Create a simple project wiki on your iPhone 04/06/11

 

Never have to worry about scrolling through a tangled email thread for vital video project information.  An example would look something like this:

 

 

Download and install MyWiki from iTunes   

 

When you launch the app you will see the following screen:

 

 

Click on the Edit button in the top right corner

 

 

A dialogue box will appear giving you the option to edit or delete the welcome screen.  You’ll want to delete it.   Do that by pressing the trash can icon.

 

 

Now your home screen will be empty and waiting for you to enter information.

 

 

But before you do that, you’ll need to change the name of the article from the default name of: Welcome to MyWiki to the name of your video project.

Press the Edit button in the top left corner.

 

 

Press the bar at the bottom of the screen

 

 

Name your wiki article

 

 

Now you are ready to add content to your project wiki.  Tap the Add a paragraph here tab.

 

 

You will be presented with a screen for your first article entry.

 

 

Type in the names and positions of the people you will be working with on this project.

 

 

Highlight the person’s name and then press the link icon

 

 

You will notice that are now double brackets around the name.

 

 

When you press Done, you are taken back to the home screen.  Now you see the person’s name has turned into a clickable button.  Press it.

 

 

You will be presented with a screen requesting you to add content to your link.

 

 

Leave the title portion blank.  Underneath it, add the person’s email address and phone number.

 

 

 

Highlight the phone number and press the circular icon in the icon tray.

 

 

You will notice that there are now 2 asterisks in front of the number.

 

Press Done.

 

 

As you can see, this has turned the number into a bullet item and has tabbed it over as well.

 

 

Now you will be able to call the person simply by pressing the phone number.

 

 

When you press the home key

Your screen should look like this.

 

 

Repeat the above steps with the rest of the contacts.

 

 

Add other categories like project requests, video specs and codes.

(NOTE:  There is currently no security feature for MyWiki such as a passcode requirement for opening.   Hopefully, they will add this very important feature in the future.  If you are going to keep your project codes in this wiki, it’s crucial that you 1) use the native passcode feature on the iPhone and 2) use the “remote wipe” feature with MobileMe.  This means that on your iPhone Location Services must always be on).

 

 

***EXTRA CREDIT*** For those of you with advanced OCD (like me) you can build a calendar in your WIKI.

 

 

The reason this requires advanced OCD is because there is no built in calendar feature or 3rd party plug-in.  So you will have to create one from scratch by going in and typing the dates and spacing them out with periods so that they are equidistant. Where this gets tricky is when you start adding events to the dates.  When you turn a date into button link, it changes the spacing of all the numbers to the right of it.  Soooo, you have to constantly toggle back and forth between edit mode and display mode to readjust the spacing.

 

 

Tips:
In most cases it probably makes sense to use traditional wiki software.  But a desktop wiki cannot be accessed on an iPhone.  And a Cloud-based wiki could be frustrating to use on your iPhone if you are editing in remote location with poor or non-existent web and data access.  The thing that’s most important to remember with this hack is to take the security precautions mentioned in step 23.