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Question
Hello people! I was searching Reddit for this answer and I thought this might be the place for it.
Does anyone know about an Offline wiki software? I like to create fictional stories, sometimes with real world elements like the colonization of Antarctica and sometimes completely fictional. I once used the Fandom Wikia website, but I have some reservations about it: the fact that it is public (not a big thing) and the fact that I don't know about its future.
Creating a whole fictional reality demands work and time, I don't like the idea of losing all my work if the website simply stop working or something like that.
Any ideas? I considered using Word but hyperlinking stuff takes lots of times and there's no such thing like infobox templates. I quickly searched for Offline wikis, but all tutorials seem harder than it should. I'm switching computers in 2 or 3 months time so I'd like to take my work to the new one.
Thanks in advance!
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I don't know any software for specifically for running an offline wiki, but some wikis have an "offline installer" that will include all the software required to run the wiki. DokuWiki, for example, has a (Windows only) "Include Web-Server" option on the download page that will allow it to be used entirely on a single machine without needing it to be publicly accessible. It can also be moved between machines simply by copying the files.
It's not a wiki, but look into Obsidian. It's comprised of locally stored text files that support markdown editing and links between pages, which can replicate wiki functionality. It's what I use for my worldbuilding.
The idea of having it completely inside a folder got me. Is there a way to create tables or add images to the articles? For example the table with informations of a country (population, GDP and so on)
There should be a way to do a table I think, though I haven’t done it myself. You can definitely imbed images in articles, however, as embedded links to the pictures which you can just drag and drop into your project.
Thank you, this is the first one I found with a native or easily enabled dark mode.
You're very welcome.
I can second u/grendrake's mention of DokuWiki and would like to add TiddlyWiki, which has its website built in itself so it also serves as a preview of what it can do. Although I suppose it's a bit unconventional in terms of visual design and might not be what you seek.
Edit: And the fact that DokuWiki's local version is literally called "DokuWiki on a stick" while Tiddly is just a single file if I recall correctly should give you an idea of what you can do for when your computer switch comes up ;D
For simple alternatives:
https://chocolatey.org/packages?q=wiki
For a full-blown wiki, I use MediaWiki -- separate installations for distinct purposes/content matter.
http://www.ampps.com/ >> http://www.ampps.com/apps >> http://www.ampps.com/apps/wikis/MediaWiki
And loaded some extensions to MediaWiki:
Semantic Forms Select
Semantic Compound Queries
Semantic MediaWiki
Arrays
Lingo
LoopFunctions
Loops
ParserFunctions
Variables
PhpTags
ParserHooks
Validator
It took me some time, but I got it running. Seems to be perfect until now, but I'm not sure how safe my Wiki is and how easy it is to keep it working over time. I think it's pretty safe, I just need to read more into it. Thanks!
Turns out it's only available with the paid versions of ampps....
There are other ways to get MediaWiki installed:https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Running_MediaWiki_on_Windows
Plus, I use Leaflet.https://leafletjs.com/
https://www.reddit.com/r/FantasyWorldbuilding/comments/ituo00/roll_your_own_interactive_web_atlas/
The LeafLet plugin for GIMP and Krita can slice a raster map into tiles.https://www.offsetlab.net/gimp-and-leaflet/
You can try to push the limits by editing lines 6 and 8 -- but you may get runtime errors if you don't have enough RAM (like more than 128 GB RAM):
6 DIMENSIONS = (256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768)7 ZOOM_DEFAULT = 48 ZOOM_OPTIONS = (0, 16, 1)
With QGIS, you can draw out specific areas and save those as GeoJSON files for click-throughs. You can even set those to specific layers in LeafLet. Like continent, nation borders, county borders, city borders, streams, roads, water routes, air routs. You can also add layers for other types of things like resources, populations, businesses, militaries.https://www.qgistutorials.com/en/docs/3/web_mapping_with_qgis2web.html
Alternatively to QGIS, there's this possibility
https://github.com/domlysz/BlenderGIS/wiki/Shapefile-export
Notion and to inspire you with uses and templates, this, this and this.
But, this might not be a solution since you need something offline.
TiddleWiki
Hey mate, I know the post is 20 days old, but I found an incredibly useful program for just this thing. Ema Personal Wiki. It is incredibly simplistic, which may or may not be a plus, but it serves as an offline personal Wikipedia really well. It does the very basic stuff without any fuss, and is completely offline. You can link it to a Dropbox account, but that's optional.
It's simplicity may be a weakness, but it's a god send for me personally just for sorting out all the text files into one, conveniently found location with easy crosslinking. I've tested it, and making copies to backup on external hard drives works fine too, so you can back the work up.
I was looking around for a nice, easy to use offline wiki tool as well, and stumbled across this. It's criminal that it isn't more popular.
Zim should do exactly what you're looking for