Yes it’s been a long time coming but today we’re thrilled to announce — PBwiki now comes with spell check!

To double check your spelling, click on the spell check icon in your toolbar (beside the plugin icon). All misspelled words will be underlined with a dotted red line. Right click on the word to view suggested spellings.

We love feedback, let us know what you think!

Ever needed to access your PBwiki using an iPhone or Blackberry? Now you can, with PBwiki Mobile Edition.

PBwiki Mobile Edition automatically recognizes when you’re using a smartphone to access your PBwiki, and serves up a blazingly fast mobile-optimized interface. We’ve stripped out everything that’s extraneous to minimize load times and maximize the content you see.

And PBwiki Mobile Edition is available free of charge to our Professional and Professional Plus customers.

With Mobile Edition, you can:

• Search your PBwiki (including uploaded files) to answer a question
• Access policies/procedures/manuals
• Download files to send via mobile email
• Keep up with your team’s activities via notifications and recent changes
• Provide instant feedback via comment
• Record thoughts via comment or new page

Here’s what InformationWeek had to say about PBwiki Mobile Edition:

“The mobile device is a logical extension for collaboration tools, particularly given today’s fractured work environment, where contributors may be on the road more than in an office. With the digital tether of the iPhone or Blackberry, road warriors can satisfy the urge to check in on a project, make comments and keep the ball rolling.”

To try out PBwiki Mobile Edition, just visit your PBwiki using your iPhone or Blackberry (if you’re on a Professional plan) or check out our sample wiki at http://mobileedition.pbwiki.com.

While we only officially support the iPhone and Blackberry, other smartphones will probably work.  Begin your Android lobbying now!

Do you have content on your wiki that needs to be displayed consistently on multiple pages? We have build the ultimate plugin for you! It’s called ‘Include another Page’ and it’s available in your plugin menu under PBwiki Magic.

This plugin lets you embed the content from one wiki page onto another wiki page and lock it in place.

Here’s an example:

Your company has several key guidelines that must be followed for all projects. Instead of trying to remember these guidelines or search around to locate them, just post them to a wiki page.

For your next project, include your guidelines page on the project planning page so you make sure to follow them.

Here’s how:

Create the content you want displayed across multiple apges: From our examples you would post your guidelines and hit save.

Include the content from one page on a different page: Use the plugin ‘ Include another page’ to display the information from your guidelines page. Plugin –> PBwiki magic –> Include another page

Display your content across multiple pages:Hit save and view the content from your guidelines page on your project planning page.

Instead of manually inserting the content on each page, which can lead to errors if the content ever needs to be changed, this plugin takes the content of a page and instantly inserts it into your wiki.

The included content is locked, you are not able to edit content that is pulled from another page. If you want to change the content across all pages, simply edit the information on the first page – in our example, the guidelines page.

Head to our manual to learn more information about the new ‘Include Another Page’ plugin, and all the other plugins available for your wiki.

Today we’re excited to announce an even easier way to customize your PBwiki pages.

In the past if you wanted to remove static elements from the page – like the comment box or the sidebar – you had to use custom CSS. This was a pain for many reasons – you had to know CSS, even then your CSS code might not work in all browsers and it was hard to create default settings for your page.

Our new customization settings makes it super easy to design your wiki pages – and you don’t need custom CSS. Now you can:

• Display your comments in reverse chronological order or remove the comment box entirely.
• Remove header, footer and contact forms from your wiki.
• Chose what elements are available on the side panel – remove the sidebar, folders and recent wiki activity.

Note: If you remove the comment box, existing comments will be saved but not visible on the page.

To add custom settings to your wiki, go to Settings —> Advanced Settings —> Customization. This feature is available on all premium wikis.

Feedback?
We love feedback! Let us know how you will customize your wiki!

This week we’re excited to release one of our most requested features – Reader Commenting. Before,wiki users with ‘Reader’ access were only allowed to view your wiki.

Now, you can enable Readers to leave comments.

Why reader comments are useful

The ability for readers to leave comments is great if you like to get input from everyone in your organization, but you don’t want to give them full access to edit other pages on your wiki.

Reader comments are also useful for classrooms. Teachers can post questions on a page and have students answer them without having the ability to edit the questions.

How we keep your wiki safe with Reader commenting

Note: To keep your wiki safe, only users who have been invited as readers are enabled to comment. Visitors to public wikis won’t be able to leave comments unless they’re added to the wiki as readers

If you already have a wiki, you’ll need to enable this feature by doing this: Go to Settings —> Wiki Security —> Uncheck the ‘Disable reader commenting’ box.

New wikis will have Reader Commenting enabled by default.

How are you going to use reader commenting? Tell us in the comments!

You can already easily insert YouTube videos and Google Gadgets into your wiki using the Plugin menu (click Edit >> Insert plugin).

Now, we’ve made it easier to extend your wiki by inserting HTML and JavaScript into your wiki.

