Manual talk:FAQ/Meta

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Are Talk-pages GFDL or non-GFDL?

Are the [Talk-pages] also non-GFDL since they are not included in the distribution ? // Rogper 20:59, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Talk pages are GFDL. MediaWiki is GPL though. I don't think this is related to them not being included. Accorded to Brion's latest edit, the reason help pages are not included is just because there is no clean, generic, internationalized help page set. Angela 06:18, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

How can I create a template or page which automatically generates a link list of all articles in a specific Category?

I'd like to create a template which generates a link list of all pages in a specific category. Is this possible with standard mediaWiki syntax? If not, is it possible to integrate php code or SQL commands to a text? --Sindbad 15:38, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Why not just go to the category page? --Thiebes 23:10, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I've installed MediaWiki and pages display properly, but when I try to preview or save an edit, my changes are lost. What am I doing wrong?

If it helps, the page in question is http://www.wikitography.org. If there is a help document I've missed, please point me in that direction. Clubjuggle 18:32, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Can I have ads on my wiki if I use the mediawiki engine?

Does the license allow me to collect revenue from ads on my wiki?

My understanding of the license is that it applies to your wiki software alone, not the content you put in it. I'm not a lawyer though.

Nothing prohibits you from making money on your wiki in any way. Only selling the mediawiki software without regarding the GPL would be a problem (but I doubt anyone wants to try that).

Is the history of a user attached to their ip address?

If a user has a dynamic ip, is the edit history of that user stored with that ip or just with the user name?

Yes, 1.5.3 has a configuration setting to place the ip in the recent changes.

Multiple File Upload

Is there any way I can get multiple file uploads either by mod or by hand?

Someone at the MediaWiki Users Forums posted a link to an extension that allows multiple files to be upload in one shot. You can find the link in the thread called "Multi-File Uploader..."

See SpecialUploadLocal. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 18:48, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Setting Feature Articles

As the admin of my own wiki, how do you set articles to be featured?

You can't as far as I know. The closest thing you can really do is to set up separate pages named things like "Featured Article for Day 3 Week 8 2006" (or whenever you plan to feature that particular article) for each article containing whatever you want to be shown on whatever page you're planning to actually feature them. Then create a template that transcludes the page titled "Featured Article for Day {{CURRENTDOW}} Week {{CURRENTWEEK}} ((CURRENTYEAR}}" and place it wherever you want the article to be featured (I'm assuming it's your main page), but don't subst: it, or it won't update. 158.135.246.52 22:05, 19 April 2006 (UTC) en:User:ACupOfCoffee

Can I convert wiki pages to pdf?

I want to convert some wiki pages to pdf, but how can I do it?

I found http://sector7g.wurzel6.de/pdfcreator/index_en.htm did the job very well. -Sprintstar 10:12, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Change footer and sidebar of MediaWiki ?

Does anyone know how / where I can change the footer and the sidebar of mediawiki? I want to add some text about hosting etc., but I can't find where to do it. Maybe an idea to add this to the FAQ ?

You probably need to edit the relevant template of your wiki. Have a look in the 'skins' directory. It does involve modifying php code, so take a copy of a skin and make it your own skin (see the FAQ) before making changes. -Sprintstar 10:14, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I have edited the appropriate parts of the skin files and created a new template for my mediawiki. However, I cannot seem to get rid of the orange left border of the footer. Tried doing border: none; border-left: none; Also tried setting my own border but all 3 borders appear as I specify except the orange left one.. This only happens in Internet Explorer... any suggestions?? Thanks

I just ran into this problem myself. Make sure to change the color of the border-left properties of the footer in IE50Fixes.css, IE55Fixes.css, and IE60Fixes.css

Try to type in your wiki

index.php/mediawiki:sidebar

--Ondrash 16:21, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Offline Version of Wiki?

I happen to be in a situation where Internet access is very limited. Are there any current or future projects in the works to create DVD versions of the Wiki? If so, where and how can they be purchased.

