XWiki Product Feedback

Here are some excerpts of what users have said while filling the XWiki Product Survey.

• Feedback from 2023
• Feedback from 2022
• Feedback from 2021
• Feedback from 2020 The survey was broken between October 2019 and April 2020
• Feedback from 2019 The survey was broken between October 2019 and April 2020
• Feedback from 2018
• Feedback from 2017
• Feedback from 2016
• Feedback from 2015 and older

• 12.09.2024 11:22:38:

   I would like to resolve the REST-API-URI from the document e.g. with $doc.getRestUri().
   I LOVE XWIKI!

• 19.08.2024 20:09:24:

   So far, all looks good.
   Probably I would ask to improve the documentation, and to have the option (unless it is there and I haven't see it) to have all the documentation as an add-on in the xwiki implementation.

• 08.08.2024 18:48:40:

   Using Jetty instead of Tomcat makes most installations (on Linux) probably a bit more difficult, I'd say. However, a video "Install XWiki on Ubuntu 24.04" exists which was essential for me to get installation done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alVbEpbr36o&pp=ygULeHdpa2kgamV0dHk%3D

  Answer from Vincent Massol (XWiki Core Dev):

   We provide a Jetty Debian package to make it easy to install.

• Sent 07.08.2024 11:53:17:

   Bookmarks or favourite articles

• Sent 31.07.2024 18:43:04:

   Menus schould be scrollable and it should be possible to make them to a Burger
   Menu Assignment of Users to Troups is far to complex, should be possible from the Users or the Groups with a Click in an array, and not a Drop-Down
   When changing the colours of a theme, it would be nice to ee faster, which coulor need to be changed for wich area.
   There should be a extra kind of users, that can only read and are chieper. This would make it a greate tool for Dokumenation that only customers are allowed to see.

  Explanations from Clemens:

   "There should be a extra kind of users, that can only read and are cheaper": applies if users want buy paying extensions for which the cost depends on the number of users. If there could some read-only users vs editors then the license costs could be reduced.
   "Menus should be scrollable and it should be possible to make them to a Burger Menu": collapsible panels, and preferably let the side panels scroll separately from the content. (i.e. you should still be able to see the navigation panel if you scroll down the content of a longer page.)  Should likely be easy to do with a bit of CSS/Javascript.
   "Assignment of Users to Groups is far to complex, ...": a) assigning groups to a user (instead of users to groups) would be nice. b) if you don't have many groups, and would like to have a checkbox list to select the groups a user is member of. (of course not a scalable solution)
   "When changing the colours of a theme, it would be nice to see faster, which colour need to be changed for which area": you have to guess from the names what setting is used where, then check the preview if you have guessed correctly or changed a completely different color setting.

  Answer from Vincent Massol (XWiki Core Dev):

   Re collapsible panels, we're working on it, see https://forum.xwiki.org/t/implement-collapsing-panels/13918
   Re color themes, we should provide Hints below the property names to indicate what it's used for.

• 29.07.2024 17:49:21:

   When it loading take to long, memory need alot resources,stability is super good,style is acceptable, need to improve the top menu in confection, the side bar is amazing but try to hide the page name when is to long,
   You are doing great Job,kudos to your Team!!!

• Sent 25.07.2024 09:38:49:

   Default style is ugly. Font should be at least 12pt, and line width shouldn't expand to the width of browser window. It is extremely hard to read such a long lines of small text.

• Sent 22.07.2024 11:47:45:

   Right implementation of https in all links, by farm use. We use different domains for different documentations and https over HAproxy on our firewall. xWiki still use mixed content, for attachments.

• Sent 12.06.2024 18:20:34:

   - choose own fonts
   - dark style which includes all elements like input fields
   - modernize user interface with menu structures with a look and feel like modern Android and iOS apps
   - use of TLS right from the beginning automatically; certificates can be replaced afterwards
  
   Add-on structure seems to be old-style and quite complicated. Why not create a separate module with all in one data and not by creating pages and its extensions. Example: one Java script extension file which includes macros, styles and define UI-Elements; communication over API.

