I am a completely newcomer to Mediawiki and have an enquiry regarding its installation and configuration. I hope therefore that subscribers of this mailing list will make allowances for me if I have inadvertently mailed the wrong list were my enquiry would be better directed at another. If this is the case, I apologise and would ask that users direct me to a more appropriate list that is more suitable.
I write because I am seeking some guidance and assistance concerning the issue of Namespaces. However, before I explain the nature of my enquiry in detail it's necessary to first explain where I am at with regards to installing the software.
At the moment, I have the software installed on a Sandbox server that is running of a XAMPP architecture. Once the wiki has been built and tested however and I have finalised registering a domain, the wiki will be installed on a Linux based server utilising a LAMP architecture (or if not Linux, Solaris as no firm decision has yet been made).
The current windows based sandbox installation is as follows:
- PHP 5.30 installed
- MySQL 5.1.37 installed
- DB user: root@localhost
- PHP's memory limit is 128M
- Installation directory c:\xampp\htdocs\eurowiki
- Script URI path: /eurowiki
The questions I have concerning namespaces are as follows. I apologise if these questions seem somewhat elementary but as I said, I am a complete newcomer to the software and I have only just started to get my head round how it all works and have only just begun to read all the information contained within the help section of the main mediwiki website:
1. In addition to the default namespaces created during initial installation, can I create namespaces of my own and if so, how do I do so? I would like to create potentially another 5 unique namespaces specific to my wiki installation. What I need to know therefore is (a) if this is possible and if so (b) how to do so.
2. When creating a new article (wiki page), how do I assign it to a specific namespace? Is this achieved through nothing more complicated than giving it a name in accordance with the names associated with one's existing namespaces eg: 'Help: Editing an Article' - to create an article regarding how to edit a given page within the "help" namespace?
3. How can I generate a list of all articles with links to corresponding article page contained within a given namespace and display this in a "special" wiki page (article)?
4. Is it possible to assign different and specific templates for all articles within a given namespace? For example, for purely aesthetic reasons (and because I think it will make orientation of the wiki that much easier for users), I'd like to change some of the graphics and background of all article pages contained within the "help" and "manual" namespaces. They might have say a different logo and a blue background. I wondered if this was possible without having to engage in a major PHP programming hack and if so, how. I'm a reasonably competent PHP programmer but I don't want to have to start making major changes to the course code unless absolutely necessary.
5. Does the software impose any restrictions upon creating one's own additional namespaces beyond those installed by default - e.g. naming conventions, number and type of characters, etc, etc? if so, what are these?
In addition to answering these questions, I would be grateful if somebody could reply to this message by explaining in greater detail the process of editing articles within the "mediawiki" namespace so that I can go about changing the appearance of the master templates (and hence the look and feel of the wiki as a whole) and so that I can go about adding 3rd party extensions that will increase functionality.
At the moment, if I attempt to create a new article (e.g.: MediaWiki:Common.css in order to alter the general appearance of the wiki), I get the following 403 page appear with the following wording:
"Access Forbidden - you don't have permission to access the requested object"
Please can somebody explain what is going on here as I obvious want to change start making changes. This same 403 appears regardless of whatever article I try to create where in the process I'm assigning it to a namespace.
If when you do reply, you could bear in mind that although I am above averagely competent when it comes to IT issues, I am not a systems engineer and I'm not an experienced programmer (and I have very little idea how media wiki works) so I'd be really grateful if you replied in as simple a language as possible as explained everything in detail. This way I can learn from the experience.
Thank you.
William van Zwanenberg wrote:
I am a completely newcomer to Mediawiki and have an enquiry regarding its installation and configuration. I hope therefore that subscribers of this mailing list will make allowances for me if I have inadvertently mailed the wrong list were my enquiry would be better directed at another. If this is the case, I apologise and would ask that users direct me to a more appropriate list that is more suitable.
No problem. Rest assured, this is the right mailing list.
The current windows based sandbox installation is as follows:
PHP 5.30 installedMySQL 5.1.37 installedDB user: root@localhostPHP's memory limit is 128MInstallation directory c:\xampp\htdocs\eurowikiScript URI path: /eurowiki
You should have also included the mediawiki version, so we can yell at you if it isn't the latest one :)
The questions I have concerning namespaces are as follows. I apologise if these questions seem somewhat elementary but as I said, I am a complete newcomer to the software and I have only just started to get my head round how it all works and have only just begun to read all the information contained within the help section of the main mediwiki website:
In addition to the default namespaces created during initialinstallation, can I create namespaces of my own and if so, how do I do so? I would like to create potentially another 5 unique namespaces specific to my wiki installation. What I need to know therefore is (a) if this is possible and if so (b) how to do so.