You can get database dumps of wikipedia, which you could then install on your own Mediawiki installation. [See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download here.]--JohnMcDonnell 21:21, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Re-arranging headings

I've split the "Customization" heading into "Configuration" and "More complex customization", because it was disproportionately large, and mixed issues of built-in customization facilities with issues of actually changing core pieces of the code. Of course, people asking questions won't necessarily know which is which, but I figure people answering can always move the section. However, if you disagree, feel free to revert the change but make sure you include the answer regarding LocalSettings.php/$wgSitename which was introduced in the same edit. - IMSoP 22:27, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

pre, without the monotype or table

Is there a way to be able to markup a selection of text, as with PRE and /PRE, but without having the text become monotype and in a table like that? .. just have it appear as normal text? -- User:Sysy

I'm not entirely sure what it is that you want to happen, but I think you may want the <nowiki> and </nowiki> tags; they just suppress the wiki's parser from processing everything between them (I used it just then). So as you know: the text between <pre> and </pre> isn't put "in a table", it's just a paragraph with a border round it (OK, it's a subtle difference), and is done using w:CSS. See Help:Editing for more information on what markup is available. - IMSoP 17:42, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Help:Installation FAQ

Is linked in the intro, and redirects to MediaWiki FAQ. - Wikipedia:User:Amgine

Short Urls

Why does wikipedia have urls like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

while my metawiki has urls like this: http://james.westcoastbmx.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

The Wikimedia sites use an Apache configuration to "rewrite" the URL. See Rewrite rules .--Zigger 01:19, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)

I got my Apache 2.2 config to "rewrite" as /wiki/Main_Page, but it screwed up my Monobook css imports and now the page is completely styleless. Anyone been through this before? --JedHunsaker 01:34, 2006 Sep 05

remove auto numbering from TOC and some access question

I went to some wiki sites and their Table Of Content are not numbered, so i was wondering how do i do that?

and also is there any ways to block not log-in users from reading a certain page??

 Looks like they are manually done for now.  
 You can always check that sites FAQ, or even view source (wiki or html) Don't forget to google.  :-)  

see the following link:

as Wikipedia.org has some info on your questions

-- Where it says:

Turning off the TOC numbers
Currently you cannot turn off the numbering of sections in the TOC.

1.4 Beta question about MonoBook.pt formerly xhtml_slim

I know nothing about this, so I´ll just shoot.
Does it have any meaning that the .pt file (I formerly used to change the left nav bar links in 1.3) is in the disabled folder and not active yet?? I really wanted to add a couple of links to the nav bar, but felt a drawback seeing it had changed.. So I tried changing the Navigation links array in DefaultSetting.php, but it didn´t work, The link was actually showing up, but with errors, and also leading to an error page.
Now I really don´t know nothing about computers nor coding, but I really had no trouble getting the things configured in version 1.3. but I need 1.4 since I need the db prefix option.
I just wanted to know if this is only a temporary thing, or will the .pt files have no meaning at all once it gets stable??
Well sorry If I posted this in the wrong area...but as I said I know nothing about computerstuff :-)

Probably the majority of support requests have been related to PHPTAL: problems storing the temporary files, problems loading the temporary files, inconsistency of temporary files, permissions of temporary files, and the inability to run on PHP5 with the older version (and the incompatibility of the new PHPTAL version with PHP4). So, MonoBook no longer uses PHPTAL and has been rewritten. MonoBook.php contains the new base template.

If you manually install PHPTAL and move the skin files out of disabled/ you can use the PHPTAL version of MonoBook if you really want to.

As far as $wgNavigationLinks, note that the strings in there are message names -- you must then create MediaWiki: pages with the actual contents. --brion 22:11, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Help:accept 3 character search Terms

Is it possible to change the search configuration settings to accept searches with only 3 letters in v.1.4?
I undertook a couple of changes under "$wgDBminWordLen" and "$wgDBmysql4"(DefaultSettings.php) but unfortunately without any success.
Of course I was not sure whether this was the right place to tweak these settings.
I also wanted to express my thankfullness since you already helped me out before.

Oh I`m sorry, I see this is a mysql thing(I guess)...(if I am right delete me)

It is indeed. See this mailing list post (which includes a special case for MySQL 3.x) and this one (which includes actual sample config lines). - IMSoP 20:19, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In DefaultSettings.php (certainly V1.4.5) there is link to the MySQL fulltext search tuning documentation.

Users Ask Qs? - Delete Users of Wiki Spam

I imagine this talk page is where users can suggest additions to the FAQ? Is there another place for that? (a FAQ directory run on a wiki sounds ideal!) Must I subscribe to a mailing list?

Is there a way to delete users instead of just blocking for hours? My mediawiki installation was recently the victim of wiki spam and we have WhiteList enabled, so an account UserUser was created by a script I imagine. How do I delete users? Thanks. -bwiese@!cotse.com

When your logged in as a sysops, go to the toolbox -> Special pages. Scroll down until you see block user.

Links to sections in the same document

By default, the label for a section link is whatever appears between the double square brackets. For example,

[[#General]]

is rendered:

#General

I know I can override the label like this

[[#General|General]]

However, in a long article with many internal links (i.e. links to sections in the same document), it is tedious to override the label for every link. Is there a way to configure the default rendering of a section link so that, for links within the same document, the "#" is omitted from the label?

My hunch is that the short answer is no, given the way MediaWiki names articles. Rather than hacking the hell out of the software to get it to possibly work sometimes, but usually screw up your page, I recommend a workaround: Type the article in the non-tedious way into a text editor, (i.e., [[#General]]), then do a find/replace, where you find the following (turning off regular expression searching if necessary): [[# and replace it with: [[Name of the page# and do a "Replace All". You can do this with almost any text editor - no PHP experience required!

Is that sufficient non-tedious?

New contents in a new link box (5.10, 5.11)

By changing the skins/monobook.php it is possible to put the new links in its own box:

	<div class="portlet" id="p-nav">
	  <h5><?php $this->msg('navigation') ?></h5>
	  <div class="pBody">
	    <ul>
	      <?php foreach($this->data['navigation_urls'] as $navlink) {
 >>	        if($navlink['text'] == 'neuer Link 1' ) { ?>
 >>                   </ul>
 >>    		    </div>
 >>		   </div>
 >>		   <div class="portlet" >
 >>		     <h5>eigene Links</h5>
 >>	  		<div class="pBody">
 >>	  		  <ul>
 >>	      <?php } ?>
             <li id="<?php echo htmlspecialchars($navlink['id'])
	        ?>"><a href="<?php echo htmlspecialchars($navlink['href']) ?>"><?php
	        echo htmlspecialchars($navlink['text']) ?></a></li><?php } ?>
	    </ul>
	  </div>
	</div>

'neuer Link 1' is the first Link-Text. If the new box sometimes disappear don't forget to refresh the Wiki-server cache:

http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/wiki/index.php?title=Hauptseite&action=purge

-- 194.95.179.181 06:59, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Navigation menu

Can someone explain in a bit more detail:
a) how and where the following "mainpage" link finds that it needs to write "Main Page" on the menu and how/where it links to "Main_Page" page

b) how I add, for example, an external link

$wgNavigationLinks = array (
	array( 'text'=>'mainpage',	'href'=>'mainpage' ),
        array( 'text'=>'portal',	'href'=>'portal-url' ),
	array( 'text'=>'currentevents', 'href'=>'currentevents-url' ),
	array( 'text'=>'recentchanges', 'href'=>'recentchanges-url' ),
	array( 'text'=>'randompage',	'href'=>'randompage-url' ),
	array( 'text'=>'help', 		'href'=>'helppage' ),
	array( 'text'=>'sitesupport',	'href'=>'sitesupport-url' ),
);

So, what am I supposed to do to add, for example, "BBC News" linking to "http://www.bbc.co.uk"?

Answer to b): (80.135.192.55 21:26, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC))

1. First add a new arrayline in LocalSettings.php: array( 'text'=>'externlink', 'href'=>'externlink-url' ),
2. Then open wikipedia - toolbox -- Special pages
3. select "All pages"
4. Choose namespace: 'MediaWiki'
5. select 'externlink' and edit the displayed name of Navigation-menu-entry to BBC News
6. select 'externlink-url' and edit the the url-address to http://www.bbc.co.uk
7. close all, restart and now may be it works ..., if not refresh Browser-cache and WikiPedia-ServerCache

Answer to a): (80.135.192.55 22:10, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC))
see Answer to b) ; its the same way:

1. open wikipedia - toolbox -- Special pages
2. select "All pages"
3. Choose namespace: 'MediaWiki'
4. select 'mainpage', see >>Main page<< as Menu-text
5. select 'mainpage-url', see >>[[Main_Page]]<< as WikiUrl

The line arry( 'text'=>'mainpage', 'href'=>'mainpage' ) is wrong i think, it must be like this: arry( 'text'=>'mainpage', 'href'=>'mainpage-url' )

No, I imagine it's perfectly possible for both parts to point to the same message. Note that, here on meta, MediaWiki:mainpage contains nothing but the two words "Main page", which happen to be both the description of the link, and its target (think of it like typing [[Main page|Main page]]). The distinction is there so you can make links like [[Project:How to make donations|Donate!]], where the target and text need to be different.

The second thing to stress is that anything that "looks like" a URL - i.e. begins http://, etc - is treated as an external link to that URL (as though you'd used [http://this-is-the-target.example.com And this the text]) and everything else as an internal one (as though you'd used [[This is the target|And this the text]])

So, the short answers are

a): it finds the text in [[MediaWiki:mainpage]] (because that's what the 'text' part points to) and the target also, as it happens, in [[MediaWiki:mainpage]] (because that's what the 'href' part points to)

b): add a line saying array( 'text'=>'bbclink-text', 'href'=>'bbclink-target' ),. Then edit MediaWiki:bbclink-text (in your wiki, not here, obviously) to contain "BBC News" and MediaWiki:bbclink-target to contain "http://news.bbc.co.uk" (assuming you actually meant to link to the news page :p). As already mentionned, beware caching.

Hope this helps. - IMSoP 18:34, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I tried altering the MediaWiki:Portal-url entry in the system messages page to a url of the form http://oururl.tld/stuff as suggested. After reloading the page to ensure there was no cachine, the community portal link on the navigarion bar was to http://oururl.tld/index.php/Http://oururl.tld/stuff which when clicked, lead to a page missing error. What am I doing wrong? Thanks. 66.102.74.120 22:28, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

New question

Ok so I modified my LocalSettings.php as follows (I'm on an iMac OS X 10.3.9):

$wgNavigationLinks = array (
	array( 'text'=>'mainpage',	'href'=>'mainpage' ),
	array( 'text'=>'portal',	'href'=>'portal-url' ),
	array( 'text'=>'currentevents', 'href'=>'currentevents-url' ),
	array( 'text'=>'recentchanges', 'href'=>'recentchanges-url' ),
	array( 'text'=>'randompage',	'href'=>'randompage-url' ),
	array( 'text'=>'help', 		'href'=>'helppage' ),
	array( 'text'=>'test-text',	'href'=>'test-url' ),
);

I created two pages (not sure how to create pages out of the blue, so just created them through a link on my sandbox page): test-text and test-url: test-text has the content "This is the test text" test-url has the content "Test page"

I created another page: Test page with the content "This is the test page."

Theoretically, after "Help" there should be a link called "This is the test text" which opens the page "Test page"

What actually happens is my menu appears as such:

• Main Page
• Community portal
• Current events
• Recent changes
• Random page
• Help
• &lt;test-text&gt;

and when I click on the link, I get the following page:

--error: link target missing-- (There is currently no text in this page)

Questions:

1) How do I get test-text to appear and link correctly? 2) Why don't these new pages appear in the Special:Allmessages page?

Jackdavinci 20:18, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Create the pages "test-text" and "test-url" in namespace MediaWiki . See above Answer to b) : Step2 to 6.

OK, to create a new page in namespace MediaWiki you have to do this:

1. open wikipedia
2. use search : type in: "MediaWiki:test-text" GO
   The page doesn't exist, so click "new", edit and type in "This is the test text", Save page
3. and again: use search : type in: "MediaWiki:test-url" GO
   The page doesn't exist, so click "new", edit and type in "Test Page", Save page
4. and now (only for controlling)

select "All pages"

Choose namespace: 'MediaWiki'

select 'test-text' and see the displayed name of Navigation-menu-entry

select 'test-url' and see the url-address

--80.135.181.196 22:40, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That worked perfectly, thanks!

--24.118.167.226 11:04, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

To clarify the above instructions for adding the new page to the MediaWiki 
namespace for your new navigation link...  The easiest method of this is to 
type the new page directly into the browser's address bar.  For example, 
you're trying to add a page for 'Forums', which is the text for your new nav 
link.  In this example, you would then add the following DIRECTLY FOLLOWING 
index.php on your Wiki:  

           '?title=MediaWiki:Forums' 

without the 's.  The final link would then be:  

           'http://example.com/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Forums'  

From there, you can edit the page, and in this case the only thing that you 
enter is whatever you want the text for your link to be.

Then just repeat the process for your URL: 

           'http://example.com/index.php?title=MediaWiki:http://example2.com/' 

and enter the address into the page.  The net result of this is that your new 
Navigation link will work.

-Lord Nakitomimaru

Jackdavinci 15:26, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have managed to get the above to work. But it would be great if it were possible to do the above without having to change :::LocalSettings.php. Is it possible to change LocalSettings.php in the wiki?

Failing that, would it be possible to do somesort of "includ" command so that a wiki page were displayed where the navbar now is? Then it would be a fairly simple matter to change the navbar without having to go through so many steps.

Is there a way of having the navbar create itself on the fly? Tim

How do I change the contents of the navigation toolbar?

The instructions are confusing and when followed literally do not appear to work.

First off, following them in order breaks things.

A

I create a page called "Wiki:Sitemap", where Wiki is the name of my wiki. For example, with something like http://example.org/index.php?title=Wiki:Sitemap&action=edit -- It contains:

Label name

B

I create a page called "Wiki:Sitemap-url", where Wiki is the name of my wiki. For example, with http://example.org/index.php?title=Wiki:Sitemap-url&action=edit -- It contains:

Sitemap

Does this mean that a page called "Sitemap" will be referenced? i.e. http://example.org/index.php?title=Sitemap

C

LocalSettings.php has, at the end:

$wgNavigationLinks = array (
   array( 'text'=>'sitemap',   'href'=>'sitemap-url' ),
);

Results

Now.. not only does the label show up as <sitemap>¹ but the generated link is http://example.org/index.php/--error:_link_target_missing--

What am I doing wrong? Please comment here and leave a note on my talk page.

-- Sy / ^(talk) 00:25, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)

Note 1: that's and-lt-semicolon sitemap and-gt-semicolon. Why can't I state that literally?.. code/nowiki don't work!

As said more than one time: Create the pages "sidemap" and "sidemap-url" in namespace MediaWiki and not in namespace WIKI or something else --80.135.184.190 20:04, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

if you are using mediawiki 1.5.5, first you need to login as a sysop
-mandyavenkatesh

video audio streaming

i am new to mediawiki.. just wondering if mediawiki can do video and audio streaming? it might be useful for projects like news and encyclopedia?

It can be modified so you can upload movie files, like you can images. I think thats probably as close as you will get. -Sprintstar 10:17, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Section Numbering

Having searched for several hours, trying to find the command to turn off section numbering, I'm about ready to give up - how do you turn OFF Section Numbering - not in the ToC, but the actual section titles as displayed in the main content? It's obviously possible - after all, it's everywhere throughout the Meta-Wiki site! I'm just too thick to find it, apparently. ^^

--24.118.167.226 13:49, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

In the latest version, its configerable in your user preferences. -Sprintstar 10:18, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

"create an article with this title"

How can I hack wiki to add possibility to create new article in case when search fails?

See MediaWiki FAQ#How do I show a link to create a page when searches fail? -- /Wegge 23:41, 2005 May 22 (UTC)

print out multiple articles in other languages

I tried the suggestion in MediaWiki FAQ#Can I print out my entire MediaWiki site? in the german Wikipedia, but it didn't work. Do I need to specify this differently in other language-wikis? --83.64.44.185 09:53, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Can you give a link to your attempt?--User:Patrick 10:13, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

"{{:Page International logo}}" did not work in the mediawiki sandbox. 12.207.73.178 19:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh! {{:International logo}} Of course! I thought "Page" was a keyword. Maybe that could be cleared up? --12.207.73.178 19:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Turning off viewcount?

I notice on the Wikimedia Foundation's sites, viewcount is turned off. How do I do this on my own site? I don't want the "This page has been accessed 3 times." message to be displayed, and ideally I don't want the database to be hit to increment view counts in the first place (I already have the apache logs for that). Can I just blank MediaWiki:Viewcount, or will that only turn off displaying the counts? --Delirium 05:07, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See includes/DefaultSettings.php (now at mw:Manual:FAQ) for the complete list of available configuration options, this among them. --brion 07:06, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Resetting Viewcount?

I have generated a bunch of hits in the development of my website that is powered by MediaWiki. Is there some way to reset the counts to zero when I "roll it out" to public access by pointing my domain name to it? --Thiebes 11:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Continuing a list entry after a sublist

I have been googling through the net and scanning through various help pages about editing in MediaWiki, but haven't found any answer to my problem. As it seems this is a "general" Q&A page, or at least used in that way, I will show what I have trouble with:

*list entry A1
**sublist entry B1
**sublist entry B2
here I want to continue with A1
*list entry A2

Is there any way I can continue with list entry A1 after the sublist B? -- Spex 13:47, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If you are asking the question I think you are asking, Spex, then the answer is no. This is not really a limitation of MediaWiki, it's a limitation of HTML/XHTML itself. The way lists are defined, they must be nested in a consecutive fashion, such as:

*
** 
***
**
*

While you can write HTML code to format a non-consecutive list, such as:

*
***
*
**

it won't validate, and probably won't display properly. This was an unfortunate design decision, as the real world is littered with examples of things which cannot be properly described by purely consecutive list indentation levels. Tannin 02:27, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's not about using non-consecutive lists. To clarify my question, I've put up an example of the intented HTML "output" and the approach shown above by using MediaWiki's list markup for this. I do think the problem is the way how the MediaWiki list syntax works. It doesn't offer any way to "close" a list item, like you can do it in HTML as shown.

There is an easy workaround so far: Falling back to using HTML for the whole list. This kinda negates the intent to use MediaWiki syntax only to write content. So the other choice would be something like creating a new syntax for lists and hack it into the wiki where it will be used in. -- Spex 07:17, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Really, there is no need to delete a user ever"

Well, sometimes there is such a need. On a small wiki, the number of users is a significant item, and it only takes a spambot a short while to make complete nonsense of it. MediaWiki needs a proper way to delete users. On my wiki, I backed up the database, took a deep breath, and deleted ~80 wikispam users using phpMyAdmin (i.e., by directly deleting them from the database). It worked just fine, and there is no sign of side effects. Of course I was careful to only delete users with zero edits.

But this is a horrible, hackish way to go about things. A better way to delete zero-edit users is needed. Tannin 02:21, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Search Relevancy

How does one get the 'Relevancy %' in searches? I see it on Wikipedia and a number of other sites, but can't seem to find how to enable it on my own install (using 1.4.4 currently). Any thoughts?

That's using the experimental Lucene-based external search server. --brion 05:33, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Are there any plans to include this in an upcoming version of MediaWiki - perhaps as an option that someone can enable/setup?

You can install the LuceneSearch extension and run the server yourself, but be aware that it's not stable; the server still needs work in various areas (index updates are not automated for instance), and protocols and requirements may change without notice. Unless you are a large site and having problems with the MySQL fulltext index causing pressure on your database servers you probably should not bother with it.

The extension for the search page for 1.4 is in extensions/LuceneSearch in our CVS; the server is in mwsearch, and requires Mono.

See User:Brion VIBBER/MWDaemon for notes. --brion 00:06, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why my MediaWiki cannot return to the right page after saving page

I just installed a mediawiki.

But there is all good except that it is not able to return to the right page after "save page" when editting, and the site show that " cannot find the page".

In fact, the saving action is successful. If I go back to see the page, it is editted as I want.

Can every one help me?

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

List of key features

How about adding this to the FAQ: What are the key features of a MediaWiki wiki web?

I'm trying to choose between various wiki implementations, finding it difficult to get a simple list of what the MediaWiki implementation can do.

Does it support authentication and authorisation? Can you have attachments? Can it search attachments? etc.

See w:Comparison_of_wiki_software --JohnMcDonnell 20:21, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

license question

I do not really understand, what license and rules I should observe. It is very difficult to differ between mediawiki as engine project and Wikipedia as a great encyclopedia.

I'd like to install mediawiki as a CMS working as a communication platform for a small community, so I need to lock pages simetimes and I need to permit signed articles and private meenings, all that is not permitted by Wikipedia.

Can I do it without license violation of mediawiki? I am agree with using of GNU for mediawiki-software, but I really cann't apply the GNU Free Documentation License for contents on my web sites. Is it a problem?

MediaWiki, the software, is licensed under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL).

Wikipedia, the encyclopedia content on *.wikipedia.org, is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Unless you are copying Wikipedia articles into your wiki, the license of Wikipedia is not relevant. The license of MediaWiki also does not apply to your content, only to the software. --brion 17:50, 1 Jul 2005 (UTC)

install more than one wiki (MediaWiki) on a server? Accurate?

Is the Section install more than one wiki (MediaWiki) on a server? accurate? It is written:

If you have a large number of wikis on one host, you may not want to keep a separate copy of the source code for every one. Instead, extract the source somewhere, and for each wiki installation, symlink "index.php", "math", "images" and "style" in the htroot to the equivalent directory in the MediaWiki source.

Which doesn't work for me at least. First of all, there is no directory "style", should this be "skins"? And somehow most of the needed stuff is missing. Is meant copy all except these and symlink them, or should one symlink more? And why especially these directories? BTW.: Is there a document about the directory-structure and the function of the different directories?

---

After install a second wiki site, the first site does not work more, while the second one yes. It gives the error HTTP 500 - Internal server error. If I delete the new site and regenerate the LocalSettings.php of the first site, it comes alive again.

I do what this page says but it does not work. Someone knows what could happen? Thanks.

(The MediaWiki version is 1.4.7, the PHP version is 4.3.9 (apache2handler) and the MySQL version, 4.1.10a.)

Aníbal Germán Camía (versalles@gmail.com)

How to accomplish in a Windows environment?

Relating to the same para:

... extract the source somewhere, and for each wiki installation, symlink the entire MediaWiki directory with the sole exception of the LocalSettings.php file. This can be accomplished with the lndir command (available on some Linux installations) or an equivalent tool.

Any advice for a Windows installation would be appreciated. I tried placing LocalSettings.php in a separate "/subwiki" directory (being sure Apache has assigned proper permissions), and linking to index.php and redirect.php with the Windows shortcut mechanism. However Apache throws a "cannot access a /subwiki directory" error.

Is there any way to "symlink the entire MediaWiki directory"? --Ikester 20:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Uploading of 'corrupt' files

I'm trying to upload a variety of files to my 1.5b3 wiki (PDFs, DOCs and a few others), and I keep getting an error message stating "The file is corrupt or has an incorrect extension. Please check the file and upload again." Now the file itself isn't corrupt, so I guessed it might be the extension, and I made sure that I edited LocalSettings.php correctly to allow the filetypes, which didn't do a single thing.

I also get this error when I'm trying to upload JPG files, but not when I upload TXT files. It's kind of annoying, because I'm using the wiki as an intranet site for my company, and I need to be able to put documents in various formats on there for people to download.

I managed to solve the problem by adding the line $wgVerifyMimeType = false; to LocalSettings.php.

That's not a solution, it's a workaround. Instead, you should try to find out why the file is being marked as corrupt: which test is it failing? --brion 09:06, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what you mean, or how I can check which test it's failing. I'm still kind of new to this side of things.

I've also encountered a problem in that images are no longer displayed as images in their info pages (the MIME type reads 'text/plain'), so you're quite right in that I need a proper solution.

I have the same problem on my wiki. Seems like the #check mime type against file extension test fails. Any known solution to this problem? en:User:jpkoester1

After asking in #mediawiki I tried adding "$wgMimeDetectorCommand= "file -bi"; #use external mime detector (linux)" to my LocalSettings.php file and it works now. cheers en:User:jpkoester1

I tried using "file -bi" to detect the mime, but still no success. On my server I can view the uploaded file without problems using normal applications. Does it sound familiar to anyone? en:User:nieldw

This is a way to fix this

I found that the problem was in the old version of the magic mime files. To fix this, download the newest version of file command from http://ftp.astron.com/pub/file/ decompress it and run the
./configure && make && make install
in the source directory. This will install file and newest magic mime files.

Then (if everything goes well) edit WIKI's LocalSettings.php and add these lines of code:
$wgMimeDetectorCommand= "file -bi";
$wgVerifyMimeType = false; //false? Don't you want true now?
to it. Try to upload your 'corrupt' file again.

