Context

Sometimes we hear "context is everything." It may not be everything but it really helps make sense of situations.

One of the most useful contextualizing features of the FedWiki is the way new pages are added to the right of the last page, leaving the previously viewed pages visible. This is called the lineup.

Lots of explanatory material can be left out of a page, because it can be accessed immediately and adjacently as needed. It is rather like having a open dictionary next to an open book.

All the search results are displayed next to the page you were reading or writing when you did the search.

All of the instructions and explanations for the plugins are available to be opened in a new page to the right side of the plugin being used.

Another surprising context is named the neighborhood, an arbitrarily large set of federated wiki sites that you choose. You can maintain rosters of FedWiki sites that can be used to enlist a neighborhood of sites.

The FedWiki itself adds other federated wiki sites to the current neighborhood if they have a borrowing relationship with any page you open. -(We need a way to turn the feature off and on.)

The FedWiki is programmable and selectable to do computations that involve the content of any open page in your FedWiki. That is an unusual and powerful type of context indeed.

Since there are many FedWiki sites it is useful to have more or less visually identifiable icons for each site. These are called favicons. We learn to recognize sites by their favicon. Hover over any favicon and the FedWiki site name will display--providing context in a federation of sites.

There is a tool that can be added to pages that show the pages that refer to it, going back three hops. This is a nice graphic image providing context for the page in the FedWiki site and neighborhood.

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Here is the code: DOT strict digraph rankdir=LR node [shape=box style="solid,rounded,filled" fillcolor=lightyellow penwidth=3 color=black] HERE NODE node [style="solid,rounded,filled" fillcolor=white penwidth=1 color=black] edge [style=solid penwidth=1 color=black] BACKLINKS NODE -> HERE node [style="dotted,rounded,filled" penwidth=1 fillcolor=white color=grey] edge [style=dotted penwidth=1 color=grey] HERE BACKLINKS NODE -> HERE

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This feature is demonstrated just below:

DOT strict digraph rankdir=LR node [shape=box style="solid,rounded,filled" fillcolor=lightyellow penwidth=3 color=black] HERE NODE node [style="solid,rounded,filled" fillcolor=white penwidth=1 color=black] edge [style=solid penwidth=1 color=black] BACKLINKS NODE -> HERE node [style="dotted,rounded,filled" penwidth=1 fillcolor=white color=grey] edge [style=dotted penwidth=1 color=grey] HERE BACKLINKS NODE -> HERE STATIC

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Each FedWiki page also has in indicator built in to tell you each page in the neighborhood that links to this page. It has a carrot and label "x pages link here:" and is in the grey area just above the journal, which is a record of the history of the page.

It is possible to do queries across the entire federation of FedWiki servers and sites--so long as the server is accessible on the internet. This search is located just below the journal, the grey history of the page. it is labeled "search".

GraphViz plugin, HTML plugin, Observable plugin, and several other plugins can be used to add navigation and context for FedWiki sites and neighborhoods.

The author of a site can create an Index or several indexes to provide context and navigational aid.

I know of no other platform that provides so many ways to make sense of what you and others in your neighborhood are thinking and communicating. Serious writers and readers will benefit by mastering these context building tools and methods.

I continue to enjoy learning how the FedWiki can help me think and communicate.

Good luck.