Informl is an open-source wiki with some unique capabilities. In addition to traditional wiki features, you can create forms and work with data from the responses without doing any programming or writing any HTML or CSS. This means you can create (and deploy) simple, database-backed web applications in minutes. Informl is built using Ruby on Rails, with an eye toward broader integration into Rails projects.

Links: screencast, demo, sandbox book, features, to-do, FAQs, discuss, mailing list, download, install, get involved

Email us at informl "at" folklogic.com.

David sometimes blogs about Informl

Wikis are great for creating text on web sites, because you can just write without worrying about HTML, FTP, CSS, etc. You just bring up a browser, type the text you want, hit submit, and voilà! -- your text is on the web. Though you will need to learn some wiki-specific mark-up, it's usually pretty simple, so it won't get in your way.

Now, what if you want to move beyond just creating pages with text and images and want to add some radio buttons -- and maybe a comment field so readers can let you know how much they like what you wrote? Normally, you'd have to drop out of the wiki and do some programming (HTML, Java, PHP, Rails, etc.) to set up the forms, collect the input, store it, and view the results. What if you didn't have to do that? What if you could just create the form directly with the wiki and all the rest of the work was done for you?

Well, that's what we are trying to do with Informl. It's a souped-up wiki that allows you to create web forms using wiki mark-up. Once you've created a form, people can fill it out, and the information is stored in a database. The results are immediately available -- you can view the results of individual form submissions as well as tables summarizing information from all the submissions -- and templates for both individual and summary result output are automatically created whenever you create a page with a form.

The information from forms is also integrated in the wiki itself, so once you've created a form and have some submissions, you can reference information from the submissions in other wiki pages. For instance, you may want to create a summary page of only the negative responses so you can concentrate on what needs to be improved -- or a page of just positive responses for when you need a morale boost.

Sound interesting? Want to know more? Take a look at Informl in action by watching the screencast and trying out the Sun King Demo and Wine Store Demo or by playing in the sandbox. You can take a look at the list of current features and our project planning.

What do you think you might want to use Informl for?

What specifically do you think you might use Informl for?

What other features would you like Informl to include?

Acknowledgements: Informl builds on some great open source software projects, including: Ruby and Ruby on Rails; the i2 wiki; hpricot; and the acts_as_ferret, RESTful Authentication, and BrainBuster plugins.