XWiki multi-wiki architecture: best practices and cross-wiki search behavior

[laura]

Hello,

I am currently designing the structure of my XWiki instance and I am hesitating between two approaches:

• having a main wiki with a single sub-wiki, which would imply a very deep page hierarchy in the main wiki to organize many pages and subpages instead of using multiple sub-wikis

• or creating multiple sub-wikis depending on the needs

Before making a decision, I have a few questions:

1. Search behavior across wikis
   Does the search functionality work across all wikis and sub-wikis, or is it limited to the current wiki?
   If it is limited, is there a recommended way to perform a global search across multiple wikis?

2. Sharing a single source of files
   I would like to maintain a single source of truth for files (for example using the File Manager in the main wiki) and be able to:

   • access these files from different sub-wikis

   • display or list them in various locations across those sub-wikis

   Is this a recommended approach in XWiki?
   Are there best practices or architectural patterns to achieve this kind of centralized file management? With the file-maanger extension?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[hrapitan]

Hi, Laura!
There was a similar discussion on the forum recently, and I shared my experience there. You might be interested, here’s the link:

Organize content: Using Subwikis or Spaces

Hello guys, we are currently in the process of introducing XWiki in our organization and are trying to decide on the best way to structure our content. We are an organization with multiple business units, each of them having their own content. Our requirement is that employees from one business unit should not be able to see the content of other units. Now, we see two possible approaches: One main wiki with spaces and permissions – All content lives in one wiki, but access is restricted vi…

There are some nuances with single sourcing, which I mention in this thread.

[vmassol]

@laura

• having a main wiki with a single sub-wiki, which would imply a very deep page hierarchy in the main wiki to organize many pages and subpages instead of using multiple sub-wikis
• or creating multiple sub-wikis depending on the needs

If you want to check the difference between nested pages and subwikis: https://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/documentation/xs/admin/base/content-organization/wikis-nested-pages/

@laura

Does the search functionality work across all wikis and sub-wikis, or is it limited to the current wiki?

It can work across wikis (check the search on xwiki.org which does that).

@laura

I would like to maintain a single source of truth for files

You should be able to include/display content from other subwikis inside a given subwiki.

[laura]

Thank you for you answers, I will look at it.

[laura]

@vmassol

It can work across wikis (check the search on xwiki.org which does that).

Is this feature built into XWiki? Or do I need to configure the search?

[vmassol]

@laura

Is this feature built into XWiki? Or do I need to configure the search?

If you’re on the main wiki, the search looks into all wikis.

However if you’re on a wiki, it looks only on that wiki.

See:

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In short: it’s configurable but requires changing some default page.

[laura]

Thank you!