Using a Wiki for studio documentation

[technogremlin]

In my studio there is a lot of stuff going on that I want to keep track on. So I have started setting up a personal wiki (running localy on a netbook) to keep track of everything. I'm in the process of adding pages for everything and anything I can think of so far. I'm making pages for plugins, tracking and mixing techniques and I'm going to set up dedicated pages for each project I'm working on.

The great thing is that I can link pages with additional information (projects to used plugins, plugins to specific techniques, etc.). Also the wiki is also a document and files-management system; for example I upload the plugin-file, it's PDF-manual, related skins and soundbanks al onto the page for that plugin. I also have every related link for that plugin on the page like it's homepage, the related KVR-page, any specific forum discussions, etc. The wiki also let me drag in specific news-feeds (for a plugin I use the KVR-feed for that item) so I can see in my wiki when a new version is released. Besides all the linked stuff I have notes on installation, any quirks and possible workarounds, howtos, etc.

Using specific plugins (for dokuwiki) the wiki builds links between pages. So if I mention a certain vst-plugin on another page (like a tracking project page) then it is automagically linked.

Maybe some people here like to do the same, I'm happy to help

The wiki I use is DokuWiki, very simple to set up. You need a webserver running on the machine where you want to host the wiki. It's no problem to do this on a DAW as it uses close to no CPU at all but you can set it up on another computer (like I did) and connect to it from your DAW (if it is networked).

Download DokuWiki: www.dokuwiki.org

Webserver (if you need one): www.xampp.org (get the xampp-lite version, installation is explained on the site as well).

First get xampp up and running, just follow their instructions and you should be fine. Then copy the dokuwiki files to the htdocs directory under xampp (see instructions on the dokuwiki site). Dokuwiki doesn't need a database so getting it to run is very simple.

[zoid9]

God....,that would kill me. It takes me 2 weeks just to write a song.

[technogremlin]

Originally Posted by zoid9

God....,that would kill me. It takes me 2 weeks just to write a song.

Actually it saves me loads of time; many times I want to do something and I'm sure it has been mentioned somewhere on a forum or it has been described somewhere in detail... and then the searching commences. Same thing with specific plugins, fx-chains and what not.

It takes a little while to set up a personal wiki for this, mainly to set up a usable structure but now I just copy-paste stuff I find or run into, into my wiki for quick reference.

There is so much useful stuff you come across that you just can't find when you need it that I decided to set up something to keep track of everything. My personal wiki is actually a lot bigger then this, holding stuff on other topics as well (just about everything I deal with one way or another) but for the scope of this forum I narrowed my explanation down to 'studio stuff'

[NoiseMan]

We have a Wiki in our studio (shared by three guys) since day one, and it's really a great, valuable thing. There's no day I don't visit our wiki when I'm in the studio. I even have the "show recent changes" page set as my browsers start page, so I don't miss it if one of the guys added something new.

Stuff we document there:

• General stuff (landlord contact, internet provider and access, etc)
• Registered Software (who, when, license keys)
• Backup plan (so everybody knows where to find backup copies of their files at any time)
• Studio history - when did what happen? How did the place look when we moved in? Photos, documents, ...
• Setup / configuration of the workstations. Driver versions, special tricks to make stuff run.
• Software: every piece of software that is used frequently has its own page, where we collect hints and tricks.
• Hardware: who bought it, who owns it, who uses it and how.
• local copies of other wikies if they contain some vital information (some articles of the REAPER wiki for example)
• and much, much more.

I even wrote a Mediawiki plugin that shows the ladder of our Armagetron Advanced studio server on the wiki front page.

Granted, the nerd factor is obviously huge (hey, I'm a Linux sysadmin, go figure), but if you have managed to set up your system (locally with XAMPP, like technogremlin suggests), it's really a useful thing.

[technogremlin]

Great suggestions NoiseMan. Many I already have decided on myself but there are a few nice tips in your list that I'm going to pick up on

I'm a linux-addict myself (I run my own company in Open Source software support) so my netbook is running Linux Mint atm. But my company also supports xampp on the windows platform so any questions on that I'm happy to answer for those concerned.

Also as everything is networked in my studio so I can access the wiki on the netbook from my DAW to get things in/out the wiki.