashups because Deki Wiki pages have a communication bus.

While the majority of Deki Wiki deployments are being used as a traditional wiki we’re beginning to see a growing number of enterprise customers realize Deki Wiki’s true potential as a distributed application platform for connecting apps, services, and databases and as a platform for building new kinds of social and collaborative applications. As you build your own creations on Deki Wiki please share your stories with MindTouch (AaronFatMindTouch.com).

categories: Deki Wiki, MindTouch