WackoWiki: History

https://wackowiki.org/doc     Version: 68 (10/28/2026 13:04)

History

WackoWiki was forked from the famous WakkaWiki[link1] engine in 2003 when Hendrik Mans and Carlo Zottmann, the original developers, abandoned it.

Releases

Summary

Version Release Date Significant changes
WakkaWiki
0.1 2002-09-04 Pages and actions are equal citizens of one URL space — nice URLs, WikiNames and {{action}} calls make every engine function a linkable address instead of a hidden query parameter; safe-by-default markup — raw HTML is escaped unless explicitly quoted, and a compact, deliberately small formatter (**bold**, //italic//, __underline__, monospace, headers, [[forced links]], syntax-highlighted code blocks) replaces the sprawling table syntax of other engines; extensibility as a core promise — pages are served by pluggable handlers, actions and handlers can be overridden from separate action_path/handler_path directories so custom code survives upgrades, and the header/footer are themselves actions; history is a first-class object — every revision is kept, any two revisions can be diffed, and any revision can be pushed back into the editor; discussion is a layer, not content — comments attach to pages and are listed separately (RecentlyCommented) instead of being mixed into page text; access control follows ownership — per-page ACLs are editable only by the page owner, ownership is recorded per revision, and unowned pages can be claimed; the wiki maintains itself — a web installer/updater configures the installation and performs all necessary database migrations when it detects an upgrade; links are structure — referrers, backlinks, wanted pages, link tracking and InterWiki links are built in, together with full-text search
0.1.1 2002-09-10 History has a half-life — old revisions are purged automatically after a configurable age (pages_purge_time, default 90 days), so the wiki stays current without manual housekeeping; link data is recency-scoped — referrers_purge_time is measured in days rather than hours, keeping referrer lists meaningful instead of accumulating noise; configuration is the single source of truth — the installer/updater writes the correct config file even when a non-standard location is used, and the code no longer relies on PHP's short_open_tag, so the engine runs under restricted PHP configurations; a deliberate maintenance workflow — creating a locked file password-protects the site while it is being upgraded; edits are previewed before they are published, with the preview clearly labelled
0.1.2 2003-02-16 Federation by default — InterWiki prefixes accept non-WikiNames, so Wikipedia:Thalamus[link2] or Google:example[link3] resolve like ordinary links; syndication is part of the core — revisions are available as RSS and RecentChanges is published as a static XML file regenerated on every save; pretty URLs survive sloppy input — double slashes no longer break formatting or link resolution; actions grow a parameter syntax — {{action attr="value", ...}} replaces ad-hoc invocations and tolerates whitespace and varied separators; the discussion layer has one global switch — hide_comments turns comments and comment forms on or off site-wide; portable, human-readable ACL notation — § stands for "registered users only"; presentation is separated from markup — XHTML 1.0 Transitional compliance with the CSS moved out of actions/header.php into a valid external stylesheet; the formatter keeps improving in the same spirit — a dedicated notes format (''...'') and automatic URL linking;
WackoWiki
2.0 2003-03-25 adds link transliteration for Russian, page deletion, user bookmarks, page watching, print version handler, more powerful diff, include and tree action, enhanced Wakka formatter, English & Russian translations
3.0 2003-04-30 Typografica, multilingual installer, adds support for themes, WackoClusters, TableOfContents action
3.5 2003-06-28 implements page renaming, significant speed-up due caching of wacko-formatted text, In-page anchoring support
4.0 2004-07-31 adds JavaScript-Editor WikiEdit, integrates SafeHTML, new static content cache for unregistered users, implements PEAR Highlighters, adds multilingual support, adds upload feature
4.2 2005-03-27 RSS autodiscovery, PHP 5.0 compatibility, MySQL 4.1 compatibility
4.3.rc 2008-09-28 First bugfix release from new WackoWiki team.
4.3 2011-03-20 adds MySQLi and PDO MySQL support, XML Sitemap, CAPTCHA (freeCap), WikiEdit AutoComplete, new installer, PHP 5.2 compatibility
5.0 2012-04-22 major code refactoring and cleanup, normalizes database, back ports features from openSpace fork, implements PHPMailer, new default theme, PHP 5.3 compatibility
5.1 2012-06-17 removes depreciated R4 legacy code
5.4 2014-04-17 Removes legacy MySQL extension support, PHP 5.4 - 5.5 compatibility
5.5 2018-08-02 Major refactoring of init system, new session handler, new URI router, new template engine, HTML5 support, new php-diff rendering methods, implements auth and form token, adds Bad Behaviour as extension, file link tracking, media link support, uses password_hash() and password_verify() API, PHP 7.0 - 7.4 compatibility
6.0 2019-12-31 Unicode support, UTF-8 migration tools, implements full support for relative path, accent and case-sensitive page tag, uses intl NumberFormatter to localize numbers, currencies, and percentages format, new chat, details and info formatter along with new wrapper options, PHP 8.0 compatibility
6.1 2021-09-04 Implements new PHP 8 functionality and responsive GUI with improved usability, uses IntlDateFormatter for setting timezone offset and DST, adds section edit support, thumbnail creation, global string find-and-replace action, PHP 8 compatibility
6.2 2025-12-14 SQLite support, binary search action, mandatory installer password protection, syntax for complex tables, WikiEdit modernization
6.3 2026-07-18 Complete WikiEdit rewrite, Phiki implementation, Composer support, dark mode, CSP nonces, cookie prefixes


For more details see /Dev/ChangeLog[link4]