COLLADA Public Wiki:Wiki customization project

Virtually everything about this wiki's interface can be customized, although only sysops or bureaucrats can make the changes.

Interface text

The text in all messages, sidebars, and so on, is customizable. To see a list of the variables that control it and their current values, select System messages from Special pages.

Left navigation boxes

MediaWiki:Sidebar defines the layout of the upper left navigation box. Admins can change the displayed text, change the links, or add or remove elements or sections.

Defined in MediaWiki:Sidebar, with format similar to this:

* navigation  <!-- "navigation" section; title is in MediaWiki:navigation -->
** mainpage|mainpage
** topcatg-url|topcatg
** portallist-url|portallist
** portal-url|portal
<!-- ** currentevents-url|currentevents -->
** recentchanges-url|recentchanges
** randompage-url|randompage
** helppage|help
** sitesupport-url|sitesupport
* resources  <!-- "public collada resources" section; title is in MediaWiki:resources -->
** forum-url|forum
** bugs-url|bugs
** hostsite-url|hostsite

To find the label that appears as a link in the left navbar, look at the content of the article named after the vertical bar--e.g., MediaWiki:forum. To find the destination URL or link for for that label, look at the content of the article named before the vertical bar--e.g., for forum-url, look at article MediaWiki:forum-url.

toolbox

The content of the left-side toolbox is controlled in the wiki skin .php files (for security, I suppose); e.g., in Monobook.php, the default skin. However, the toolbox link text is still defined in MediaWiki in a similar way to the navigation box.

For example:

• title: MediaWiki:toolbox
• What links here text: MediaWiki:whatlinkshere
• Printable version text: MediaWiki:printableversion

Software extensions

The MediaWiki software is designed with primarily Wikipedia and its sister projects in mind, so there are many areas that the software doesn't support. Individuals have contributed extensions to the software that can be installed locally; COLLADA wiki has installed some. To find out which, go to Special pages in the toolbox and click Version.

Installed extensions:

• Special pages:
  • Groups Administration (note that the link installed and displayed in the Special:Version page is incorrect for this and the following extension as of 14:09, 13 June 2007 (PDT); this is the correct link)
  • PrefixAdministration
  • Newest Pages

• Parser hooks:
  • ParserFunctions

• Extension functions:
  • wfSetupParserFunctions, efNewestPages, efGroupsAdministration and efPrefixAdministration

• Parser extension tags:
  • (none)

Hooks:

• LanguageGetMagic: wfParserFunctionsLanguageGetMagic
• ParserClearState: (ExtParserFunctions, clearState)

To do

List here things that you'd like to see addressed in the wiki interface.

Searching

• Can we set default search to include Help and COLLADA namespaces?
• There seems to be something odd about the default search and not sure whether it's configurable. For example, "accessor" finds entirely different articles than "accessors" and whereas I in fact expected "*accessor*" to do better, it didn't. Need to research this--this might be an indexing problem, as "accessor" finds many articles with that as a partial word but still not finding Using accessors article.
• Maybe we want to set search size to 3 chars instead of 4. Seems like there'll be a lot of TLAs that people might want to search for--"DOM", "XSI", and so on.

Other

• Define processes for adding, reviewing, approving(?) Portal:Tutorials. DONE 5/16ish by Elf
• Install MediaWiki parser functions so easier to do conditional templates. DONE 5/18 by Roger.
• Possibly install Extension prefix security to allow providers of plug-ins to edit info about their plug-ins but others to only read it.

External links

• MediaWiki FAQ
• Wikimedia user guide
• Configuration settings list
• Interface text list
• MediaWiki release mailing list