Introducing Documize: Upload Word Documents, Get Back a Wiki (Open Source) | Hacker News Reader

Introducing Documize: Upload Word Documents, Get Back a Wiki (Open Source)

documize.com

20 pointsHarveyKandola15 comments

Is this really a "wiki" or is it an online document editor? It's easy to create the basics of a "wiki," and while reliably importing documents into a wiki isn't easy, it's just a starting point. The important features of a Wikipedia (Mediawiki) are an emphasis on links within the site, the ability to view changes across the site, changes on one page, and to see how a page was composed in clean markup, the clean markup also preventing behind the scenes jumbly messes of "structure." Missing any of these points loses a vital aspect of wikis. The category structure and templates are also important features, supporting what in Wikipedia's case is a strong support community that can go well beyond what a formulated menu structure can offer. (Mediawiki has emphatically refused to implement any kind of fine grained access model, this is one area other wikis have advantages.)

But now people expect more, they don't want to be forced to use markup and they want to simultaneously edit documents in a rich editor, in a social setting where its easy to find and connect with other contributors. This is the current focus of Wikipedia and while other efforts have their own strengths, not connecting finely to Wikipedia's developments is, to me anyway, missing the greatest element of development.

It's online document editing with approvals, diffs, etc.

The funny thing is regular business users think of it as a wiki. Me and you know different!

Think of the business folks at Wells Fargo or any other larger enterprise. They will upload 100's if if not 1000's of documents. Now they can link between documents or just work on each document as they do.

Wiki is a word we think doesn't fit -- but we keep running into it.

The joy of start-ups: too much uncertainty!

To be clear -- it's WYSIWYG editing (TinyMCE editor to be specific)

Thanks for the clarification. I wonder if the word "wiki" might not work against you though. In my experience people's idea of a wiki is fixed on something from a decade ago. They often react with outright revulsion to the word (though granted most terms in our field such as "portal" and "CMS" have also been abused). But there have been so many examples of "wikis" that turn into woolly messes or are too technical for 'ordinary' uses to want to commit to so fail in their goal of being open for anyone. Without the traction of a Wikipedia style site I would think you might be better off using another word.

Agreed. Just looking for that word!

Documize co-founder here. Would love some initial feedback on our new startup, Documize.

Documize is targeting enterprises who have mountains of Word documents full of intel and know-how that people struggle to find and maintain. Running a couple of pilots at the moment.

Dual licensing approach supporting open source and commercial. Public beta coming soon. Expect freemium/paid plans (SaaS) and commercial support plans (on premise).

Tech stack: Go, Angular, MySQL (Windows, Linux, OSX)

> mountains of Word documents

Is it one wiki per doc, or does it try to cross-link docs into a single wiki?

> Dual licensing approach supporting open source and commercial.

Could you share a bit more about your vision? Dual-licensing is often used with dev tools, how would it work with a SaaS offering?

You can upload all your documents and work/share them individually. Then linking between becomes easier because they are not just Word files sitting on disc.

For SaaS:

- freemium plan for 1 user - paid plans based upon number of users

On-premise:

- download and install core product - enterprise features like AD auth, redacting, workflows are paid for

We plan to put the core product source code onto Github so anyone can have their on hosted "wiki".

Hope this makes sense.

Cool demo video. At first it sounded like gibberish, then words started coming into focus, by the end I was amazed at the density of information being communicated.

Yup, it wasn't easy!

Wanted to try something different with regard to getting over product features and the pain points it relates to!

In terms of information density, it is pretty slick. Listening to it on a less-than-great set of laptop speakers in a not-quiet environment, it was nearly impossible to make our the words.

My advice: you are innovating in the speaking/presentation style, and that is pretty slick; if you care about it, bring it to the forefront by lowering the music level by half. If you don't care about the voice enough to put it far in front of the music, put the words on the screen so people can just mute it and read.

Thanks for the feedback!

The start is always one the most difficult part. So congrats for getting at this stage.

I like the idea and just signed up for the beta!

Congratulations, love the idea of converting my docs to wiki. The rap video is awesome!

A perfect tool, this is great!

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