MediaWiki

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computing: software: content management: wiki: MediaWiki

Overview

MediaWiki is the software used for this wiki, and seems to be the most mature (and most rapidly developing) wiki software available.

Pages

see also Developer Docs, below

versions
- MediaWiki 1.11 may require some changes to your configuration when upgrading
- MediaWiki 1.12 has some substantial changes to the parser, breaking some usages of extension functions/tags
common operations
- installation
- customization
- upgrading MediaWiki
- backing up MediaWiki
- fighting spam posts in MediaWiki
- creating a custom Special page in MediaWiki
- skinning
- embedding MediaWiki content in other pages (on the same server)
extensions
- LiquidThreads: threaded forum which takes over the talkpages
- SpamFerret: advanced spam filtering database (in progress but functional)
- W3TPL: scripting language (in progress but functional)
- /Special: special pages with documentation on this site
  - Interwiki: modified version of Stephanie Amanda Stevens's workhorse
  - LogPost: for debugging POSTed data
  - SiteSubscribe: for managing site subscriptions, with support for PayPal
  - /NukePlus: enhanced version of mwsite:Extension:Nuke
advanced
- /content programming: programming with wikicode
works in progress
- subwikifying MediaWiki
- mirroring a MediaWiki site on a laptop
- MediaWiki customization for an outward-looking site
- /Flattr: using MediaWiki with the Flattr service
- /federated: notes on turning MW into a distributed platform

Links

Official

MediaWiki software's official web site
- Documentation
- installing, running and developing for the MediaWiki software
- User's Guide / Help index
Editing:
- Magic words:
  - Meta needs to be merged with MediaWiki; has some info MediaWiki lacks
  - MediaWiki.org
  - see also: mwsite:Manual:Magic words for coding info
- Manual:Parameters to index.php: list of standard arguments used in MW URLs
- Help:Variables: built-in variables
  - old version on Meta
- Advanced techniques
  - Help:Template
  - Help:Substitution
Administration & Customization:
- Customization (see also MediaWiki customization)
- Quickbar Customization
- Creating custom skins, etc.
- Extensions: see /extensions
- LocalSettings.php
Coding
- Database layout: what the tables do
- Manual:Variables: guide to writing extensions which define new variables
  - seems to be wrong in some ways; examples don't work, and examples on Meta work better (need to find page) --Woozle 15:53, 17 September 2007 (EDT)
- Directory of Coding Docs at SourceForge

Reference

Wikipedia:
Secunia: security vulnerability database

Notes

Programming Notes from one developer who was doing some relatively simple modifications to MediaWiki; describes where a lot of the basic nuts and bolts are.

Tools

Word2MediaWiki: VBA script which converts Microsoft Word documents to MediaWiki format

Help

MediaWiki Forums (unofficial, but the response seems to be positive)

Wish List

RSS/Atom feeds for:
- Specific pages only
- Watched pages only
- Other users' contributions only (maybe the ability to select which users to include, with "[x]new users" being an option -- then you'd check everyone except yourself, and new users would automatically get added to the list)
...and are there feed readers out there which can do this kind of filtering on their own, perhaps? They seem to be the exception, rather than the rule, and anyway as long as the feed itself contains Every Change To The Site, I can't use it as a source for a public aggregator page (e.g. the one at SluggySquad). Seems like filter parameters should be part of the URL, even, though I doubt that's the case.
subwikis

Developer Documents

A number of documents are included with the MediaWiki package, found in the /docs directory. They are reproduced here for easier reference, annotation, and discussion. (The actual names are all lowercase.)

This page is in need of updating. These articles all reference old documentation; it's not clear whether it's worth keeping them up-to-date (are they found anywhere on mediawiki.org?). Also, the pages should be renamed to lowercase where appropriate and as subpages of this page, e.g. /deferred.doc.