Zenkit

The wiki view enables you to use any Zenkit list as a content management system to create wikis. These wikis can be used to facilitate internal processes such as employee onboarding, or as a public (or private!) knowledge sharing platform between communities.

Creating a wiki view

Like any other view, you can create a wiki by clicking on the view menu in the top right-hand corner, then on "+ New View", then "Wiki". 

Changing how the wiki appears

You can modify how the wiki appears to viewers in a number of different ways. To access these controls, click on the "..." icon in the top right hand corner of the view. 

• Visible fields lets you select which fields appear at the top of a wiki article. These include meta fields such as "Created by" and "Last updated on", as well as label or member fields. 
• Text field used for article content allows you to select which text field should be shown in the wiki if you have more than one. (Only one text field will be shown in the wiki at any time.) 
• Page width is pretty self explanatory - it allows you to adjust the width of the wiki, and applies to the homepage and all articles. It can be adjusted at any time by anyone, but is a private setting. 
• Show table of contents allows you to toggle the table of contents that appears on the home page on and off.

Editing the wiki homepage

When you first create your wiki, you'll see a 'Home' page welcoming you to the wiki view and a short list describing how to use the main features. This home screen isn't part of an item, like all other wiki articles are. Instead, it's a place where you can add descriptive text and imagery, followed by an auto-generated contents page for all articles in the wiki. We will explain how to modify this list later. 

Creating and editing wiki articles

To create new items from the wiki view, click on "Add Item" at the bottom of the navigation panel found on the left of the page. You can also create new articles for your wiki by creating items in any other view. 

When creating new items for wiki articles, it's important to note that the item title will be the title of the wiki article, and the text that will be displayed in the article is the text written in a single text field of your choice. By default, the upper-most text field will be selected. To change your text field selection, click on the "..." icon in the top right hand corner of the view, then on "Main content". There are a couple of ways you can edit your wiki article - either you edit the text directly in the text field, or you can use the wiki editor. The wiki editor is a 'WYSIWYG' style editor, that shows you how the finished article will look as you're editing it. To use it, go to wiki view and open the article you want to edit and click anywhere in the article. To make use of more powerful editing functions, make sure the text field is set to 'HTML' or 'Markdown'. Just like in the normal rich text editor in Zenkit text fields, you can use normal markdown formatting, HTML, and even edit the HTML source code directly (great for making even more exact changes to the appearance of your content!).

Inserting rich links to lists, items or files

One of the great things about the wiki view is that you can insert items and lists into the wiki, complete with a beautiful preview of the content. 

To do so, in the article edit mode, click the Zenkit crystal icon and choose the list or item you want to add. If you can't find it, use the search bar to quickly bring the right one up. You can use the same method to add an image that's been added to any file field on the item.

Grouping your wiki

The wiki table of contents, displayed on the home page of your wiki, is auto-generated based on the way you choose to group the items. You can group items alphabetically (this is the default option), or you can group by any label or member field, or even by subitems! To change the grouping, click on 'Group By' in the top right hand corner of the view. A menu will pop open, showing all label, member and subitem fields. If you want to keep the grouping by alphabet, select the 'Title' option. 

When grouping alphabetically or by label or member, the contents page and navigation menu will show subsections separated by the letter, label or member name, with the label or member name acting as the section title. When you choose to group by subitems, the way the contents list and navigation menu works changes slightly: The first-tier items become the section titles, meaning that they are clickable and can have images and descriptions, just like any other article.

The navigation menu

The navigation menu is grouped in the same way the contents of the home page are grouped. The navigation menu is displayed as a panel on the left-hand side by default for new visitors of the wiki. However, if a logged-in user changes how the navigation menu appears, it will be saved in their preferences.

Publishing your wiki

Publishing your wiki follows the same process as publishing any other Zenkit lists. First, make sure that the wiki view is public. To do this, open the view menu and click 'Edit' next to the view name. Click the toggle next to 'Team View' to make it green. Next, open the list settings by clicking on the list name. Click on 'Manage Add-ons' in the left-hand panel, then click 'Add' next to 'Published Lists'. You can find more information about publishing lists here.