ConnectedText on Ubuntu

If you’re a fan of ConnectedText like I am, you might be interested in knowing that you can get this Windows-only application to run on Linux thanks to WINE.   I found it to be surprisingly simple; as the attached screenshot will attest I have CT 3.0.0.5 running on my Ubuntu 8.04 system.  Here’s how you do it.

• Install WINE.  An overview of what this program is can be found here at Wikipedia, if you’re curious.  Obviously, how you install WINE will vary from system to system, though on Ubuntu (in my opinion one of the most user-friendly Linux distributions out there) you can simply go to “Add/Remove…” under the “Applications” menu item, search for “WINE”, check a box, and click a button.
• Download the ConnectedText installation program from this website and save it somewhere on your system.
• Using a command-line terminal (in Ubuntu this is found at Applications -> Accessories -> terminal), cd (change directory) to the location you saved ConnTextSetup.exe.
• Type wine ConnTextSetup.exe (and hit return/enter) to start the CT installation program under WINE.  Follow the installation instructions as normal.
• With a little luck, the installation will complete without a problem.  You should then be able to start CT via WINE — follow your system-specific directions.  On Ubuntu, this is simply a matter of going to Applications -> Wine->Programs -> ConnectedText -> ConnectedText.

There are some differences, of course.  Some CT plugins, such as Ploticus and Graphviz, do not work (RSS, Tex and Highlight appear to be fine for me, however).  Text on some pages may appear odd — I’ve noticed some minor layout issues involving links.

It’s not perfect but it’ll do in a pinch.

If you haven’t already, go visit Wikipedia; it is the largest and most successful example of a wiki in action.

If you want to set up your own wiki, there are a ton of choices available.  Their features vary, but all should at least permit you to create new pages of information and link them to other pages.   I have two favorites: MediaWiki and ConnectedText.

MediaWiki is the software that powers Wikipedia.  It is free, Open Source, and very robust — Wikipedia has millions of pages of content, thousands of users and billions of hits per day.  Along with full-text search capability, users can upload graphic or audio files and associate them with the appropriate topics.  All changes to pages are tracked, so both vandalism and honest mistakes can be quickly and easily dealt with.  It is, in my opinion, the standard by which all other wikis should be judged.

I’ve written about ConnectedText before.  It differs from MediaWiki in that ConnectedText is a personal wiki — most of the frills of the former but intended for a single, all-powerful user.  Whereas MediaWiki is great for centralizing information for a large number of users (who may or may not contribute further), ConnectedText is ideal for an author or researcher who is unwilling or afraid of making their notes public but enjoys the features of a conventional wiki.  It is a commercial application, however.

ConnectedText’s greatest advantage over MediaWiki is that it can be set up very easily: as a Windows-only application, ConnectedText has a installer that takes care of all the messy details.  Unless you’re comfortable with PHP and MySQL, setting up MediaWiki can be frightening and frustrating experience.

At least, up until now.

About a week ago I stumbled upon this page which takes the user gently through a painless installation process with the end result being a version of MediaWiki that runs on a USB stick with less than 100MB of storage.  The key component here is WOS Portable (Small Edition) by CH Software, which is a self-contained distribution of Apache, PHP, MySQL and a few other useful applications that can run directly from a USB drive without requiring any installation on the hosting system.  In about 15 minutes I had my own version of MediaWiki up and running off of my thumb drive without a hitch.

If you’re joined at the hip to a laptop, this may not be that incredible…but for college students who are dependent upon lab and library computers or anybody who has to shuttle information between their home and work systems, this is hot.  Got USB?  Then you’ve got access to your own data warehouse.  Worried about security?  Install Portable Firefox on your USB drive as well (to ensure local system browsers don’t cache your wiki pages) and use TrueCrypt to lock it all down.  They’re both free, too.

I’ll continue to use ConnectedText — it has quite a few unique features that I like, such as Python and Ruby scripting and the ability to export everything in a self-contained Microsoft Help file.  I’d love for there to be a portable version, but due to prior problems with Chinese hackers stealing his software, Eduardo Mauro (developer of ConnectedText) has had to tie his software to a particular processor ID.  I encourage anybody interested in having a wiki for their personal use to at least give CT a shot if they can afford the $30 (US) fee; Eduardo’s support for his product has been stellar and there are certainly fewer things that can break compared to a MediaWiki + WOS solution.

The effort was a failure, unfortunately…most people didn’t want to take a few minutes to contribute their knowledge about CVS or COM in C++. Still, I was convinced that the medium was a great way to record information and even if my coworkers wouldn’t use it, I’d still use it for my own nefarious purposes.

Trouble is, getting PHP, MySQL and the MediaWiki code up and running wasn’t a trivial affair. Things have improved since then, but it is still kind of a clunky setup for a single user…and so my search for a cleaner alternative continued.

I came across ConnectedText earlier this year and had tried out the time-limited demo. It seemed pretty cool, but I was a bit turned off by having to pay for it. Yeah, I know: God forbid somebody actually wants money for their work. I considered writing a personal wiki application by myself (using C# and Firebird) but with a half-dozen other personal and professional projects on my plate, I didn’t even have the time to start.

A few months ago I checked out ConnectedText again, and was pleasantly surprised at the features that had been added — so much so that I bit the bullet and purchased a copy. My timing was pretty good, because a few days later a new version was released with even more new features that supported timelines and graph plotting.

I guess I’m not sure where I’m going with this post, other than to say “hey, this is a cool application — check it out!” I don’t often get evengelical about software, but this is one of those times; the ability to create a personal wiki for note-taking, authoring and general record-keeping is awfully damn neat, I think. The fact that the newest version of CT supports scripting in Python just adds to the list of its potential uses.

For example, if you’re teaching a class you could use ConnectedText to hold your syllabus. With its Export functionality, you can create a single .exe (a Microsoft Help file) that you can distribute to all your students that contains not just the schedule but links to your lecture notes, relevent photos and presentations.

If you’re writing a paper (or even writing a story for NaNoWriMo), ConnectedText can be a great way to collect ideas and keep track of your drafts via its internal versioning capability.

Wikis aren’t ideal for everything. If MS Word or Notepad meet your needs, stick with what works. But if you’re interested in using the wiki concept for your own projects, I’d highly recommend giving ConnectedText a look. I’m not a CT developer, I don’t know any of the stakeholders personally, I’m just an enthusiastic user.