Documentation for the Universal Wiki Converter's new GUI.

Available as of v.46 As of v. 46, the UWC will have a new GUI.

Table of Contents

Installing and Running

1. Download the uwc zip
2. unzip it in a folder of your choice
3. run one of the following: (You may need to give execute permissions to the sh scripts.)
   • run_uwc.bat (Windows)
   • run_uwc.sh (Linux)
   • run_uwc_on_mac.sh (Mac)

Prerequisites

1. Java 5 (a.k.a. JDK 1.5) or higher
2. A user/login id and password which has write permission to the space(s) you wish to add converted content to
3. The Confluence you want to send pages to must be running and accessible.
4. The Remote API must be turned on. See Adminstration -> General Configuration -> Remote API (XML-RPC & SOAP)
   

backup We recommend that you back up Confluence before running the UWC. (In theory this process involves no data loss, no deletions, but back up to be safe and easily revert to an earlier state.)

Using the new GUI

The new GUI provides the following basic features:

• The ability to convert other wiki's syntax to Confluence syntax
• The ability to export certain wiki's data into individual files that the UWC can use best
• Provide more feedback to the user when a conversion or export is occurring and after.
• Contain the UWC's most important functionality in the main tab: Conversion Settings, and hide lesser used functionality in the Other Tools tab
• Provide Keyboard Commands for as many features as possible
• Provide Help documentation more directly.

It does not:

• remove the need for the user to edit properties files in some situations. Some Examples:
  • Users who wish to export their Mediawiki will still need to edit the exporter.mediawiki.properties file.
  • Users who wish to import tikiwiki gallery images, will need to edit the settings.tikiwiki.properties file
  • Users who wish to change which converters are used will still need to edit their wiki's converter properties file
• display all possible logging messages. Only the ones deemed most important will be displayed in the Feedback Window. For more extensive debugging and otherwise log messages, the user will still need to examine the uwc.log.

Conversion Settings

To convert or export a wiki, the user must set the following settings:

Type

This indicates the wikitype you are converting from.
Examples: Mediawiki, Tikiwiki, etc.
If the wikitype you are interested in is not displayed in the drop-down menu, then the UWC is not prepared to handle that wiki's conversion. Note: As many wiki's share certain syntaxes, it's possible for a clever user to take advantage of existing converters in a particular converter.XXX.properties file, and simply comment out the ones you don't want. If nothing else, unconverted pages can be uploaded to Confluence using the choice NoSyntaxConversions.

Attachments

This is a wiki specific setting that is used to determine where attachments and other info not contained within the wiki syntax is located. You will need to read your wiki's UWC specific notes (Example: UWC Mediawiki Notes) to find info on which directory should populate this setting.

Pages

Choose files or directories using the Add and Remove buttons. Each file chosen will represent a page in Confluence. If you choose a directory, all pages below that directory will be converted. The contents of each file will be wiki specific, but in most cases will be the wiki syntax for that page.

Address

The address of the Confluence you will be uploading the converted pages to. It should look something like the following:

• localhost:8080
• something.com/confluence

Login

Your username for the Confluence you are uploading these pages to. This username will need to have write permissions to the space you indicate.

Password

The password for the above login.

Space

The Confluence spacekey you are going to upload the pages to. Remember that the login you use must have write permissions to this space.

Converting

Once you have set all the required settings, the Convert button will become available. Choose it to start your conversion.

Exporting

The UWC is prepared to handle the export of certain wikis (jotspot, mediawiki, etc.), to prepare them for conversion by the UWC. The exporter will only become available, if the Type setting is for a wiki the UWC can export.

You will need to edit the exporter.XXX.properties file. See your wiki's UWC specific documentation (Example: UWC Jotspot Notes) for more info on that. At the very least, you'll need to set where the UWC will export the wiki to.

When you're properties file is edited, and you're ready, choose Export to export your wiki. As you'll have set the output directory in your exporter properties, once the export is complete, you should be able to find your exported pages in the directory you indicated.

Other Tools

These are optional settings and tools that can be used but don't have to be.

Optional Settings

Pages will be sent to Confluence after conversion

By default, the UWC will send your converted pages to the Confluence you have indicated. But certain users, in particular developers, may not need this. They may just need a file representing the converted Confluence syntax, so they can improve their conversion, but not lose a lot of time uploading files.

The UWC always creates a version of the page in it's output/output directory. The file representing this Confluence syntax will be the same as the name it's going to get in Confluence if it was to be uploaded.

Unchecking the Pages will be sent... option simply means that the conversion completes after the files are saved, but before they would be uploaded.

Launch Feedback Window after convert or export

By default, the UWC will launch the Feedback Window after every convert or export. If the user doesn't want this, just uncheck the Launch Feedback ... option.

Restrict Attachment Upload Size

The user may want to restrict the size of attachments that could be uploaded to Confluence. Check the Restrict Uploaded Attachment Size... option, and set it in the associated text field. See UWC Restrict Attachment Size Feature for more info on what to put in that setting.

Developer Tools

Test Connection

Click the Test Connection button to get feedback on your Confluence connection settings. If there are problems with the settings, you'll receive an Error message in the Feedback Window. If there aren't any problems, you'll get the message:

Testing Connection Settings... SUCCESS.

Regex Tester

Non-developers can probable skip this one.

Developers:
Click the Regex Tester to launch a regular expressions tool. You can use it figure out new conversions that you can add to your converter properties file.

Launch Feedback Window

Click this to Launch the Feedback Window. This is useful to see previously output feedback messages.

Keyboard Commands

Most of the commands in the UWC can be controlled with the Keyboard.

Accelerators

Cx- means the OS specific accelerator. So: Windows users will get Ctrl, Mac users will get Cmd, etc.

Quitting

The quit command is also OS specific, so: Windows and Linux will get Ctrl-X, and Macs will get Cmd-Q.

Navigating the menu

To navigate the menu with the keyboard, use the Alt key followed by the underlined letter displayed by the menu.

List of Commands

More on Remove Pages
Choose the pages/directories you want to remove from the dialog by clicking on it, or tabbing to that panel and using the up and down arrows. You can choose multiple items by using the shift key. Then click Cx-R to remove them.

What about...

Saving Settings

Settings are designed to be saved automatically, including when you quit. There's a save option in the menu, and you should feel free to use it, but it really won't matter.

Reloading Converters

Every time you convert, the converter.XXX.properties file is re-loaded. So, change the properties file, and then convert.

UWC Version Info

This is visible in the title bar of the UWC.
The title should say:
Universal Wiki Converter v.X, where X is the version number.

Screenshots

UWC Gui v3, Restrict File Attachment Size	UWC Gui v3, Feedback Window	UWC Gui v3, Adding Pages Dialog	UWC Gui v3, Other Tools tab
UWC Gui v3, as it appears on load

Demo Video

Demo video for UWC v3.0