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Create a Python-powered personal wiki

Written by

in

Computer Science

A Python-powered personal wiki can be built using a lightweight web framework like Flask. Below is a simple, functional personal wiki application with features like creating, editing, and viewing pages, with content saved as markdown files.

Python-Powered Personal Wiki (Flask + Markdown)

python
from flask import Flask, render_template_string, request, redirect, url_for, abort
import os
import markdown

app = Flask(__name__)
WIKI_DIR = 'wiki_pages'

if not os.path.exists(WIKI_DIR):
    os.makedirs(WIKI_DIR)

HTML_TEMPLATE = """
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>{{ title }}</title>
    <style>
        body { font-family: Arial, sans-serif; margin: 40px; }
        a { text-decoration: none; color: #007BFF; }
        a:hover { text-decoration: underline; }
        .menu { margin-bottom: 20px; }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
    <div class="menu">
        <a href="{{ url_for('index') }}">Home</a> |
        <a href="{{ url_for('edit_page', page_name=title) }}">Edit</a> |
        <a href="{{ url_for('create_page') }}">Create New</a>
    </div>
    <h1>{{ title }}</h1>
    <div>{{ content|safe }}</div>
</body>
</html>
"""

EDIT_TEMPLATE = """
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Edit {{ title }}</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Edit Page: {{ title }}</h1>
    <form method="post">
        <textarea name="content" rows="20" cols="80">{{ content }}</textarea><br>
        <input type="submit" value="Save">
    </form>
    <a href="{{ url_for('view_page', page_name=title) }}">Cancel</a>
</body>
</html>
"""

CREATE_TEMPLATE = """
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Create Page</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Create New Wiki Page</h1>
    <form method="post">
        <label>Page Name: <input type="text" name="page_name"></label><br><br>
        <textarea name="content" rows="20" cols="80"></textarea><br>
        <input type="submit" value="Create">
    </form>
    <a href="{{ url_for('index') }}">Back</a>
</body>
</html>
"""

@app.route('/')
def index():
    pages = [f.replace('.md', '') for f in os.listdir(WIKI_DIR) if f.endswith('.md')]
    return render_template_string("""
        <h1>My Wiki</h1>
        <ul>
            {% for page in pages %}
            <li><a href="{{ url_for('view_page', page_name=page) }}">{{ page }}</a></li>
            {% endfor %}
        </ul>
        <a href="{{ url_for('create_page') }}">Create a New Page</a>
    """, pages=pages)

@app.route('/wiki/<page_name>')
def view_page(page_name):
    filepath = os.path.join(WIKI_DIR, f"{page_name}.md")
    if not os.path.isfile(filepath):
        return redirect(url_for('edit_page', page_name=page_name))
    with open(filepath, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as file:
        content_md = file.read()
    content_html = markdown.markdown(content_md)
    return render_template_string(HTML_TEMPLATE, title=page_name, content=content_html)

@app.route('/edit/<page_name>', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
def edit_page(page_name):
    filepath = os.path.join(WIKI_DIR, f"{page_name}.md")
    if request.method == 'POST':
        with open(filepath, 'w', encoding='utf-8') as file:
            file.write(request.form['content'])
        return redirect(url_for('view_page', page_name=page_name))
    if os.path.isfile(filepath):
        with open(filepath, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as file:
            content = file.read()
    else:
        content = ''
    return render_template_string(EDIT_TEMPLATE, title=page_name, content=content)

@app.route('/create', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
def create_page():
    if request.method == 'POST':
        page_name = request.form['page_name']
        if not page_name.isalnum():
            return "Invalid page name. Use only letters and numbers.", 400
        filepath = os.path.join(WIKI_DIR, f"{page_name}.md")
        if os.path.exists(filepath):
            return redirect(url_for('edit_page', page_name=page_name))
        with open(filepath, 'w', encoding='utf-8') as file:
            file.write(request.form['content'])
        return redirect(url_for('view_page', page_name=page_name))
    return render_template_string(CREATE_TEMPLATE)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run(debug=True)

Features

Create new pages.
Edit existing pages using a Markdown editor.
View rendered pages.
Markdown-based for portability and ease of formatting.

How to Run

Save the script as wiki.py.
Run the script with python wiki.py.
Visit http://localhost:5000 in your browser.
Your wiki pages will be stored in a wiki_pages folder in .md format.

Let me know if you want to add user authentication, search, or media uploads.

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