Re: [Wikitech-l] Wikitech-l Digest, Vol 44, Issue 9: Reordering Navigation, Search and Toolbox in Wiki Skin - Wikitech-l

6 Mar 2007

      Thanks Rob and Jim for your replies. I know a lot of WikiMedia is customisable via stylesheets and through the Special Pages and I've been advised to only touch the source code if I have to... However, in this instance I can probably justify a little bit of hacking!
Chris
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Today's Topics:
1. Reordering Navigation, Search and Toolbox in Wiki Skin
      (Kutler, Christopher)
   2. Re: Reordering Navigation,	Search and Toolbox in Wiki Skin
      (Rob Church)
   3. Re: Reordering Navigation,	Search and Toolbox in Wiki Skin
      (Jim Wilson)
   4. Re: "Planet" feed aggregators (Jim Hu)
   5. AJAX and .aspx as technologies for MediaWiki? (Virgil Ierubino)
   6. Re: AJAX and .aspx as technologies for MediaWiki? (Kasimir Gabert)
   7. Re: AJAX and .aspx as technologies for MediaWiki? (Rob Church)
   8. Re: AJAX and .aspx as technologies for MediaWiki? (Simetrical)
   9. Re: "Planet" feed aggregators (Nick Jenkins)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 18:44:37 -0000
From: "Kutler, Christopher"
    Christopher.Kutler@nationalarchives.gov.uk
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Reordering Navigation, Search and Toolbox in
    Wiki Skin
To: wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID:
    88A6AFA61447AC4AB9F280FC6747F908032E1EEF@na-exch1.in.tna.local
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
At the risk of receiving RTFMs, does anyone know if there is a way of changing the order of the Navigation, Search and Toolbox in Wiki Skin so that the Search box comes first, followed by the Nav box then the Toolbox. I was going to just change the order of the code in MonoBook.php, but I'm wondering whether this can be done via one of the stylesheets or something like that.
Any advice would be greatfully appreciated.
Thanks
Chris
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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 18:51:52 +0000
From: "Rob Church" robchur@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Reordering Navigation,	Search and Toolbox in
    Wiki Skin
To: "Wikimedia developers" wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID:
    e92136380703051051q614f06dfi8b5f02a640bd4591@mail.gmail.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
On 05/03/07, Kutler, Christopher
Christopher.Kutler@nationalarchives.gov.uk wrote:
...
At the risk of receiving RTFMs, does anyone know if there is a way of changing the order of the Navigation, Search and Toolbox in Wiki Skin so that the Search box comes first, followed by the Nav box then the Toolbox. I was going to just change the order of the code in MonoBook.php, but I'm wondering whether this can be done via one of the stylesheets or something like that.
Nope, that's more or less the correct method.
Rob Church
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 12:53:55 -0600
From: "Jim Wilson" wilson.jim.r@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Reordering Navigation,	Search and Toolbox in
    Wiki Skin
To: "Wikimedia developers" wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID:
    ac08e8d0703051053i4f9eab03t321af72a412ca469@mail.gmail.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
It may or may not be possible to do this via CSS - but if you're comfortable
with PHP, hacking the skin is probably the best option.
I'd suggest that you probably make a duplicate skin ("MyMonoBook" or
similar) and then hack that one instead.  This will make future upgrades
easier.
-- Jim R. Wilson (jimbojw)
On 3/5/07, Rob Church robchur@gmail.com wrote:
...
On 05/03/07, Kutler, Christopher
Christopher.Kutler@nationalarchives.gov.uk wrote:
...
At the risk of receiving RTFMs, does anyone know if there is a way of
changing the order of the Navigation, Search and Toolbox in Wiki Skin so
that the Search box comes first, followed by the Nav box then the Toolbox. I
was going to just change the order of the code in MonoBook.php, but I'm
wondering whether this can be done via one of the stylesheets or something
like that.
Nope, that's more or less the correct method.
Rob Church

Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 13:55:17 -0500
From: Jim Hu jimhu@tamu.edu
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] "Planet" feed aggregators
To: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID: E7B9B125-4F0B-4BD0-AB6A-EE2A55705023@tamu.edu
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
On Mar 5, 2007, at 1:10 PM, Rob Church wrote:
...
On 05/03/07, Simetrical Simetrical+wikilist@gmail.com wrote:
...
On 3/5/07, Jim Wilson wilson.jim.r@gmail.com wrote:
...
I doubt most Wikimedians even know that the inclusion of new  
extensions
would be considered.  I certainly didn't - until you just said  
something.
Is there a sounding-board somewhere that people can make these  
suggestions
and the community can discuss it?
As far as I've seen, it's mostly harassing Tim and/or Brion until  
they
give you an answer.
You oversimplify too greatly.
A huge proportion of the extensions out there are written by, if I may
be frank, amateurs.
Indeed...this describes me pretty well. I believe "rank amateur"  
comes closer.
...
They may be quick and dirty solutions to fulfill
people's needs at the time. They may not be compatible with the newest
versions of MediaWiki, or may use appallingly bad and even unsafe
practices to get things done, which may lead to the inclusion of
security vulnerabilities; commonly XSS and SQL injection.
For example, I'm pretty sure I used some appalling practices (like  
saving state by serializing data into the page output itself instead  
of to a session or cookie) in the Table Edit extension I just wrote...
But then I don't think it should actually be enabled on the Wikimedia  
cluster.  Since extensions like these are being written by us  
amateurs to get things done on our own wikis, it would be nice to get  
feedback on which of our appalling practices to look out for.   
Perhaps someone with more expertise than the likes of me can add some  
more information to the sections on mediawiki.org about writing  
extensions and special pages.
But I'm NOT expecting the main devs to have the time to do that.
Jim
...
If we're to enable an extension on the Wikimedia cluster, then we have
to be reasonably sure that we can trust the code. This means we have
to review it for security and for sanity, and for performance. This
takes time. Time which we don't have, on the whole.
Some of this can be skipped when the extension is written by an
experienced and trusted developer and uses appropriate techniques to
do things, although there is still a phase of review which (rightly)
needs to take place, so it's still not instantaneous.
Another big problem is that people request the installation of the
most ridiculous and pointless little extensions. There are vast
arguments over how complex wiki text should be, and internally there
is a ripple of discontent over how complex it has become. A lot of the
community's thirst for nonsense was slaked in an efficient and
effective manner by Tim Starling with the introduction of
ParserFunctions. Unfortunately, now they want more. Variables. Arrays.
All sorts of nonsense which, frankly, they *do not need* to write an
encyclopaedia.
The community frequently bitches at the development and system
administration teams to do things faster, but it is the development
and system administration teams which have a responsibility to keep
the sites alive, and which will take the flak - oh yes, there's a lot
of flak to come from all our users - when the shit hits the fan, as it
might do without the proper processes.
Rob Church

Wikitech-l mailing list
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------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 02:55:23 +0000
From: "Virgil Ierubino" virgil.ierubino@gmail.com
Subject: [Wikitech-l] AJAX and .aspx as technologies for MediaWiki?
To: wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org, mediawiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID:
    24dce9db0703051855r5eeb1b09he2dc5c5b6fa8f801@mail.gmail.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
A quick development question.
If an AJAX-enabled, or "next-gen" MediaWiki were to be built, would it be
acceptable for it to have been made in a format such as .aspx (i.e. built
using Microsoft Visual Web Developer)? I was wondering if this might have
some kind of clash with GFDL/Copyleft principles, or accessibility or
compatibility. Would web pages in the .aspx format be acceptable as the
output of the software that Wikipedia runs on?
Thanks.
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 20:04:34 -0700
From: "Kasimir Gabert" kasimir.g@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] AJAX and .aspx as technologies for
    MediaWiki?
To: "Wikimedia developers" wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID:
    52836a540703051904p648e723fvc9dc2770e236c813@mail.gmail.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Hello Virgil,
Most web servers that run wikis are run using open source technology.
ASP.NET is closed source and run by Microsoft, and so I doubt that it
would get far in this community.  The two main languages that you want
to build it in would be PHP or Perl (Python, Ruby, etc, as well).
Kasimir
On 3/5/07, Virgil Ierubino virgil.ierubino@gmail.com wrote:
...
A quick development question.
If an AJAX-enabled, or "next-gen" MediaWiki were to be built, would it be
acceptable for it to have been made in a format such as .aspx (i.e. built
using Microsoft Visual Web Developer)? I was wondering if this might have
some kind of clash with GFDL/Copyleft principles, or accessibility or
compatibility. Would web pages in the .aspx format be acceptable as the
output of the software that Wikipedia runs on?
Thanks.
_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- 
Kasimir Gabert

------------------------------

Message: 7
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 03:30:51 +0000
From: "Rob Church" robchur@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] AJAX and .aspx as technologies for
    MediaWiki?
To: "Wikimedia developers" wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID:
    e92136380703051930l8af8e0bh2c663b5a51c2ff3d@mail.gmail.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

On 06/03/07, Virgil Ierubino virgil.ierubino@gmail.com wrote:
> If an AJAX-enabled, or "next-gen" MediaWiki were to be built, would it be
> acceptable for it to have been made in a format such as .aspx (i.e. built
> using Microsoft Visual Web Developer)? I was wondering if this might have
> some kind of clash with GFDL/Copyleft principles, or accessibility or
> compatibility. Would web pages in the .aspx format be acceptable as the
> output of the software that Wikipedia runs on?

