Allow import of existing markdown files

[vdecine]

While simply copying existing markdown files to the wiki directory allows access to them, they are not indexed for search. Did i miss something ? Otherwise it would be a nice feature to be able to build a search index from all files on demand...

[mblayman]

You didn't miss anything. I had not considered users who would want to add their own data directly to the wiki area. I think the idea is good and valid so I think I'll do two things:

1. Add a command line option to reindex the content on startup.
2. In the admin interface, I'll add the same reindexing functionality.

Indexing has to occur on the whole wiki again because MarkWiki does not track arbitrary file system changes.

How does that sound?

[vdecine]

It sounds great :) I also noticed that this feature would be helpful if you edit your notes from outside of markwiki (say with you favourite editor...)

[lmichelbacher]

+1 for importing and including imported pages in the search index.

Ideally, reindexing would be triggered by file changes so search results are always fresh. Although, depending on the number of pages this might not be feasible.

[mblayman]

Thanks for the suggestion, @lmichelbacher.

Listening for file changes is a large chunk of work (which I know because I've done it before on my other project, handroll). It involves adding another dependency that knows how to watch for files. I would probably use watchdog if I did that.

Watching for files is kind of a corner case if there are options to reindex. MarkWiki will already update the search index for individual pages if updates through the web interface. Since the web interface is the intended way to update pages, I'm wondering what the use cases are for listening for files.

Do you mind opening another issue on this subject so we could discuss why file watching would benefit you over the reindex option? I'd like to keep this particular issue focused on reindexing all the content.

[lmichelbacher]

I'd love a setup where markwiki is the main web interface to files that live in the cloud (e.g. Dropbox) and is aware of changes I make to these files via other mechanisms.

I understand this use case goes beyond the original one. I'm happy to discuss further but it would mean opening more issues ;).

I'm convinced however, that a Markdown wiki backed by cloud storage could be a great project. I'm not aware of any solution that does this properly (I've been searching for a while). StackEdit is the closest thing I could find. It's really great in terms of editing functionality (maybe a good source for inspiration?) but it's not designed as a wiki and jumping around between files is cumbersome.