Extension:FlowchartWiki

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FlowchartWiki Release status: beta
Implementation	Link markup, Tag, Database, Page action
Description	Flowchartwiki creates flowcharts from the links between wikipages in a category and can be used for process modelling and process documentation.
Last Version	1.1.1 (April 9th, 2009)
MediaWiki	tested with 1.13.1, 1.14
License	GPL 2 or later
Download	http://sourceforge.net/projects/flowchartwiki/
Example	see http://www.flowchartwiki.org for a demo, sample processes and full documentation.
Hooks used ArticleSaveComplete InternalParseBeforeLinks LinksUpdateConstructed ArticleDelete TitleMoveComplete ArticleUndelete
check usage (experimental)

Flowchartwiki is an extension to MediaWiki for creating flowcharts from the links between wikipages in a category to support process modelling and process documentation in MediaWiki. This simplifies the self-organizing of teams and processes.

Each process-step is a wikipage and based on the tagged links between the wikipages and a type assigned to a wikipage, a flowchart diagram is created automatically. This keeps the diagram always up to date and reduces manual maintenance. The Diagram itself is clickable to simplify the navigation in the wiki. A hierarchy of Processes is supported.

In comparison to popular office software, all users of the wiki can simultaneously access the process model and keep it up to date.

Contents 1 New in 1.1.1 2 Usage 3 Download instructions 4 Installation 5 See also

[edit] New in 1.1.1

• fixed problems with ' (Apostroph) and " " (Blank) in Category-Names

For a full list of updates since version 1.0.1 please see the release notes.

[edit] Usage

How MediaWiki can be used to model processes:

• Process = Category Page
• Process-Step = Wiki Page
• tagged Wiki-Links
• Result: clickable graph

By adding a few special tags to category and wiki pages, a graph is created from the links between these pages.

Add these tags to a category page:

<CategoryBrowser />
[[ModelType::Process]]

• The CategoryBrowser tag creates and displays the clickable flowchart on the category page.
• The Modeltype tag selects the type of diagrams used for the process (fully customizable).

Add these tags to the individual wikipage (besides the usual Category Tag).

<CategoryBrowser />
[[NextStep::Download]]

<Dependencies />

[[Type::ProcessStep]]
[[PageName::Different_Name_in_Graph]]
[[Level::100]]

• The CategoryBrowser tag creates and displays the flowchart on the wikipage and highlights the current page in the graph.
• NextStep::Download tags the link to the "Download" wikipage in the process.
• The Dependencies tag is a special version of "What links here" and shows a list of links from and to this page - including the type of the links.
• Type::ProcessStep defines the type of this process step and determines the shape type and color used in the graph. The shape types and colors are customizable.
• PageName::Different_Name_in_Graph is optional and overrides the default usage of the Name of the WikiPage with the "Different_Name_in_Graph".
• Level::100 is a hint to the graphing-algorithm (graphviz) on where to place the process step in the graph.

[edit] Download instructions

Downloads are available from sourceforge.net [1]. For prerequisites (Graphviz) please also check the project website at http://www.flowchartwiki.org.

[edit] Installation

Installation and upgrading instructions can be found on flowchartwiki.org. A .pdf document (created by using pdfbook) with the installation-instructions from the website is also included in the flowchartwiki download.

[edit] See also

• FlowchartWiki uses an extended/modified version of the Extension:Pdf_Book extension that exports the whole process documentation including the graph images. It can be downloaded from the flowchartwiki.org download page as a separate file.
• The Graphviz Extension Extension:GraphViz is not required, but the GraphViz Software needs to be installed.