We are not likely to accept an entirely new wiki engine that's just
been built from scratch as the software to run on our servers, closed
source or otherwise, without us having had significant involvement in
the whole development process and without unbelievably amazing
benefits and a completely compatible data storage backend and layout.

I would also state that, in my view, it is completely pointless
contemplating moving to another implementation language unless there
are significant benefits to doing so.

What I have observed, so far, is that this user seems unduly obsessed
with the idea of "MediaWiki 2.0" and even more so with the idea of
writing it on his own. This is a bad move, and a waste of time. We
have invested significant time and effort into developing this
software, and we aren't going to discard that. If you have suggestions
to make for improving MediaWiki, make them, but don't creep about on
our forums while rubbing your hands together like a dot-com
businessman who thinks he's going to slip the Next Best Thing behind
Wikipedia.

Rob Church

------------------------------

Message: 8
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 22:34:35 -0500
From: Simetrical Simetrical+wikilist@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] AJAX and .aspx as technologies for
    MediaWiki?
To: "Wikimedia developers" wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID:
    7c2a12e20703051934t3f835547h1646ac8f20efa78a@mail.gmail.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

On 3/5/07, Virgil Ierubino virgil.ierubino@gmail.com wrote:
> A quick development question.
>
> If an AJAX-enabled, or "next-gen" MediaWiki were to be built, would it be
> acceptable for it to have been made in a format such as .aspx (i.e. built
> using Microsoft Visual Web Developer)? I was wondering if this might have
> some kind of clash with GFDL/Copyleft principles, or accessibility or
> compatibility. Would web pages in the .aspx format be acceptable as the
> output of the software that Wikipedia runs on?

It would be unacceptable.  The Wikimedia Foundation has (successfully)
made every effort to build its infrastructure using only open-source
software: Apache, lighttpd, Squid, and so forth.  It would, as far as
I'm aware, not be willing to use any kind of proprietary software
without good reason.   Switching from Apache to IIS (mod_aspdotnet is
apparently unsupported) would require a really, really good reason.

As Rob says, though, good luck trying to write an MW2 from scratch by
yourself that has a genuine superset of the functionality MW1 has
accumulated over a few years with a number of developers.

------------------------------

Message: 9
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 15:02:35 +1100
From: "Nick Jenkins" nickpj@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] "Planet" feed aggregators
To: "Wikimedia developers" wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID: NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKEENDKCAA.nickpj@gmail.com
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

> > I've fiddled a bit with Planet before; if there's no objection I'll set
> > that up later today. If anyone wants in, let me know where to find your
> > blog. :)
> 
> No objection from me, but: I want us to make sure that all the blog
> posts appearing are only Wikimedia-related. So I would insist that
> blogs either provide a Wikimedia-specific feed, or that we are able to
> filter them on our side by tag.

Oh, I don't know; Sometimes you get some interesting stuff that's not
strictly MediaWiki / Wikipedia / Wikimedia - related.

For example, you might miss out on stats about the number of people that fake
their identity online ( http://wikiangela.com/blog/a-sad-loss/ ) , videos of 
suburbs being hit by asteroids and zapped by aliens 
( http://leuksman.com/log/2006/06/17/video-crap/ ), and maybe at some point a
posting about the OLPC's security architecture ( http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/ivan/ ).

Isn't it nicer to have something organic and freeform and inclusive and alive, 
that flows in unpredictable directions like a good conversation, rather than
something that's narrow and exclusive and walled into a small box?

I say: embrace the weird and the wonderful and eclectic in all its forms, and
let the chips fall where they may - the only criteria should be whether MediaWiki 
(core or extensions) / Wikipedia / Wikimedia / wikis-in-general are a major 
personal or professional interest to the author, and then wiki-related stuff will
just naturally tend to form a large percentage of the planet's content (although
it will include other stuff too). You see this pattern already in other planets
(e.g. Planet Debian). Or at least maybe try that approach at first, and if it 
doesn't work then refine it from there.

All the best,
Nick.

------------------------------

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