• Sent 11.05.2024 14:22:32:

   Incredible that in 2024 It is so complicated (impossible) to install offline. What utility for thé without flavor install. Just to have a chance to sélect thé seing download
   And why is is so complicated to get an all in one extension package to install off Line. Try with mocca calendar and I am still trying. No error message when install but no solution, no warning but It does not work.

• Sent 10.05.2024 20:38:40:

   I think the Features are very good, many of them are a little bit hidden behind a complexity of the UI. For example the Live Tables.
   Better Documentation how to write own applications in XWiki

• Sent 30.03.2024 14:39:19:

   By default, pages in the navigation menu are ordered alphabetically. But custom ordering would be helpful for a series of pages with a specific, non-alphabetical order. Use case: tutorial series.

  Answer from Vincent Massol (XWiki Core Dev):

   * We're working on this in the current roadmap and it should be implemented in XWiki 16.3.0.

• Sent 25.03.2024 12:07:31:

   Not too fast on AI.... and add it through extension, without imposing it to clients and users. Main thinking and design : do you really need it ? how do you really use it ? Hence, ... provide it accordingly to that, and properly.
   Keep it this way : pure libre, for use with respect of privacy, and respect of the company data.

• Sent 25.03.2024 11:40:33:

   Search engine fails to find the correct article more often then not

• Sent 03.03.2024 10:01:11 by Stephan Jensen:

   Better Usability with Editing Inline Content of Makros. For example in other Wikis to create a simple List of Checkboxes (no complex Task-Logic needed), you just enter something like "[] my task", and to edit it, you just go there with the cursor keys and edit the Text. In XWiki, you need to choose and call a makro, enter content in different form fields in a layer/popup and close that layer. If you want to edit content, you cannot easily navigate to it with the cursor keys. So it is much more inefficent and needs more time in XWiki. In this case it feels to be to much overhead for such a simple task. Other things to approve:
   - Better Style/Design/UX/Look und Feel (I know you are working on a completly new state-of-the-art frontend, that's great!)
   - Fulltext search (doesn't find everything you search for; better design, filter)
   - Makro to create a whole hierarchy of pages (based not on just one template, but on a template and it's subpages)
   - Makro to include a search bar into a page to search online on that page/space and its subpages
   - Better Support for Tables: sortable columns as a standard feature, easy way to set backgroundcolor of cells from a list of predefined colors
   - Better WYSIWYG Editor to easier enter base content (Like Entering "* " to directly start an unordered list of bulletpoionts)
   - Better Support of a wider range of Confluence Makros would be great, especially page properties.
  
   Keep up the good work. It is really great (and from a view of digital souvernity important!) to have a commercially supported, self-hostable, open source wiki with this amount of features. Please get even better and grow, but never follow the way that Atlassian showed us (like force users to cloud, huge price changes within a few years)

  Answer from Vincent Massol (XWiki Core Dev):

   * Regarding creating whole hierarchies of page, XWiki Templates support that. If your template page has children they'll be copied when creating a page from that template.

• Sent 22.02.2024 13:27:05:

   More flexible text editing features that are more like ms word or google docs.
   The navigation tree and the ability to list the contents of it in a certain order. It would be great if it were more like Windows File Explorer and/or the sidebar in MacOS finder.

• Sent 16.02.2024 01:25:22:

   An auto-suggest wildcard search option you can turn on.
   It's great! Thanks for the Docker images

• Sent 09.02.2024 01:14:46:

   More modern appereance, for example a variant updated of flamingo
   - The google translation macro don´t work in multilingual environments, if you use it with translated pages xwiki becomes mad when you try to edit. A macro to translate paragraphs could be very usefull.
   - The ability to generate diferent layouts for different users
   - More fonts

• Sent 26.01.2024 10:56:16:

   I would like to have a spell checker when writing a text.
   Manage the hierarchy of pages as in confluence, i.e. by dragging the mouse

• Sent 26.01.2024 07:19:22:

   Marcros should have clickable buttons instead of text fields for their configuration. It’s impossible to configure the macros without reading the documentation. Same for LiveTables. There is some space for improvement to be much more “clickable” in many details.
   Great alternative to Confluence! Usebility could be better. It was quite a bit work to be productive with XWiki compared to Confluence.

