Getting Started With XWiki Workspaces

29 Apr 2008 5 min read

XWiki Workspaces is our simple collaboration solution. Here are the steps to follow to start testing it on your local machine. Looks long & complicated ? It's not. Trust us. If you don't, you may find this website entertaining. Don't forget to come back afterwards !

Basically, you're gonna be mimicking the job of both a server and a client right on your Desktop. Yeah, you can do it. I believe in you.

Launching the software

  1. Download the Software ! To do so, simply right-click on this link and select "Save to Disk".
  2. Find out where the heck you saved the damn file. If needed, move it to a location where you'll be able to find it easily (say, your Desktop).
  3. Go make yourself a cup of coffee (in any case, that can't do no harm).
  4. Hint : you forgot to add sugar. Plus your coffee's probably too hot to be drunk right now anyway.
  5. Make sure Java (the programming language, not the coffee) is available on your computer : click here and you'll know !
  6. If it's not, install it (alternatively, you can write an incendiary letter to Sun)
  7. Now unzip the file you just downloaded (that's easier than it sounds. Most of the time, all you'll have to do is to double-click on it.)
  8. Open the xwiki-workspaces-distribution... folder. Find out whether you're running Windows, Mac OS or Linux as your current Operating System.
    1. You're running Windows. Double-click the start_xwiki.bat file.
    2. You're running Linux or Mac OS. Open a terminal window (Applications > Utilities > Terminal under Mac OS X). Drag & Drop the start_xwiki.sh file in your terminal window. Click on the terminal window. Hit Enter. 
  9. Give yourself a congratulation hug : your XWiki Workspaces instance is now up & running !!
  10. If you don't quite know what to do next, it's perfectly normal. I haven't told you yet.
  11. Open your browser (Firefox, IE7, or even Internet Explorer 6 : we got you working as well, bh !)
  12. Go to http://localhost:8080/xwiki
  13. Log-in using login : Admin / password : admin as your credentials. You're in !

First steps

  1. You've now successfully installed XWiki Workspaces on your computer, in practice using it as a server. You rock !
  2. You're an Admin over here. The first thing you want to do is to create a space for your organization (say, your current company). To do so, click on "Create the organization's space". 
  3. You can now either start playing with the space you just created or go playing around with other global administration features.
  4. Let's say you want to add a bunch of fake users to play with the software a bit :
    1. Go to the http://localhost:8080/xwiki/bin/edit/XWSAdmin/AddingFakeUsers?editor=wiki page
    2. Copy / Paste the contents of this .txt file in the page.
    3. Click on "Save & View" : Wow, you've just created 200 random users using the Groovy programming language !
  5. Now you can go play with your organization's space to find out how it works. To do so, go to http://localhost:8080/xwiki/bin/view/XWS/MySpaces, then click on the only space available there for now.
  6. Once you're in the space, there's a couple things you could do. Say you want to invite a couple friends :
    1. Click on the "administration" link in the "Space" panel located on the left of your screen.
    2. Now click on "Space Members" in the panel on the left.
    3. Choose a group and click on the "add members to this group" button
      1. You can now see the list of all the people in your XWiki Workspaces instance. There's a quick access box at the top of the list : type the name of someone you know (say, "Georges Abitbol"), then click on the green arrow to add him / her to the list.
      2. Click on "add selected users to the group" at the bottom of the page. Well done, you're not alone any longer !
    4. You can change the background color of your space too. Click on "Space Informations" in the panel on the left, then on "Edit space information" in the page.
    5. Choose a color in the select box, then click on "Save & View".
    6. C'mon. You kidding me ? I know you've got better taste than this !
    7. Anyway... Click on the title of your space (the big black title located at the top of the page) to get back to the home of your space.
    8. Start working together ! There's a wiki, a blog, a photo gallery and a file manager available in here, simply click around a bit to discover how stuff works... You're a big guy / gal now ;-)

If you experienced any problem or have a question, simply send us a mail at users@xwiki.org or drop by on our IRC channel, #xwiki on Freenode.net . Hopefully our team will be there to answer your questions ! You can also contact me at guillaume-XWS Rocks !-xwiki.com or on skype, id : wikibc. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter as well !

Lots of information about the software is available on http://workspaces.xwiki.org/, the Open-Source community website.

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