Tools for Massive Knowledge Base + Mind Mapping
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Hello All,
I'm looking at a project, that will contain a massive amount of documentation, how-to guides, scripts, and such. I'm trying to see what options are out there after a few weeks of testing various apps and platforms out. I'm looking for the following primary features:- Ability to Sync to a Github Repo
- Clean Looking UI
- Export to PDF
- Mind Mapping Tools / Mermaid Diagrams
- Integration with Zapier, Make, or N8N (Preferred)
- Writing in Markdown or accurate exporting to Markdown
- Scalability, there will be a ton of data
I've taken a look at Outline, Wiki.js, Docusaurus, MKDocs, Gitbook, Bookstack, and a few others. Does anyone have any thoughts on any other apps, which don't necessarily have to be a Cloudron app?
So far the contenders seem to be Wiki.js (Version 3, Alpha), and Docusaurus (Multi-Tenant). Bookstack might work, but seems feature limited for this project, lack of extending it, and exporting to PDF, it's not very clean.
Thank you!
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@robi said in Tools for Massive Knowledge Base + Mind Mapping:
See Joplin?
Yeah, I use that for personal notes -- but the project needs to be "open" and web-based for contributions. Joplin would require them to download the software and integration-wise, not sure about pushing content from Joplin to a Github repo.
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These sorts of things?
- https://nodexl.com/
- https://infranodus.com/
- https://superset.apache.org/ (already packaged for Cloudron)
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@marcusquinn Yeah, I was thinking about something like WordPress, but potentially being forced to use Multi Site, which might work depending on the plugins used.
Essentially, I'm thinking something that can be logically segmented by topic area and the best example I can seem to come up with at the moment is https://learn.microsoft.com.
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@JLX89 Could totally do that with WP. I've vast experience with themes & plugins, too, so pretty sure you could find a WP solution for all of the above, and certainly develop things if there were feature-needs gaps.
If it were me, this is the way I'd go. Gutenberg has come of age, and I believe is going to remain the standard for CMS. It's also a portable skill everyone can find value in, is very well documented, and had abundant YouTube tutorials.
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@marcusquinn Yeah, I was thinking along those lines too -- I appreciate it!
Thinking it out a bit more, I was thinking about using WordPress as the "publishing and design" platform, and publishing the site as a Jamstack using Gatsby to Vercel to reduce the footprint.
So far, I've only really found GitItWrite for publishing and pulling from GitHub. I'll have to take another look, but that plugin seems to have a lot of problems.
Do you think using a Knowledgebase plugin would be best, or something like ACF or combination of the like? I'm still leaning towards probably using Multisite to segment things, unless I can change things up when pushing to Gastsby and out to Vercel or similar platform.
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Some related plugins to the above:
- https://printmy.blog/
- https://code-block-pro.com/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-mermaid/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/ultimate-markdown/
UI Can be whatever you want it to be, especially with a WordPress theme like Kadence, or the latest Twenty-Twenty-Four + Full-Site Editing (Look up PootlePress vids on YouTube).
In Gutenberg you can type with most markdown and it'll convert as you go. Blocks are very light HTML, and could be transcribed either way if really needed. Editor has native version-control. You can implement all sorts of publishing workflows and approvals.
I mean, WordPress is arguable as big of an OS as Microsoft, and they use WordPress for their own documentation and forums. WordPress.com is actually one super-massive multi-site. Enterprise accepts it commonly nowadays. Most web agencies have consolidated onto it. FOSS. What's not to like?
Does the scale of the project expectations have a budget to match?
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@marcusquinn That all seems good, I'll start experimenting with things
@marcusquinn said in Tools for Massive Knowledge Base + Mind Mapping:
Does the scale of the project expectations have a budget to match?
To a point, starting small and working through it -- trying to get a proof of concept at the moment.
I really appreciate it!
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@JLX89 No need for JamStack, it's a glorified cache layer. Just making things difficult for yourself with that.
I've worked on sites with millions of posts, completely optimisable for that. Can add ElasticSearch if needed for typo-tollerant searching. Can make the whole think mulilingual if needed.
(Checkout brandlight.org as an example, although I do need to do some maintenance on it.)
No need for a specific KB plugin, ACF covers all you need there.
I don't understand the need for multi-site, when you can just use Post Types, Categories, and User Roles within one site.
Not sure on the audience for this, and why GitHub would need to be involved, but the project ought to start with whatever is quickest and easiest for all.
Feel free to DM me if I can help more. Knowledge is free, when I can find time, getting more involved, I'd have to understand the story more.
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@JLX89 There you go again, would be super-quick to make a POC with WP, don't throw time at something that doesn't have a high chance of a significant return for the effort though, or make it look too easy, since the challenges of massive documentation projects are more in training than they are in the stack.
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@girish I've thought about this for a while. I wonder if the forum and users would benefit from having a "Commercial Projects" section? Where people could posts projects like the above, and invite interest for collaborations, consulting, recruitment, etc?
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If your content is composable, https://www.sanity.io is the way to go.
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For just the Mind Mapping aspect, this WiseMapping looks pretty good:
https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/12024/wisemapping
AppFlowly looks promising for a Knowledge Base:
