[Mediawiki-l] Getting User Data in Extension

[MK]

On Sun, 22 Aug 2010 10:23:10 +0000
mediawiki-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2010 01:29:19 +0200
> From: Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] Getting User Data in Extension
> To: mediawiki-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Message-ID: <i4pn7q$sm7$1 at dough.gmane.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> 
> MK wrote:
> > I need a way to get the user's name and password to obtain an "edit"
> > token to use with api.php for a form that will be a special page in
> > an extension.

> You can't get the user password. It's not stored in plaintext
> anywhere. Just this points that you are trying to solve the wrong
> half mof the problem.
> And still, getting the token inside mediawiki wouldn't need having the
> user and password..

Just to clarify: the special page will be a form.  The fields
correspond (approximately) to the structure of the pages in the wiki,
for example, here the page listing mediawiki itself:

http://directoryng-dev.fsf.org/wiki/MediaWiki

Nb, this information appears outdated (lol) but don't bother creating a
user to correct it (yet) as the site is still in development.  Anyway,
if you view the source you'll notice the page uses more than a dozen
templates (one megalithic template was not flexible enough) and a
similar number of Semantic properties, and I want to spare the user
these details. So the form data will be processed to create a page.
You say I do not need to access api.php to do that, therefore I don't
need to password to get an "edit" token, etc -- how would I go about
that?

> No problem. You can require a right in order to use that Special Page.
> Take a look at how other restricted special pages do it.

Yes, if I understand that correctly, it is done with group privileges.
However, I still need to be able to attach the *specific user* to the
creation of the page (there may be a separate database for that or just
embedded comments, not sure yet). 

> > 2) be added via the special page/form->api.php including the real,
> > specific user who added the page.
> 
> Who added this requisite? The special page runs inside mediawiki, it
> can directly insert the article, why would it need to go via api.php?
> (look at FauxRequest if you still want to go this rout, but it seems
> the wrong one)

Okay, I guess this is sort of re-iteration, but how would a special
page "directly insert the article" -- keeping in mind it needs to
return form data to a php script on the server for processing which
will add the MW + Semantic markup?   Again, I do not want to require
the user to learn the templates, or the chance to screw them up, etc.,
so it cannot be a simple "create page".

-- 
MK <halfcountplus at intergate.com>