Question

Hi, we're currently evaluating FogBugz, and there has been displeasure with the wiki. Let me describe our introduction to the FogBugz wiki, as maybe this is a learn-ability issue:

1. I log in, select Wiki from the top of the page, and click Customize.
2. From this page, I click New Wiki, am taken to the New Wiki page, fill in some default/test values, click OK. We'll call this root wiki "Root Wiki".
3. I've been taken back to the list of Wiki's (where I originally click New Wiki), I click the link to my Wiki, and I'm taken to this Root Article. I save it.
4. I click New (for a New Article), add some text ("Error Number 9 means the software will explode"), and save it.

This is where I feel the Wiki falls down.

So, I'm looking at my saved article, so I select "Root Wiki" from the top of the page (where I previously selected Customize). I'm taken to the text of my root page, but my new article is not linked in any way to this root.

Ick.

I'm asking myself, "where is this article I created?", so I search on "Error Number" and get "no results" (although, I think this is just a delay while search indexes my article in some way).

It seems, to me, that because I created this article under the Root Wiki, it should be automatically linked to it. Or, on the new wiki page, give me options (drop-down?) to select the Root Wiki.

It can be very cumbersome to now have to update the root wiki with links to your new articles (make sure you remember your article name and/or have the url handy!)

In addition, now there's a real effort (on somebody's part) to categorize these articles (sub-categories, etc). Again, it seems like something that could happen at the time of writing the new article.

I mean, sure, I can take the extra steps, but is everyone, who we are trying to get to use this product, going to be as diligent? Is there going to be slight (or longer) moments of confusion as I experienced?

I suppose this is a feature request, unless I'm missing something (that's why I laid out the steps I took). Thanks!

Answer 1

This is indeed a sore point for FogBugz 7. The good news is that FogBugz 8 will include a wiki navigation sidebar by default and other features to make managing and navigating a wiki much easier.

Answer 2

If you modify step 4, you won't have this problem. Rather than clicking the New menu item to create that new page, click Insert->New Article. This will prompt you for a title, click OK, and you now automatically have a link to that article on your root. Save, click on the new link to edit, etc.

Answer 3

We've used quite a few different wikis, Bill and have found that with many of them, the TOC page is nothing more than a regular wiki page which you have to keep up-to-date yourself.

By default, the FB 7 wiki is no different. You might find the Wiki Article Index plugin helpful though, it creates a table of contents listing all articles in the wiki.