Foswiki

Foswiki features an open architecture programmed and implemented in the Perl and JavaScript languages the Foswiki team not only develops the code but also offers on-line support, including on IRC and Slack. Core features include a TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor, built-in search engine, default text database, and skinnable user interface, as well as RSS/Atom feeds, e-mail support, and database interfaces to support scalable database services such as MongoDB and MySQL. Additional security-related features include an auditable version control system, user authentication, an access control system, cross-site request forgery protection, and improved spam-prevention extensions. ==Extensions==

Users have contributed over 300 extensions. Most of these extensions have been developed by or for corporate users, and are maintained by developers and users, as documented in the individual extension histories. Extensions have been developed to link into databases, create charts, tags, sort tables, write spreadsheets, create image gallery and slideshows, make drawings, write blogs, plot graphs, interface to many different authentication schemes, including single sign-on, track Extreme Programming projects, and others. ==Application platform==

Foswiki is a structured wiki that acts as an application platform for web-based applications. Specifically it provides database-like manipulation of fields stored on pages, and offers a SQL-like query language to support the embedding reports in wiki pages. Wiki applications are often called situational applications because they are created ad-hoc by users for very specific needs. For example, users have built Foswiki applications that include call center status boards, to-do lists, inventory systems, employee handbooks, bug trackers, blog applications, discussion forums, status reports with rollups and more. ==User interface==

The user interface is customizable through use of templates, themes and CSS. It includes support for internationalization, with support for multiple character sets, UTF-8 URLs etc. The English user interface has been translated by users into Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Klingon. ==Deployment==

Foswiki is expected to be used primarily at the workplace as a corporate wiki to coordinate team activities, track projects, implement workflows and as an Intranet Wiki, for example in academia. Foswiki (among other components) was used in several research programs including Data Integration Platform for Systems Biology Collaborations, an interactive data integration platform supporting collaborative research projects, based on Foswiki, Solr/Lucene, and custom helper applications. ==Implementation==

Foswiki is implemented in Perl and JavaScript (using jQuery), though it can be used without JavaScript being enabled in the browser. By default, wiki pages are stored on the server in plain text files. Everything, including meta-data such as access control settings, are version controlled using RCS. RCS is optional since an all-Perl version control system is provided. Other server-side databases, such as MongoDB, are supported through use of extensions. Informal user reports suggest that Foswiki scales reasonably well even though it uses plain text files and no relational database to store page data, especially where load balancing and caching are used to improve performance. ==Support==

Foswiki is an entirely community-driven project, and has no controlling commercial interest behind it. User support is provided by the community, via the mechanisms of IRC, Slack and the main website at https://foswiki.org/Support/WebHome. Commercial support and consultancy services in many countries can be found on the Foswiki consultant web page: https://foswiki.org/Support/WikiConsultants == History==

Foswiki started life as a fork of the TWiki project. Since the fork it has been worked on continuously by a relatively large development team. interfacing to the MongoDB NoSQL database, interfacing to the Solr search system, page caching and a modified editing interface. ==See also==