• Sent 26.01.2024 01:08:40:

   Super easy to use wiki, i learned pretty fast how to get one setup, it being one click and ready to go is super convenient.

• Sent 05.01.2024 18:29:50:

   Interface should be modern and loaded faster

• Sent 03.01.2024 11:45:40:

   Batch move pages!
   Thanks for this great project. (Sometimes I find it hard to figure out if information/advice on your wiki, docs, forum etc. are outdated or deprecated, e.g. PDF export capabilites)

  Answer from Vincent Massol (XWiki Core Dev):

   Thanks! Re deprecated, we work a lot to update the wiki but probably not enough (it's collaborative too and anyone can edit it).
   On the PDF export capabilities, AFAIK they are updated.

• Sent 29.12.2023 11:40:15:

   more how to, tutorial, espetially for the extentions

• Sent 18.12.2023 13:09:50:

   More easy to use responsive style elements.
   Great work!

• Sent 11.12.2023 11:59:34:

   More specific rights by objects (example : menus in only some pages but not in all for the same user in the same wiki)
   Make form easily from admin menu more languages for developpement support by ticketing organizational chart birthday alert import from outlook

• Sent 22.11.2023 06:05:14:

   The installation instructions are useless. How about writing a shell script to do the installation instead of guessing what order or what packages to install? How about step 1, step 2, step3, etc. The installation instructions are all over the board. I can't figure out if I need three SQL Servers or just MariaDB or just mySQL or just PostGREsql or if all of them are needed. I can' t tell if I need tomcat if I use jetty. The instructions are just bad.

• Sent 21.11.2023 18:22:42:

   In version 15.8 (Linux) it is not that easy to add code as a block of text. For that I need to dig into the source of a page. I don't mind doing that, as xWiki syntax is very easy to follow. But if it would be a 'nice-to-have' if this was part of the GUI editor.
   I really do like xWiki so much more than any other wiki solution I used (BlueSpice can't hold a candle against your product). Not much of a Confluence fan either. xWiki, in combination with OpenSearch and LibreOffice, is a very solid and dependable product.

• Sent 11.11.2023 21:35:48:

   Sustainable Environmetal Development
   Everone Should have to Participate

• Sent 07.11.2023 00:16:24:

   Being able to sort Nested pages by dragging and dropping them from the menu bar. Copy/pasting (or drag and drop) images from computer should work. Currently, by doing so there are not saved in the DB.
   Thanks for this great open source project.

• Sent 02.10.2023 14:53:51:

   Hard to say how to improve a user feeling, as everyone is different, I find it sometimes hard to find how to edit an article correctly AND find a correct stylesheet

• Sent 02.10.2023 12:28:13:

   Realtime WYSIWYG Editor: This function is the one big feature that is still missing to replace Confluence with XWiki. I hope it works soon.

• Sent 25.09.2023 13:09:17:

   a working "Realtime Collaborative Editor" (our developer could not succesfully integrate so far) default autosave better distinguished headings (text layout)
   Big thanks to erveryone for developing and keeping up XWiki! It's so useful to our project.

• Sent 09.08.2023 11:10:09:

   Text edition could be a little richer (like Office Word) and tables are not easy at all to be used

• Sent 28.07.2023 07:02:52:

   A) is it also possible to have docker instances for low-power computers like raspberry pi (arm / v7) I try to run services on as low power as possible. B) I still have a lot of content in twiki. However the twiki language support is quite slow. Is it also possible to convert to xwiki instead of stay on using twiki?
   Thanks for a great product. I use it every day for storing and organizing information als knowledge base and lookup. It is a great help.

• Sent 28.06.2023 14:41:17:

   Code Macro doesnt seem to use a mono-spaced font by default, which is ming boggling to me. Code macro seems to get confused and produce multiple disconnected short lines quite frequently. inserting one should be bullet proof. if it offers two styles, it should make you choose the style, or offer a way to change styles in its editor, it should not be trying to auto-choose for me, as that inevitably chooses poorly.
   all in all, a great, simple to setup wiki! well done!