Of course it is possible. It is explained at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Using_custom_namespaces
When creating a new article (wiki page), how do I assign it toa specific namespace? Is this achieved through nothing more complicated than giving it a name in accordance with the names associated with one's existing namespaces eg: 'Help: Editing an Article' - to create an article regarding how to edit a given page within the "help" namespace?
Right. Just give it a name beginning with the namespace name + a colon.
How can I generate a list of all articles with links tocorresponding article page contained within a given namespace and display this in a "special" wiki page (article)?
Not sure what you want here. Does Special:WhatLinksHere fits your needs? It can also be reached from the toolbox.
Is it possible to assign different and specific templates forall articles within a given namespace? For example, for purely aesthetic reasons (and because I think it will make orientation of the wiki that much easier for users), I'd like to change some of the graphics and background of all article pages contained within the "help" and "manual" namespaces. They might have say a different logo and a blue background. I wondered if this was possible without having to engage in a major PHP programming hack and if so, how. I'm a reasonably competent PHP programmer but I don't want to have to start making major changes to the course code unless absolutely necessary.
Yes. Use CSS (edit MediaWiki:Common.css) and change the background color for ns-X where X is the number of your namespace.
Does the software impose any restrictions upon creating one'sown additional namespaces beyond those installed by default - e.g. naming conventions, number and type of characters, etc, etc? if so, what are these?
No. Simply give them numbers from 100 onwards and remember that mediawiki treats even numbers as content namespaces and odd as their talk namespaces.
In addition to answering these questions, I would be grateful if somebody could reply to this message by explaining in greater detail the process of editing articles within the "mediawiki" namespace so that I can go about changing the appearance of the master templates (and hence the look and feel of the wiki as a whole) and so that I can go about adding 3rd party extensions that will increase functionality.
They are edited just as any other page, but they are used by the software for different functionalities. As it would be dangerous to allow its editing to anyone, you need to be a wiki admin in order to edit pages there.
At the moment, if I attempt to create a new article (e.g.: MediaWiki:Common.css in order to alter the general appearance of the wiki), I get the following 403 page appear with the following wording:
"Access Forbidden - you don't have permission to access the requested object"
Please can somebody explain what is going on here as I obvious want to change start making changes. This same 403 appears regardless of whatever article I try to create where in the process I'm assigning it to a namespace.
That path seem to be handled by apache instead of the wiki. What kind of url are you using? Looks like an error with your redirect rules.
If when you do reply, you could bear in mind that although I am above averagely competent when it comes to IT issues, I am not a systems engineer and I'm not an experienced programmer (and I have very little idea how media wiki works) so I'd be really grateful if you replied in as simple a language as possible as explained everything in detail. This way I can learn from the experience.
Thank you.
The current windows based sandbox installation is as follows:
PHP 5.30 installedMySQL 5.1.37 installedDB user: root@localhostPHP's memory limit is 128MInstallation directory c:\xampp\htdocs\eurowikiScript URI path: /eurowiki
You should have also included the mediawiki version, so we can yell at you if it isn't the latest one :)
I'm sorry, I should have included this. I'm using version 1.15.1 - i.e. the latest version.
In addition to the default namespaces created during initialinstallation, can I create namespaces of my own and if so, how do I
do
so? I would like to create potentially another 5 unique namespaces specific to my wiki installation. What I need to know therefore is
(a)
if this is possible and if so (b) how to do so.
Of course it is possible. It is explained at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Using_custom_namespaces
Thank you. I should really have checked this.
How can I generate a list of all articles with links tocorresponding article page contained within a given namespace and display this in a "special" wiki page (article)?
Not sure what you want here. Does Special:WhatLinksHere fits your
needs?
It can also be reached from the toolbox.
Not really. My apologies, I should have explained this in more detail.
To give one very simple example of what it is I'm trying to achieve, I want to put all "help" related pages, in a namespace called "help." All articles within this namespace will, as the name suggests, be pages offering guidance of how to navigate one's way around the wiki, search for content and edit/modify existing content etc, etc. In order to make finding the specific "help" page one might potentially require, it would be helpful to create an index article page that did itself, list all other pages (articles) within the namespace.
