Part 3.0 - Organising Content

Sidebar⌘

The sidebar that appears on the left of every page contains a number of useful tools.

A link to the main page.

A link to recent changes - this shows all recent changes made on the wiki in a similar way to pay history.

Random page - takes you to a random page on the wiki.

Help - an external link to the MediaWiki help page. very useful if you forget how to do something.

What links here - shows all pages that link to the current page. This can be useful for many reasons, i.e fixing redirects.

Related changes - shows all changes made related to the current page.

Upload file - allows you to upload a file, this is disabled by default.

Special Pages - takes you to a list of special pages.

Printable Version - generates a printable version of the page.

Permanent link - link.

Page Information - Gives generally useful information about a page.

Special Pages⌘

Contains special pages, that allow you to view or edit certain parts of the wiki.

For example,

All pages - view all pages

Block users - allows you to block a user from the wiki

User rights management - allows you to see permissions of different user groups.

Localsettings.php⌘

While you probably won't be touching code, its important to be aware of this file as all important changes are made here.

In your mediawiki directory, normally located in /var/www/mediawiki, there will be a file Localsettings.php.

This is your for a number of configuration options, from enabling extensions to defining user permissions.

Categories⌘

A category is a page in the Category namespace

[[Category:category name]]

To include a page in a Category:

 put [[Category:category name]] anywhere on the page

Preferences⌘

There are many User preferences that can be changed in Special:Preferences.

Theres also a link at the top right of all pages.

This can allow you to change a number of options that will only effect your account,

such as skin changing, gadgets, timezone and alot more.

creating a template⌘

To create a template, we simply create a page prefixed with Template:

The template can contain anything you like.

Templates are stored in the Template: namespace.

Using a template⌘

To include a template:

{{TemplateName}}

we can use tags <noinclude> and <includeonly> to specify which parts of the template are included.

we can also pass paramenters into a template:

Written by : {{{Name|}}}

we include it with a parameter:

{{Footer|Name=David}}

When to use a template⌘

Footer/Header

Info box

Navigation boxes

Generally items that will appear on more than 1 page

Wikipedia uses info box templates on many pages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_person

Templates

Create new page Template:Footer in Template namespace:

----
Made from organic source code.

Use it on normal page:

{{Footer}}

Create Template:Table template:

{| class="wikitable" width="500"
! colspan="2" | {{{ Title }}}
|-
| Description
| {{{ Description }}}
|-
| Duration
| {{{ Duration | 7 hours }}}
|-
| Prerequisites
| {{{ Prerequisites | Basic knowledge of computer use.}}}
|}

Use it and assign values to the variables:

{{
Table
| Title=MediaWiki for Content Editors
| Description=MediaWiki course for power users
| Duration=14 hours
}}

Namespaces⌘

Namespace's are used to distinguish between different types of content.

Namespace is shown as a prefix to the page name, e.g Talk:MyPage

A Namespace seperates out your content, so a page MyPage in the Talk namespace is different to MyPage in the Main namespace.

You can't create a namespace by trying to create any page with a prefix.

It needs to been created in your Localsettings.php file, and should rarely be done.

define("NS_NAME", 44);

$wgExtraNamespaces[NS_NAME] = "Name";

It's important to make sure that the number is not used by any other namespace, by default -1 - 15 are used.

Skins⌘

You can a skin to change the appearance of your wiki.

You can set a default skin, and by default users can choose there own skin in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering

Custom CSS and JavaScript⌘

Custom CSS can be added on MediaWiki:Custom.css and MediaWiki:custom.js pages.

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:CSS

Exercise ⌘

• Move date into a footer Template.
• Add footer template to all your pages.
• Create a cheese category and add your pages to it.
• create a Food Category and add your "cheese" page to it.

Links

Internal link to another page: Main Page

[[Main Page]]

Internal link to another page with custom name: Go to Main Page

[[Main Page| Go to Main Page]]

Internal link to section on current page: Go to Templates section

[[#Templates| Go to Templates section]]

Internal link to section on another page: Go to Templates section on MediaWiki for Content Editors page

[[MediaWiki for Content Editors#Templates| Go to Templates section on MediaWiki for Content Editors page]]

External link with custom name: Apple Inc.

[http://apple.com Apple Inc.]

Image link:

[[File:Arduino logo.png| link=http://arduino.cc]]

Magic words and variables

Disable edit section on page:

__NOEDITSECTION__

Force showing Table of Contents:

__FORCETOC__

Get number of pages:

{{NUMBEROFPAGES}}

Redirects

Create redirect:

#REDIRECT [[New Page]]

Customization

• Custom CSS styles can be added to MediaWiki:Common.css page in MediaWiki namespace.
• Custom JavaScript code can be placed on MediaWiki:Common.js page in MediaWiki namespace.
• Sidebar can be changed on page MediaWiki:Sidebar in MediaWiki namespace.