2011/8/20 Ashar Voultoiz hashar+wmf@free.fr
The sidebar code is a hack and it is far from being user friendly. User currently has to edit:
- [[MediaWiki:Sidebar]]
- a message for link
- a message for link name
Afaik that's not true. Those 3 steps are only needed if you need internationalization, in which case it makes sense to have multiple pages. If you just want a simple link and link name you can just use:
*Some article|Click here!
In which case the magic sidebar code will indeed look if there's a message by that name, but if there is not it will output that text raw. So there is no requirement to create two separate messages.
2011/8/20 Ashar Voultoiz hashar+wmf@free.fr
We should just rewrite it from scratch, using some Special page to easily add / remove links. Save them to the database and the cache system.
Yes, definitely! This has been brought up a few times before and I think it's an obvious thing to do.
It was brought up as a project for GSoC:
"Sidebar/toolbar customization GUI"
Regarding the maintainability and automation from one wiki to another, I a shared table solves that easily if it needs to be synchronized across a wiki farm. And if only needed once or twice (export / import) one can use database table export/import from phpMyAdmin even. That's no different from any other database (ie. interwiki).
The Sidebar feature could have an API module or SpecialPage-action that allows exporting to, for example, JSON. Which an then be imported on another wiki through the API or a SpecialPage-action.
(eg. api.php?action=sidebar&op=export or Special:Sidebar/export).
-- Krinkle