For the last decade, wikis have not changed very much. Even minor features such as AJAX support are still uncommon items. The following is a list of features I’d like to see added. A few of these items are available as plugins, however I am referring to having these features baked into the actual product.

Live Collaborative Editing

If you use Google Documents with others you will notice this: live collaborative editing. Usually the first time that someone notices this it either freaks him out, or just blows his mind. Multiple users can edit the same document at the same time, whilst receiving the changes in real-time. Having this support on a wiki would make the page lock / change conflict problem go away.** **

Importing Data Framework

It would be immensely helpful to have some sort of feature within a wiki to import data from other sources: images, RSS feeds, CSV feeds, etc. With a uniform way of bringing-in data, plugins could become a bit more generic and support the transformation. For example: let’s say that you have a build system, and it produces a build log file. Wouldn’t it be helpful for having that file be placed on the wiki [within a certain section] where it could be commented on? With a data framework, there could even be a plugin that could grep the output and only show the important sections.** **

Graphing Support

Charts are important for simple visualizations of data. Why this requires selecting and learning how to use a new plugin is beyond me.** **

Drawing

Wikis seem to be text based only. I have only found a small handful of plugins that support the editing of pictures. Even fewer use SVG. I’d like to see the ability to edit an SVG picture built into the wiki software.** **

OpenID

Why wiki software continues to roll their own authentication system by default is beyond me. This item seems like a no brainer. Create an OpenID authentication mechanism that uses the top providers [Yahoo, Google, Facebook]. If need be, revert to a local authentication method if there is a lack of internet access - or if the wiki is being deployed exclusively internally.** **

APIs for Dealing with Content On The Wiki

Lastly but not the least important, create and promote a uniform wiki API. This would allow for other systems to automatically push content onto the wiki, or pull it. This would be great for a monitoring system to:** **

  • create a new page on the wiki

  • post configuration details and current state

  • maybe even show statistics

Also with the API, the same monitoring system could grab a wiki page and check for changes in the configuration details. Granted, there are potential issues with the configuration details changing on a wiki, however at the moment this is more of an idea rather than a real world implementation. ** Another example: WordPress could use wiki support to have multiple editors collaborate over a post within a wiki Page. WordPress could also, with an API, pull the wiki page to make it a blog post. **