Someone asked me the following question:
I'm considering using a wiki as a documentation tool for a collaboratively written project. The main functionally I need is a table-of-contents navigation, probably similar to how a document tree or outline format nests links under a multiple categories.
In response, I wrote up the following review of some of the Wiki and CMS options I've used and am familiar with. This isn't an exhaustive survey of the solutions out there, but my report of solutions I have experience using feel confident recommending. Other suggestions are welcome.
TOC of Single Page
When I left Bell Labs, we were using Twiki and were using the built in TOC variable for pages. Like Word Processing table of contents, this works by editing your page naturally using headings, and then inserting a %TOC% variable at the top of the page. The variable automatically generates a table of contents based on the headings you've used in the page. MediaWiki features a similar TOC variable.
TOC of Multiple Chapters and Pages
If you're looking to create a document that consists of a series of chapters and pages, like a traditional book, then you might be more interested in Drupal's Collaborative Book module. This module allows you to create books with chapters, and assign pages to chapters in the book. You work organically by creating pages and assigning the pages in a hierarchical book outline. The Drupal documentation itself is built as a series of books.
The administrative display for organizing a book is really quite good.
I was working with a client that wanted to basically take a printed publication and later move their editing process to a web-based application that allowed them to provde a companion ebook. The idea of a living document suited itself to using Drupal's book module. With the module, they can create a site organized in chapters as the printed book is, and also export or print the book as a single page PDF.
As you probably know, Google began it's Book Search project a while ago, scanning the collections of prominent academic libraries in the US and England. We're now beginning to see the most practical uses of Google Book Search. Google began offering free PDF downloads of books in the public domain -- books that were published before 1923 or whose copyright has expired. See for example this copy of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty scanned from the Library at Stanford.
I had to read this book in grad school. Students will be able to save quite a few dollars I suppose because of this, but think of the money they'll spend printing these things out. Someone's got to come up with a usable ebook reader. I'm certainly not scrolling through a book like this on my PPC PDA, even in landscape mode. When's the affordable, easy to use E Ink based product going to hit so I can read a novel like Jean Luc Picard in his "Ready Room"?
In any case, this is a great development. If we do see a usable method for toting these ebooks around, I can't see why Google couldn't begin selling ebooks like Amazon does. But maybe that's years away from being a reality. The good thing is the dead tree data is getting digitized in some standardized and accessible fashion.
Amazon's Online Reader is really nice, by the way. Here's a demo using a Beatles book.