On 20 Apr 2005, at 14:40, Rowan Collins wrote:
Whether this could be done for the interface messages is kind of a different question - as long as having them in the database seems desirable, it would be wasteful to have to check the database, find nothing there, and then fill in from a default, every time a message needed retrieving. And having them in the database, editable in the wiki-way, does seem like a Good Thing in general.
But really, it's just a matter of presentation; if there were a "Special:CustomisedMessages" page which only showed what you'd changed, it could indeed complement Special:Allmessages, which shows the defaults, but also highlights how you've changed them.
This doesn't seem difficult, from a schema point of view. All you need is a timestamp at which the language was loaded into the DB, and add a WHERE clause to restrict it to greater than that timestamp.
I haven't looked at SpecialAllmessages.php, but it would seem it could be parameterized right in there. Not sure where the "language files loaded" timestamp should go. It could probably even be file metadata for when /config was last touched -- but that raises all sorts of complications.
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