[Mediawiki-l] namespaces in relation to initial installation and configuration

[William van Zwanenberg]

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 at 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.