wikiCalc is currently released in late Beta test. This means that it is not fully tested, has bugs, but has all of the features that will be in the 1.0 release. It is quite useful in its own right and is able to create, publish, and maintain a wide variety of web pages. For example, this page and many of the ones it links to about wikiCalc were created with the wikiCalc Beta. (The graphical design comes from a CSS file and the side bar is in a simple custom template. Much like a blogging tool, you can automatically wrap the output in static nice-looking stuff if you don't want the default.)



The Beta release is available for use on Windows, Mac, Linux/Unix, and other platforms that can run the Perl language. On Windows you need only download a single .exe file that will install wikiCalc, a Perl runtime, and assorted sample files. Other platforms need to have Perl already installed (but they commonly come with it pre-installed).



The program is written by Dan Bricklin (me) and is available under a GPL 2.0 license. When shipped it will also be available under other licenses and also as an optional commercial hosted service with support. SocialText will be doing the commercial distribution of wikiCalc and providing the resources for me to run an Open Source development project derived from wikiCalc. For historical purposes, you can read my essay explaining a little more about what wikiCalc is and why I created it on the "About wikiCalc 0.1" page on my blog.



This version includes a "Demonstration Setup" option to get you up to speed quickly if you just want to see what a browser-based spreadsheet feels like. It also has facilities for runtime recalculation and functions that can make simple web service requests.



wikiCalc is currently aimed at users who are comfortable figuring out how best to use a new tool. It is very flexible and there are many options to meet many different needs. It should be especially of interest to the DIY (Do It Yourself), corporate IT, and VAR (Value Added Reseller) crowd. Such people can set it up for use by others.