Use HTML/JavaScript to add outside widgets to your wiki

Custom HTML/JavaScript allows you (or your admins) to add interactive elements — also known as widgets — to your wiki pages.

Examples:

• Forms you create from Wufoo
• Slideshows from Flickr
• Any other widget with embeddable code!

Included: Security options for administrators

Widgets can sometimes result in unexpected behavior, so we’ve included built-in security for this feature (learn more about PBwiki security).

If “Allow JavaScript and other potentially unsafe code” is checked, only wiki admins will be able to edit the plugin in the future.

When other wiki users edit the plugin, they will not see the checkbox. If potentially unsafe code is detected, a warning will be shown. Potentially unsafe code, such as JavaScript, is automatically removed from the plugin to help keep your wiki safe.

To use the HTML/JavaScript plugin

1. Go into edit mode on your wiki by clicking the “Edit” tab.
2. Click the “Insert Plugin” button
3. Choose “PBwiki Magic”
4. And then choose “HTML/JavaScript”
5. Type in your code
6. If you’re a wiki administrator and want to include JavaScript (”script”) or CSS (”style”), check “Allow JavaScript and other potentially unsafe code”
7. Click “Preview,” then “OK,” and now “Save” your wiki page.

And if you have any questions, please check out the PBwiki Manual on Custom HTML / Javascript.

Our new feature for public wikis who want global participation and editing on their wiki. Public editing allows anyone to immediately gain access to your wiki — users only have to click “edit” and create a PBwiki account.

This is great if you want everyone to have access and you don’t want the added step of approving everyone. Added benefit — you can create permission levels for these users and even remove them from the wiki.

Administers can turn on public editing in the settings panel. Look for ‘wiki security’ and chose ‘ Anyone can edit this wiki’

Check out these hugely popular wikis already using Public Editing:

• Usercontribution.Intuit.com
• Barcamp.org
• Twitter.pbwiki.com
• MobilecampNewDelhi.pbwiki.com

And they already LOVE it!

“The success of the BarCamp and Twitter wiki derives largely from the exceptional editing experience of PBWiki. So productive!” – Chris Messina

“We are using it on http://usercontribution.intuit.com and love it! Yay public editing ” – Jenny Spadafora

This feature is only available for 2.0 wikis. To gain access to this feature upgrade your 1.0 wiki by clicking the “Convert now” flag at the top of your wiki screen. Converting is easy, free and takes one minute!

How do you like your publicly editable wiki?

Wikis work best as a collaborative site where many people have access to read and contribute. Your job is to find people to contribute to the wiki — our job is to make it super simple for you to invite them.

Check out the many ways PBwiki 2.0 has made it easy to add folks to you wiki – including our new completely public wiki (coming soon!).

Individual invitations – Start small – add just one or two users. You can do this from the front page of your wiki, just enter their email address where is says “share this wiki”.

Add multiple users- If you have an excel or .csv file with users email addresses, you can bulk upload them using the “add multiple users” feature in the users section of the setting panel. This works wonders — just copy all the email addresses and paste them into the space provided.

Classroom Accounts- Your students don’t have email and you want to know exactly who is editing the wiki. Use Classroom Accounts to automatically create login accounts for your students and determine their permission level.

Request Access- You can send the link to your wiki and have your users click request access. Then approve them in the setting panel. This is good if you want specific folks to have access to your wiki, but don’t want to add them individually.

Coming Soon — Public editing – We are now testing a public editing feature for public wikis. This feature will allow anyone who has your wiki address to immediately gain access to your wiki — they only have to click “edit” and create a PBwiki account.

NOTE:This is not available for private wikis

Public editing is good for large collaborative wikis where you want everyone to have access and you don’t want the added step of approving everyone. Added benefit — you can create permission levels for these users and even remove them from the wiki.

What more could you ask for? In the comments tell us how you’re using your PBwiki and what features you would like to see.

Starting today, color schemes on all 2.0 PBwikis are free!

 

 

Earlier, color schemes were a Premium feature. But since we’ve heard more and more of you asking to use colors to customize your wikis, we realized it makes sense to offer them to everyone.

With the release of the new settings panel, we’re giving away all 9 of the pro color schemes to all our wonderful users, free of charge! These include colors like Silver, Plum, and Blue.

To add a new color scheme to your wiki, click “Settings” in your 2.0 wiki.

Let us know what you think!

Update: Edited for clarity. The “Custom” color option which allows you to create your own color scheme is still a Premium feature.

 

Yesterday, we rolled out a new settings panel for all PBwiki 2.0 wikis, making it easier to control the settings on your wiki.

See details about the new settings panel.

(Note: Don’t miss out on new features! We’ll be releasing new features for 2.0 wikis, so if you haven’t converted to PBwiki 2.0 yet, please click the “Convert now” banner at the top of your wiki to update for free. If you don’t see the banner, please sit tight for a short time while we finish polishing a few features for your wiki. We’ll enable you to update to 2.0 as soon as possible.)

And let us know what you think!