So, using my example, if there were say 20 pages within the help namespace, I'd want to create a "Help:IndexPage" page that listed all 20 pages and included internal links to take you to the page in question.
I hope this makes sense.
In addition to answering these questions, I would be grateful if somebody could reply to this message by explaining in greater detail
the
process of editing articles within the "mediawiki" namespace so that
I
can go about changing the appearance of the master templates (and
hence
the look and feel of the wiki as a whole) and so that I can go about adding 3rd party extensions that will increase functionality.
They are edited just as any other page, but they are used by the software for different functionalities. As it would be dangerous to allow its editing to anyone, you need to be a wiki admin in order to edit pages there.
I believe I have given myself wiki admin rights based on the account I created for myself but I'm not certain. I apologise if this is a very elementary question to be asking, but can someone tell me how I might check this and more importantly, how I go about changing my account status if I haven't given myself the appropriate access rights?
At the moment, if I attempt to create a new article (e.g.: MediaWiki:Common.css in order to alter the general appearance of the wiki), I get the following 403 page appear with the following
wording:
"Access Forbidden - you don't have permission to access the requested object"
Please can somebody explain what is going on here as I obvious want
to
change start making changes. This same 403 appears regardless of whatever article I try to create where in the process I'm assigning
it
to a namespace.
That path seem to be handled by apache instead of the wiki. What kind of url are you using? Looks like an error with your redirect rules.
I'm not entirely sure I understand your question but what I can tell you is this. I've only step the wiki up in what can only be described as a sandbox server. In actuality, it's running on nothing more than a standalone, non-networked windows PC and is using a XAMPP architecture.
The wiki is operating off localhost.
The URL to access the wiki is: http://localhost/eurowiki/
Which, for reasons I don't quite understand seems to actually result in the following URI actually being loaded: http://localhost/eurowiki/index.php/Main_Page
Given that I want to assign pages to namespaces, and I want to edit the MediaWiki.Common.css page, I need to resolve this issue as soon as possible.
Many thanks.
Not really. My apologies, I should have explained this in more detail.
To give one very simple example of what it is I'm trying to achieve, I want
to put all "help" related pages, in a
namespace called "help." All articles within this namespace will, as the
name suggests, be pages offering guidance of
how to navigate one's way around the wiki, search for content and
edit/modify existing content etc, etc. In order to
make finding the specific "help" page one might potentially require, it
would be helpful to create an index article page
that did itself, list all other pages (articles) within the namespace.
So, using my example, if there were say 20 pages within the help namespace,
I'd want to create a "Help:IndexPage" page
that listed all 20 pages and included internal links to take you to the
page in question.
I hope this makes sense.
One way of doing this would be to manually create the page and include links to all of the pages.
Another way would be using the Dynamic Page List extension to automatically generate the list of pages based on the namespace.
Which one is best for you would depend on how often you see the list of pages changing.
I'm not entirely sure I understand your question but what I can tell you is
this. I've only step the wiki up in what can
only be described as a sandbox server. In actuality, it's running on
nothing more than a standalone, non-networked
windows PC and is using a XAMPP architecture.
The wiki is operating off localhost.
The URL to access the wiki is: http://localhost/eurowiki/
Which, for reasons I don't quite understand seems to actually result in the
following URI actually being loaded:
http://localhost/eurowiki/index.php/Main_Page
Given that I want to assign pages to namespaces, and I want to edit the
MediaWiki.Common.css page, I need to resolve
this issue as soon as possible.
This is the default way Mediawiki handles URLs. In order to edit Mediawiki:Common.css, you would need to go to http://localhost/eurowiki/index.php/Mediawiki:Common.css.
One way of doing this would be to manually create the page and include
links
to all of the pages.
Another way would be using the Dynamic Page List extension to
automatically
generate the list of pages based on the namespace.
Which one is best for you would depend on how often you see the list of
pages changing.
Given that I don't want to have to manually update the index page every time a new page is created and added to the namespace, I'd prefer to have some way in which the index page could be generated automatically. This way it would always remain in synch and up-to-date.
William van Zwanenberg wrote:
How can I generate a list of all articles with links tocorresponding article page contained within a given namespace and display this in a "special" wiki page (article)?
Not sure what you want here. Does Special:WhatLinksHere fits your
needs?
It can also be reached from the toolbox.
