How to download and use the program
 
Note: This page refers to the 0.1 version of wikiCalc. This is not the 0.2 version being discussed on the web that uses AJAX techniques, runs remotely on a server, etc. That version will be available soon (probably after January 15, 2006), but is not available now.

There is a link to the current version below. It links to a Windows .exe file. Download the file and save it somewhere on your system (don't run it from the browser), such as to the Desktop on in a directory. When you do run the file, wikicalcwin.exe, it temporarily extracts from itself the Perl code and a Perl runtime and then runs that code. When you exit, the extracted files are deleted. To uninstall the program just delete the .exe and any subdirectories it created that you no longer want.

You run wikiCalc by either double-clicking on the filename in Windows Explorer where you saved it (or on the Desktop) or execute a shortcut you make to it (for example, in the Start Menu). The program will start running and show up as a "sprout with roots" icon in the system tray. To interact with the program, use a web browser to view "http://127.0.0.1:6556". You can get the program to launch a browser viewing that page by double-clicking on the tray icon, or by single-clicking to bring up a menu and then selecting the "Launch UI" menu item. Exit the program by using the "Quit" button in the program's UI shown in the browser. Alternatively, use the "Shutdown" menu item on the tray icon.

If you have a firewall running on your system (such as Windows Firewall), you may see a warning that wikiCalc is attempting to accept Internet connections. Do not block this (e.g., with Windows Firewall click on "Unblock"). Like ListGarden, the program works by communicating with your browser by running a simple local web server. The UI runs in the browser. wikiCalc should only accept requests from your local machine, not from your LAN or the rest of the Internet. (Checking how secure this system is will be one of the things that will hopefully happen during this testing period, especially once the source code is made available.)

The first time you run wikiCalc you need to set it up to publish to a web site. This can be a little tedious, much like setting up Blogger or similar systems. Once set up, though, it is very easy to use (I hope!). wikiCalc has the concept of "Hosts" (a particular web server, or a particular place on your local machine) that will store the final web pages and their source files. On each host you have one or more "Sites" (groups of pages to edit and directory where the published HTML is stored for serving). You start by "Adding" a the definition of a new site, which will then need you to first add the definition of a new host. Read the help text on the forms you fill out carefully. This Alpha version makes it difficult to edit these settings after you save them. The FTP URL is just the domain name used to login to the FTP server where you will publish. It is something like ftp03.host.com, or upload.comcast.net, etc., and does not have "/" or "ftp:" in it.

If you don't provide an FTP URL, then wikiCalc can be used to just create HTML files on your local machine when you "publish". To learn about the product, that is OK. If you don't know where you can publish by FTP, you might want to check with your ISP. On the ListGarden "Storing RSS on inexpensive web server space" page you will find information that might be helpful.

After defining a host, you can define a site on that host. Again, read the help carefully. The "URL for HTML" value is currently unused. Make sure that Path for HTML exists. wikiCalc creates most other directories that it needs. [If you run into problems, you can always delete the "wkcdata" directory in the working directory where you run wikiCalc to start anew (this deletes all host and site definitions and all local copies of files being edited).]

Once you have a site defined, you can select it to see the files available for edit. If nobody else has created anything on the site with wikiCalc (the normal case) the list will be empty. Press the "Create New Page" button. Assign a page name (which will be the filename before the ".html" which you should not include) and a more descriptive name to see in filename lists, used by the publishing template, etc. (you will be able to change the Host Page Name later but not the Page Name). [Note: If you use the name "index" you can create the default page for that directory.] Press "Create".

To edit the new page, click on the "Edit" button next to it. You will see the Preview tab. The page is new, so there is nothing to see in Preview. Click the "Cells" tab to view the spreadsheet-like view. Follow instructions there (there is a Help button). You can change column widths, etc., with the Format tab, copy/paste/fill/insert, etc., with the Edit tab, and do some other things on the Tools tab.

You can publish the page to the server by using either the Publish button on the Preview tab or on the Page tab. The one on the Preview tab leaves the page "checked out" and ready for continued edit. The one on the Page tab deletes the editing copy of the page source on your local machine and just leaves a copy on the server. When you select "Edit" again it will download the most recently published copy. If someone else (using wikiCalc on, say, another computer) has started editing a page on that site and has not published it from the Page tab, their name will be listed. You can still edit it, too (this was a requested feature that may be changed). Whoever publishes last wins. If you have more than one person maintaining and editing a site, be careful and watch the indications of who is editing (and update it with the Restore button on the Page tab)! In simple terms, editing a page "checks it out" and publishing from the Page tab (not the Preview tab) "checks it in". Currently that button is the only easy way to check something in (and you can only publish from the Page tab if you've "modified" the page).

That's it for now!

Email any comments to the email address on this page. Check the home page for updates about bugs, etc., for now.
 

wikiCalc version 0.1 of 2005-11-09 10:56AM:

wikicalcwin.exe [1.41MB]
 
If you do try the product, please let me know how it went, even if only to say that you ran it once and published "Hello World!". Use the email address at the bottom of this page. If you do any real tests on it (like check to see if the arithmetic stuff works correctly) that would also be appreciated, but let me know even if you don't run any tests or run into any bugs. I'm developing this alone without any staff so external feedback is pretty crucial. Thank you!