Hacking MediaWiki (for users)

Presented at Linux Users of Victoria usergroup, 2008.

Transcript

1. Brianna Laugher Linux Users of Victoria November 2008 meeting Hacking MediaWiki (For Users) http://www.mediawiki.org/
2. • Me: 2005—now Wikimedia editor, Wikimedia Commons administrator ~ 2 years, frustrated wannabe hacker • You: Use MediaWiki outside of Wikimedia, comfortable with basic editing Who are we?
3. • MediaWiki/Wikimedia • Wiki structure • Magic words, access levels • User JS/CSS – Gadgets • “Uselang” hack Outline
4. Open­source (GPL) wiki engine software (uses LAMP) MediaWiki Wikimedia MediaWiki Name of a social movement; also US charity (Wikimedia Foundation)
5. • Subpages Wiki structure
6. By default only in talk, user pages Subpages Help:Subpages
7. • Subpages • Links Wiki structure
8. Special:MostLinked Special:WhatLinksHere Special:RecentChangesLinked Special:WantedPages Links Help:Links
9. • Subpages • Links • Categories Wiki structure
10. Categories Help:Categories Nine special pages for categories
12. • Subpages • Links • Categories • Templates Wiki structure
13. Page transclusion: {{foo}} <noinclude>, <includeonly>, {{subst:foo}} Parameters Templates Help:Templates
16. Special:ExpandTemplates
17. Special:ExpandTemplates
18. • Subpages • Links • Categories • Templates • Namespaces Wiki structure
19. “Front” page + talk page • Main, Project, Help • Template • Category • Special* • Image, Media* • MediaWiki (* = psuedo namespace) Namespaces Help:Namespaces
20. Special:RecentChanges Special:SpecialPages Special pages Help:Special pages
21. Special:Upload Image namespace ­> File (soon!) [[Image:foo.jpg]] to embed [[:Image:foo.jpg]] to link to image page, not embed [[Media:foo.jpg]] to link to file directly Images (uploaded files)
22. “System [interface] messages” Edit MediaWiki: pages to overrride defaults (sysops only) Search on Special:Allmessages to find the right message/page MediaWiki namespace Manual:System message
24. MediaWiki:sidebar MediaWiki:welcomecreation MediaWiki:copyrightwarning, 2 MediaWiki:searchresulttext MediaWiki:uploadtext Interesting pages
25. About the sidebar... Manual:Interface/Sidebar
26. About the sidebar... Move search box to top for usability
27. About the sidebar... MediaWiki:Mainpage Main Page Move search box to top for usability
28. About the sidebar... MediaWiki:Mainpage Main Page Move search box to top for usability Delete defaults, Add your own links
29. MediaWiki:Common.css MediaWiki:Common.js Monobook skin: (same for others) MediaWiki:Monobook.css MediaWiki:Monobook.js Look & feel
30. Modify an existing one: User:Foo/monobook.css,js Myskin – empty to start with Skins – roll your own Your user page Name of skin. Must start with lowercase
31. “Behaviour switches”: __NOTOC__,__TOC__ #REDIRECT [[Foo]] __HIDDENCAT__ (on category pages) Magic words Help:Magic words
32. __HIDDENCAT__ Help:Magic words
33. Look like {{CAPS TEMPLATES}} Especially used in templates ­ context. • Time, revision related • Stats! {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} {{NUMBEROFEDITS}} {{NUMBEROFUSERS}} {{PAGESINCATEGORY:Foo}} Variables Help:Magic words
34. Special:ListGroupRights • “Anonymous”/IP editor • (registered) User • ­> Autoconfirmed! • Sysop (==”admin”) • Bureaucrat • Bot User access levels Manual:User rights
35. Time ­ $wgAutoConfirmAge Edit count ­ $wgAutoConfirmCount After passing both, User automatically graduates to Autoconfirmed (On Wikipedia thought to be ~ 4 days) Autoconfirmed?
36. Semi/protection Manual:Administrators
37. Semi/protection Manual:Administrators AND non- autoconfirmed users!
38. Massively simplify user JS/CSS sharing: no more copying user subpages MediaWiki:Gadgets­definition ­> New Preferences tab JS/CSS Gadgets Extension:Gadgets
39. MediaWiki:Gadgets­definition MediaWiki:Gadget-section-browsing-gadgets MediaWiki:Gadget-Navigation popups List of file names MediaWiki:Gadget-foo.js/css
40. Special:Preferences ­> Gadgets
41. Gadget rec: HotCat Instead of this: [[Category:Melbourne Cricket Ground]] Try this: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ MediaWiki:Gadget­HotCat.js
42. Make your edit box less scary: Gadget rec: wikEd http://enwp.org/WP:WIKED
43. (This is not really recommended...) Use it to make different versions of special pages, eg upload form Uselang parameter overrides user language prefs Special:Upload?uselang=fr – I can see the French version of the form without changing my prefs “Uselang” hack http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ Commons:Redesigning_the_upload_form
44. What if I make a link to Special:Upload?uselang=blah ? For each message 'Foo', MW checks • MediaWiki:Foo/blah (localised message) • MediaWiki:Foo (localised default wiki lang message) • MessagesBlah.php file (MW defaults) “Uselang” hack http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ Commons:Redesigning_the_upload_form
45. • http://mediawiki.org is half­decent now • Still lots of info on http://meta.wikimedia.org/ • IRC is popular: irc://irc.freenode.net/mediawiki • MLs: mediawiki-l • Forum: http://mwusers.com/ (unofficial) Support
46. Questions? Brianna Laugher brianna@modernthings.org These slides are dual­licensed GFDL1.2+, CC­BY­SA­3.0. Screenshots are GFDL/GPL, WMF logo is all rights reserved, MediaWiki logo is public domain. Thankyou! http://brianna.modernthings.org/