Uploading and Linking images and files in WikkaWiki

I’ve been a fan of WikkaWiki. It’s the light weight, ultra fast and highly customizable Wiki software. However, there are few glitches in WikkaWiki and some of it’s features like Actions and Handlers can be highly confusing to new users who never used Wiki software or used some standard stuff like MediaWiki (the software used by Wikipedia).

One of the glitch is uploading Images and Files and linking/attaching them to your Pages. If you have this problem, follow the instructions below and have none of it.

1. I would suggest having SSH to your domain to perform these tasks. However, if you don’t have Shell Access, use an FTP program like CuteFTP that will allow you to directly edit files in the FTP site.
2. Open your config file wikka.config.php and enter uploads in the config variable ‘upload_path‘. Save and close the file.
3. Make sure you do have an uploads directory in your WikkaWiki root folder and it is writable (enter mkdir uploads and then chmod 777 uploads to do this from SSH under your WikkaWiki root folder).
4. Go to uploads folder and see if it already has a .htaccess file. If it does not, create a new file in the same name. Type the following in this file:
   

   RewriteEngine off

5. Go to your WikkaWiki root folder and edit the .htaccess file in there. Add the following line at the top of this file.
   

   Options -Indexes -FollowSymLinks

6. Visit your WikkaWiki in browser. Create a new page named Images
7. In the body of this page, type the following:
   

   =====Image Files=====
{{files}}
----
[[CategoryUploads Uploadable File Types]]

8. Save the Page. When you visit this page, you’ll see the heading and a small table for list of files and a upload button underneath the table. You’ll have to click on the Uploadable File Types link for making a category so that you’ll easily access these pages. When you click on the link, it’ll go to edit page mode, type the following there:
   

   =====Uploadable File Types=====
This category lists all the uploadable file types and their respective pages to use for uploading the files.
{{Category}}
----
[[CategoryCategory See all Categories]]

9. That’s it, you can use the Images file to upload images. Create another file like PDFs or Docs and keep the same content as I’ve shown here for Images (just name their headings different as per the Page Name) but use it for uploading relevant files.
10. Now, open any of the page where you would like the images to be linked to, type the following there:
    

    {{image url="uploads/Images/your-image-file-name" text="some-text-here" alt="some-alternative-text-here"}}

11. Likewise, you can link files by typing the following there:
    

    [[http://your-domain-name/uploads/file-upload-page-name/file-name some-text-for-link-or-leave-empty]]

12. That’s all about it. Using this method will forbid anybody from outside to visit your uploads folder directly as well as allows you to link them or refer them directly in your pages. You can also share the entire URL with your friends which is accessible.

Let me know your comments…