installing instiki on windows
OK, so now you want your own personal wiki. (If you don’t, read this and then come back.)
By the end of this article you’ll have a wiki of your own, running a wiki engine called Instiki. You will be able to edit this wiki within your web browser, creating new pages on the fly all linked together into a personal web of useful information.
While you may through this process be able to accrue geek points of dubious redemption value, more importantly you will have created for yourself an extremely useful, and free, tool.
You will need:
- 20 free minutes (mostly download time);
- a computer running Windows XP (as that’s all I’ve tested it on – no doubt this will work on earlier versions);
- an internet connection;
- a web browser;
- Windows Explorer; and
- Notepad or other plain text editor (not MS Word!)
Note for Mac users: unusually for me, this is not specifically about Macs. This is because 1) most of my readers aren’t Mac users; and, 2) Mac users on OSX 10.3 and above have an even better option for trying Instiki: a downloadable double-clickable application. On this page, look for the latest download ending with ”.dmg”. Download, install and run that like you would any other application. Then continue from step 7 below.
Let’s get started.
- Download Ruby. Instiki is not only written in a language called Ruby, but uses a webserver and data storage mechanism that comes with every Ruby installation. Most Windows machines don’t have Ruby installed, so therefore our first task is to download it. Go to this page, and select the newest “Stable Release” of the “One-click Ruby Installer”. Unfortunately this is, at the time of writing, a rather hefty 14.8Mb (vers. 1.8.2-15). You’d better go and have a nice cup of tea, or, perhaps even make conversation with someone.
- Install Ruby. You probably know how to do this bit. Double click on your download, go with the default options, and Bob’s yer Uncle!
- Download Instiki. Time to visit the Instiki home page, and download the current ”.zip” file version (at time of writing this was 10.2).
- Unzip and copy to c:\ drive. Now you’ve got the goods, you need to unzip them. You may already have something like Winzip to do this, and XP also has this feature built into Windows Explorer. Put the resulting unzipped folder into the top level of the c: drive. Rename it from something like “instiki-10.2” to simply “instiki”. (For simplicity we are wanting the path of the folder to be “c:\instiki”.)
- Make a .bat file. Now for some geeky stuff. Open NotePad, or other text editor (I like NoteTab, it’s a nice free one). Type the following (without the quotes, of course) into a new document: “ruby c:\instiki\instiki.rb” and save it somewhere handy like your Desktop, giving it a name like “instiki.bat”. The ”.bat” is important, as this turns it into a double-clickable command file, allowing you to start Instiki extremely simply.
- Crank up Instiki. Double-click Instiki.bat. You should eventually see something a little like this (especially the bit after the “Starting Instiki…”):
If you see this: fantastic. It’s installed and running. You may find your firewall asking you whether or not this is OK – read the warning and click yes if you are happy. You’ll need to leave this window open when using Instiki – closing it stops it from running. If you do this, just restart it by double-clicking on the Instiki.bat file again.
- Viewing in browser. Now comes the good bit. Go to http://127.0.0.1:2500/ in your web browser. (127.0.0.1 is by convention the internet address of your own machine, as viewed by you.) You should see this:
You’re almost done! However, from here you’re on your own. But before I cut you loose, here’s some resources:
- a set of screenshots I’ve taken showing the above two screens and another six, taking you through what happens next and how to use Instiki;
- the Instiki website, particularly First Steps, Wiki Syntax and the rest of the User Guide.
Have fun, and let me know how you get on!
ben.run
10 October 2005, 23:32 #
So where is the Half-pie Wiki then??
Ben.
Alan
11 October 2005, 07:00 #
It’s in use, but hiding. I linked to it a couple months ago though – you should be able to find it. Like my personal wiki on my USB key, my “public” wiki uses Instiki too.
Public wikis are a whole ‘nother thing, as they have a tendency to fill up with spam. That’s one reason why I haven’t gone out of my way to publicise its location.
Karl
14 October 2005, 20:32 #
Wikis are cool. I have one at pbwiki for a group of us from my running club (http://pteam.pbwiki.com/). I originally set up a blog but somehow that was too complicated for the guys to add to, whereas a wiki is dead simple.
susan
20 October 2005, 09:07 #
Blast it all, I’ve got Alice in Wonderland on the mesmeriser and the kids are zoned so I have my 20 minutes but alas all Instiki will say to me is “Bad Gateway: The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.” and here am I all convinced by your sincere copy writing that it’s just the thing Gillian and I need to send letters with pictures of stuff we’ve made to each other and to chat about the stuff. We’re not bad at writing, it’s the getting posted that holds discussions up you see. And now this addict is caught once more in the wwweb a wiki might do the trick.
Alan
20 October 2005, 09:22 #
Nice sales job, shame about the actual practice, eh?
Instiki doesn’t (at this moment) do file or image uploads, so it might not exactly be what you are after. Especially as you are looking to share with someone else, which doesn’t really imply a personal use wiki.
Although it’s certainly possible it’s rather more complicated to get Instiki going on a public webserver (for various reasons) and for your usage I would suggest you look at something like that pbwiki that Karl linked to.
Alan
20 October 2005, 09:27 #
Having said that though, it does sound like you’ve got something going but that you might be having some sort of network issues.
Do you need to open a firewall port (in this case, port 2500) on the machine with the Instiki installation?
susan
21 October 2005, 20:47 #
Nope, haven’t got so far with them as a port problem; that’s the message I get shortly after I click above links to www.instiki.org which is why I hadn’t yet found out it didn’t do pictures, ta.
salvia
28 February 2006, 18:19 #
Thanks for the “for dummies”-level guide. I needed it.
For it to work with me (instiki-0.10.2), I had to add another instiki, ie, “ruby c:\instiki\INSTIKI\instiki.rb.” Okay, it still didn’t work, but that was the first thing I had to change before I could get start getting some real error messages. Now back to troubleshooting….
salvia
28 February 2006, 18:23 #
Sorry—please delete my last comment. Nevermind. I must’ve copied it inside its own directory or … something equally bizarre.
Adam
24 October 2007, 20:53 #
Help,
I’m brand spanking new at tinkering under the hood of my computer, GUI’s have been fine until now :) I’m trying to install instiki with your instructions on windows XP. Everything goes fine until I type the command instiki>ruby instiki.
I then get the error:
ruby: no such file or directory — instiki <loaderror>
Any guesses?
Adam
24 October 2007, 21:08 #
Never mind,
Problem solved. I extracting instiki into a folder named “instiki” rather than the root directory itself. As I said I’m new to this. Great looking site thanks for the well written instructions
Alan
24 October 2007, 21:35 #
Hmmm, I’m actually surprised these instructions still work (more or less) after two years of bit-rot. :-)
Sounds like the problem you had was the exact same as Salvia’s above you in the comment list.