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From ClawsOrPaws
Welcome to the Software Wiki!
The Software Wiki is free for all to use
The Wiki is written by users for users. We hope that this resource will help you in some small or big way, and also that you will enjoy browsing the Wiki.
You may wonder why we should need a Software Wiki, when there are such things as Google around? Can't you just search and get all the answers you need that way?
We believe that, yes, that is partly true. If you already know the name of the software you want, it is usually easy to find it using Google. And, if you are searching for the solution to some sort of problem... With some luck you will know how to phrase it, so that you find a site and a place at that site where it is discussed, and with even more luck, somebody (professional or not) will have answered that problem in terms you understand.
Now, if we imagine this wiki sometime in the future, when lots of people have collaborated on it...
You would not need to know the name of an application in order to find it. They would all be found in one place. You could, for example, browse the "Image Editing" category, and either find what you were looking for, or find something even better that you did not know you were looking for. (Including open source applications and new freeware that are not always at the top of the Google results.) You could compare different applications at this one place. As for "expert sites" and "professionals" - it is always nice if people know what they write about, of course, but very often mere users are better at writing in a way that other users understand. The ideal would be to have a mix of "experts" and "mere users" working on the wiki, making sure that texts are both correct and easy to understand.
The basic structure of the Wiki
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There are two major categories: For now, we are focussing on Computer Software, especially open source and freeware applications - but if you want to get the hardware side of the Wiki going, feel free to do so! In addition to the major categories, there are two sets of subcategories for software. All software will belong to at least one Application Category, and they will also belong either to the Web Application Category (see below) or to at least one Operating System Category.
Some software, or software-like services, are offered on web pages. You do not need to install them on your computer in order to use them, but access them using your web browser. We have introduced a Web Applications category for such software; we call it a "major category" in the menu to the left, but fact is that it's somewhere in between. An application that can be accessed and utilised over the web is basically OS-independent, so the Web Applications category is used instead of the Operating System Category when we categorise the software in the Wiki. |
New pages feed:
Recent changes feed: |
The Operating System Categories are stable, meaning that we (probably) will not add any more categories to this set. The Application Categories, on the other hand, will continue to grow. You are free to add more such categories, as needed. You find the list of current Application Categories at the Computer Software page.
You are very welcome to contribute to the Wiki
If you want to take part in building this Wiki, you need to create an account. Just click the link at the top-right corner. (This is also where you will, in the future, click in order to log in to the Wiki.) Once you have created your account, you are a registered user of this Wiki. You will not see more of the Wiki - there are no hidden pages here - but the pages will be slightly different. You will have the option to edit existing pages, add comments, or take part in discussions, and you will have the option to add new pages.
Please read the help pages for information about how to add and edit text in the wiki, and how to add new pages. The pages about Help:Categories and Help:Add new are especially important, even if you are familiar with MediaWiki. They contain information about the categories and the page structure of the Software Wiki. It may seem complicated at first, but once you have got the hang of it, Wiki editing is actually quite simple. There is a "sandbox" in the Help section here at the Wiki. Go there to practice editing before you do it "for real" - there is no way you can harm yourself or the Wiki by trying it out!
Wiki Extras
There's now browser search-engine plugins for the Wiki available on the install page