  Answer from Vincent Massol (XWiki Core Dev):

   The code macro does use a monospace font by default.
   The code macro can work inline and standalone.

• Sent 09.06.2023 21:40:10:

   Improve documentation. I have been struggling with the error shown below for a long time and have not been able to find anything that shows how to fix it. "Unknown macro: notifications. Click on this message for details." , "The [notifications] macro is not in the list of registered macros. Verify the spelling or contact your administrator."
   Thanks for your hard work.

• Sent 11.05.2023 13:08:51:

   Ways to link to gitlab

• Sent 10.05.2023 18:36:03:

   1 - sometimes, a page/document IS an external document like a PDF or another file. In that case, users should only see the last version and the versioning of the page should be linked to versioning of the file.
   2 - copy control. In the cases users must print a page (to take to an offline worksite for example) it would be nice if the version was printed in it as well as some tag "controlled copy" so user knows it should check fi there is a new version once in a while. Maybe a Copy Control system, where every page printed results in a record of who printed, when and version. And it sends email to the person who printed it when new version is released, so he must destroy the old version copy.

• Sent 02.05.2023 13:59:46:

   I often use tables I would like to see improvements there, some of which include table sorting, table formatting for altering cells, and table headers.
   Windows plugins to display Excel and other office products with the ability to edit within the wiki.

  Answer from Vincent Massol (XWiki Core Dev):

   For Excel and other MS formats, you could use the OnlyOffice Extension.

• Sent 05.04.2023 19:47:04:

   Upgradeable from the admin interface.

• Sent 27.03.2023 10:14:20:

   Not yet. Great product. Hopefully, international language adaptation will do a better job
   Thanks to all the developers for their hard work. Great product.

• 23.03.2023 07:59:57:

   To improve: More easy to configure, better overview of deeper admin actions

• Sent 20.03.2023 13:55:02:

   I'm using the Docker version. Whenever there's an update, I find the upgrade wizard very confusing. Sometimes there are non-fatal errors. There are questions about plug-ins that I don't understand the consequences of. Generally, I don't like the upgrade experience.
   Even though I've got "remember me" checked on the login form, I still do get logged out from time-to-time. Then, the only way that I find out is when I go to edit a page and notice that the button is missing. I wish "remember me" would last forever and that if I was logged out that I would see a login page, instead of taking me to the wiki in read-only mode.

• Sent 10.03.2023 10:03:07:

   Since I'm new to XWIKI may be the feature exists, I haven't gone through all der extensions yet. Anyway here it is: Let me call it "compliance tracker" Acting as a knowledge base within a company, certain know-how articles are a must read for a certain group within the company. Let's say a warehouse operator of a chemical company need to read an instruction what to do in a chemical incident. The wiki can provide the know-how article, but is it possible to let the warehouse operator actively confirm, e.g. with a button, to confirm he has read the instructions. And second, to report, who in the group has already read the instructions and who has not. Another example would be an onboarding of a new employee. Thank you.
   I think it is a mature and very helpful pice of software and it was a lot of work. I'm glad about it exists ;-) Keep on doing such great effort! Thank You !!!

  Answer from Vincent Massol (XWiki Core Dev):

   There's no OOB extension that does this but it's quite easy to implement with XWiki (which is very extensible and made to implement this type of features). Please post on the XWiki forum and we shall be able to help you out by explaining how to implement it. If you don't have technical skills, you could contact one of the companies sponsoring the development of XWiki and sponsor the feature.
   EDIT: A forum post has been made!

• Sent 01.02.2023 on Twitter:

   @XWiki @xwikiorg It's been a while since I've frequented the room, but figured I would at least stop by real quick on here and let folks know -- XWiki is *still* the hill I will die on when it comes to Wiki software.  Nothing else compares.

• Sent 16.01.2023 07:26:26:

   To improve: Quality Management Tools for Approval of pages, Table Filter
  
   I was looking for a tool to replace Confluence, however the functionality seems not sufficient for our needs at the moment.