Not really. My apologies, I should have explained this in more detail.
To give one very simple example of what it is I'm trying to achieve, I want to put all "help" related pages, in a namespace called "help." All articles within this namespace will, as the name suggests, be pages offering guidance of how to navigate one's way around the wiki, search for content and edit/modify existing content etc, etc. In order to make finding the specific "help" page one might potentially require, it would be helpful to create an index article page that did itself, list all other pages (articles) within the namespace.
So, using my example, if there were say 20 pages within the help namespace, I'd want to create a "Help:IndexPage" page that listed all 20 pages and included internal links to take you to the page in question.
I hope this makes sense.
The easiest way would be putting {{Special:Allpages/Help:}} at Help:IndexPage. That would include there the list from that namespace that Special:Allpages generates.
In addition to answering these questions, I would be grateful if somebody could reply to this message by explaining in greater detail
the
process of editing articles within the "mediawiki" namespace so that
I
can go about changing the appearance of the master templates (and
hence
the look and feel of the wiki as a whole) and so that I can go about adding 3rd party extensions that will increase functionality.
They are edited just as any other page, but they are used by the software for different functionalities. As it would be dangerous to allow its editing to anyone, you need to be a wiki admin in order to edit pages there.
I believe I have given myself wiki admin rights based on the account I created for myself but I'm not certain. I apologise if this is a very elementary question to be asking, but can someone tell me how I might check this and more importantly, how I go about changing my account status if I haven't given myself the appropriate access rights?
Go to Special:Listusers You should see there the groups you are in: eg. (sysop, bureaucrat) The account created during install is an administrator account. A bureaucrat can make other people an admin. That's done from Special:UserRights.
I'm not entirely sure I understand your question but what I can tell you is this. I've only step the wiki up in what can only be described as a sandbox server. In actuality, it's running on nothing more than a standalone, non-networked windows PC and is using a XAMPP architecture.
The wiki is operating off localhost.
The URL to access the wiki is: http://localhost/eurowiki/
Which, for reasons I don't quite understand seems to actually result in the following URI actually being loaded: http://localhost/eurowiki/index.php/Main_Page
Given that I want to assign pages to namespaces, and I want to edit the MediaWiki.Common.css page, I need to resolve this issue as soon as possible.
Many thanks.
That configuration should be ok. So, if you go to http://localhost/eurowiki/index.php/MediaWiki:Common.css you see a message of "Access denied" provided by the web server ? (ie. no sidebar or other part coming from the wiki) Does it work if you use instead http://localhost/eurowiki/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.css ?
So, using my example, if there were say 20 pages within the help namespace, I'd want to create a "Help:IndexPage" page that listed all
20
pages and included internal links to take you to the page in
question.
I hope this makes sense.
The easiest way would be putting {{Special:Allpages/Help:}} at Help:IndexPage. That would include there the list from that namespace that
S>pecial:Allpages generates.
I'll try what you suggest and let you know how I get on
Go to Special:Listusers You should see there the groups you are in: eg. (sysop, bureaucrat) The account created during install is an administrator account. A bureaucrat can make other people an admin. That's done from Special:UserRights.
I've managed to create an Admin account with all the appropriate user rights so thank you.
That configuration should be ok. So, if you go to http://localhost/eurowiki/index.php/MediaWiki:Common.css you see a message of "Access denied" provided by the web server ? (ie. no sidebar or other part coming from the wiki) Does it work if you use instead http://localhost/eurowiki/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.css ?
http://localhost/eurowiki/index.php/MediaWiki:Common.css appears to work fine
However ...
Having successfully created a "mediawiki.common.css" article page, and added the following line to it:
#f-powerbyico { display: none; }
In order to suppress the display of the mediawiki icon, I'm finding that it has no effect.
Any suggestions of what might be accounting for this?
On 12/02/2009 02:26:40 PM, William van Zwanenberg - will@propping-up-the-bar.com wrote:
... snip
However ...
Having successfully created a "mediawiki.common.css" article page, and added the following line to it:
#f-powerbyico { display: none; }
In order to suppress the display of the mediawiki icon, I'm finding that it has no effect.
Any suggestions of what might be accounting for this?
Finally, something I can help with :)
This appears to be a simple spelling error. On my page the id is:
<div id="f-poweredbyico">
By the way, categories are an another way to group related pages together.
The extension Add Article to Category may interest you, http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Add_Article_to_Category
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