Changing your Dropbox folder

It’s now easy to change the Dropbox folder that WikiPack uses. Just go to your account settings page and click the “Change my Dropbox folder” button. You’ll end up back on the page where you can browse your Dropbox and choose a different folder to import the Markdown pages from.

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Usual privacy disclaimer

In order to be able to use a Dropbox folder of your choice, applications integrating with Dropbox via their API must require full access to the entire contents of your Dropbox. This is a limitation of the API, but our privacy policy stands - while browsing your Dropbox to choose a new folder, WikiPack will read & display the filenames of your data, but will not read the contents of any files outside the wiki folder that you choose.

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Getting in touch:

• Email: info@wikipackit.com
• Twitter: @wikipack

Keyboard shortcut to edit page

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Just a quick update to add a keyboard shortcut for editing a page. When viewing a page in your wiki, hit Control/Command-E to edit it. Use the editor’s keyboard shortcuts for editing the page, then hit Control/Command-S to save it.

To jump to another page, hit the tab key, start typing its WikiWord, then hit enter/return. Rinse & repeat. Should be possible to do a lot more mouse free now.

More usable table of contents

The table of contents in the sidebar, which is generated automatically from the headings within your page, had an issue for really long pages where it would extend beneath the bottom of the page and some links were not accessible. It now scrolls, so you can access the TOC links at the very bottom.

Updated user guide

It’s not much of an update, but you can update the user guide to the latest version by going to your WikiPackUserGuide page and hitting the update button, or using the link in the account settings.

Faster account sync with the Dropbox delta API

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Firstly, I’d like to clarify the difference between “account sync”, and “page sync”. WikiPack turns Markdown files in a Dropbox folder into your own private wiki, which it keeps in sync with changes made by external applications.

Account sync

When viewing the list of all pages in your wiki, the Sync button will sync your entire wiki folder with Dropbox, checking for updated files, newly added files, and any files that have been renamed or deleted, and it applies those changes to your entire wiki.

It used to be s l o w … by nature of having to iterate through every page in your wiki and check for for updates, but Dropbox released a new API method to address that issue, which WikiPack has now implemented.

For this reason, I pretty much never used to use the account sync, mainly because it took too long, but now when I have a bunch of pages that I’ve updated on my Mac or with Trunk Notes on my iPhone/iPad, I can update my wiki quickly and easily.

Page sync

When you’re viewing a particular page, the Sync button just updates that page. My workflow often involves creating a blank page which I’ll just give a heading and save before opening it in an external editor, which may be TextMate + Marked, or an iOS app like Writing Kit. When I’m done, I’ll hit the Sync button again to pull the changes into my wiki.

First run

The first time you use the new account sync, it may take a while to complete, but after the first pass each subsequent sync will be much faster.

A note on security

As always, the privacy policy stands - the delta API will only give WikiPack the names of files outside your wiki folder, which it will ignore. It does not provide WikiPack with the contents of any files. WikiPack will only read or modify the contents of pages within your wiki.

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Questions & comments:

• Email: info@wikipackit.com
• Twitter: @wikipack

Improved signup process in response to "Sign up in seconds"... and then what?

In the beginning there was a boring, boiler-plate signup form with way too many fields. Some brave souls suffered through it, but complained about the complexity.

The next iteration was an attempt to simplify the process by reducing it down to just email & password fields, but there was still some confusion. It was trying to be too clever by generating a login user name automatically, when it could have just used the email address, and it wasn’t clear from the signup page what was happening now, and how much of it would be customisable later.

Sign up in seconds, and then what?

In a 37signals blog post titled “Sign up in seconds” … and then what?, Ryan pondered what would happen if you made it clear what happens next. I liked the idea, and decided to put it into practice and find out!

Clearer progress, customisable fields explained

The WikiPack signup process now clearly shows where you are in the signup process, and what’s going to happen next. It also shows the actual values of fields that are generated automatically from values entered into the form on the fly, and indicates when they can be customised later.

One issue in particular that I’m trying to address with this update is removing any ambiguity about the Dropbox integration by presenting as much information up-front as possible to save people from getting half way through the signup process and then bailing out if they decide that they don’t want/need Dropbox sync. The privacy policy is presented clearly, and the option to use the Lite plan without Dropbox sync is made readily available.

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As always, please direct questions & comments to:

• Email: info@wikipackit.com
• Twiter: @wikipack

Privacy policy

WikiPack has published its privacy policy at http://wikipackit.com/privacy.

In a nutshell, we will always treat your data as your data and always respect your privacy.

Page caching

The page caching is a mechanism where your Markdown pages are stored in WikiPack’s database while various operations can happen simultaneously for improved responsiveness, such as viewing a newly edited page while the changes are being sent to Dropbox in the background. This does involve keeping a copy of your data on WikiPack, which we assure you is private and secure.

When not to use Dropbox sync

There has been a small handful of people who were reluctant to grant WikiPack access to their Dropbox folder because it requires full access in order to share your pages with other apps, but if you don’t want to share your pages with other apps, there is a Lite plan that does not use Dropbox sync.

What to store in WikiPack

Others have commented on using WikiPack for sensitive or personal information. Our recommendation as a general rule of thumb is not to use WikiPack to store any information that you wouldn’t be comfortable storing in other cloud-based services like Google Docs or Evernote. Not because it isn’t secure, or the privacy of your data isn’t ensured, but simply for peace of mind. Use the same sensibility & discretion with your personal data as you would for any web-based service.

Would love to hear your questions & comments!

• Email: info@wikipackit.com
• Twitter: @wikipack

Cancelling your account & deleting all data

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Should you wish to cancel your WikiPack account, you can now do so easily. It will permanently delete all data associated with your account from the WikiPack database, but will not affect any of your Markdown files on Dropbox in any way.

Of course, I would hope that everyone who signs up for WikiPack loves it, but for anyone who for whatever reason decides that it’s not for you, you’re free to leave and take your data with you, because your data is always your data and WikiPack respects that.

WikiPack user guide

Just added a user guide to WikiPack. It should be simple & intuitive enough to use without one, but for those who want a more in-depth understanding of various features it may be interesting.

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New accounts

When setting up Dropbox you’ll be prompted to choose between using a template for your wiki, or choosing a folder to import existing Markdown pages from. If you select the template option, you’ll have the user guide automatically, but for those who choose to import a Dropbox folder you can insert the user guide into your wiki by going to the account settings page (click on your user name in the top right of the page).

Existing accounts

For accounts that were setup prior to this update, you can add the user guide to your wiki by going to the account settings page (click on your user name in the top right of the page).

Questions & comments

If there’s anything that’s not covered in the user guide, or you have any questions or comments, please drop us a line:

• Email: info@WikiPackIt.com
• Twitter: @wikipack
• Forum: WikiPack user forum