I had to add ppt to the application/msword line in includes/mime.types, since my PPT was being tagged as a msword file... It works now - 70.112.253.254 02:21, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I've had continuing problems getting this to work right with Excel and Powerpoint files on my RHEL5 system. I have posted a possible fix on the Mime type detection talk page. Hopefully this helps someone. I'd love to hear if someone has a better idea. --134.140.153.241 02:59, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

1.15.3 may misdetect .doc-files from MS Word 2007 as ZIP files and refuse to accept them. Before the configured method for MIME detection is called, some hard-coded checks are applied, which cause this problem. Use debug logging to find out if those checks cause false-positives. If so, don't waste your time on trying to "fix" the mime detection, which does not even get called!

Create a small wiki farm

The list of the modifications to be made is not is not very simple A to bring. If a small script or a patch were created that would facilitate the installation/configuration.

problem with ini_set("include_path".....) several place, syntax

order : modify config/index.php before cp

............

......

the main index.php has not to forget

Additional symlinks in 1.8.2

In addition to the current directories symlinks in these instructions you should include the .../serialized directory otherwise UTF-8 conversions fail after editing articles. I also found it convenient to include the extensions directory. - N1did 23:05, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

how to install a small farm ?

could someone explain step by step, how I can create a small wikifarm, such as the wikimedia-projects, with my wikis in different languages, and something like "commons", where media-files can be stored, so that all the language-wikis can use them for their pages? thx --Produnis 16:33, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Maybe, it could be usefull, to answer this with an own site, e.g. Help:Wiki farm...?!--Produnis 11:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

How do I change the text of Special pages?

I want to change the text my users see when uploading a file; after a quick look at includes/SpecialUpload.php I can't quite seem to figure out where that text comes from and how I'd go about changing it.

DanielZKlein

See Special:Allmessages. The texts are in pages in the MediaWiki namespace and can be edited.--Patrick 20:01, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

How do I change the timeout time? I don't want to get kicked out in the middle of a post...

Is there a way? To change it to unlimited time before I get automatically logged out, or to increase this time so that the session will last for hours...

/Matt

See php.ini session settings. --brion 09:00, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Hierarchy view

Is there a way to create a hierarchy view of a namespace, kinda of like a site map but it shows the levels, such that the Main Page would be at the top and other pages would be underneath it?

For example:

• Main Page
  • page A linked from Main Page
    • page 1 linked from page A
    • page 2 linked from page A
  • page B linked from Main Page
    • page 1 linked from page B

and so on?

The wiki has a flat page space. Hierarchies, if they exist, are created by linking from page to page, though generally a hierarchy is not expected. Instead you'll have a web of links. If you'd like to make a page with a hierarchical list, feel free to make one. --brion 09:02, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

While the comment above is best practice, it is possible to create small hierarchies using subpages. See w:Subpages for more information. Categories are another way of providing structure for pages. The difference between subpages and catgories is like the difference between email stored in folders and email stored with labels. To enable subpages, you need to add the following to your LocalSettings.php: --JohnMcDonnell 20:29, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

#Allow subpages in main namespace
$wgNamespacesWithSubpages[0] = 1;

Frame code doesnt work for me...

Unfortunately, I don't get the example frame code from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_FAQ#I_want_my_wiki_to_appear_in_a_frame_as_part_of_my_site.2C_but_it_keeps_popping_out_of_the_frame to work... I've tried both commenting and deleting the code from wikibits, but it WikiMedia still busts out of the frame!

I've tried the following approaches of incorporating it:

• require "../wikimedia/index.php";

(gives the error message that wikimedia needs to be set up, which is not true, since I just did that and it works ;))

• <iframe src="../wikimedia/index.php" width="80%" height="110"></iframe>

(busts the frames)

• <frameset rows="80,*" frameborder="NO" border="0" framespacing="0">

 <frame src="wiki2.htm" name="topFrame" scrolling="NO" noresize>
 <frame src="../wikimedia/index.php" name="mainFrame"></frameset> 

(also breaks the frames)

So what am I doing wrong?

Wikimedia is a not-for-profit corporation which runs a number of web sites, including this one. It sounds like you want to configure MediaWiki, the software? Check your browser cache to make sure the file has been cleanly updated. --brion 09:03, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Not sure how it will solve your main problem but you probably need chdir("../wikimedia/"); before require "../wikimedia/index.php"; so it tries to include from the right place and doesn't complain about being set up. --ProgMania 13:41, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I want to put frames in one of wiki page. I activated raw html in wiki by $wgRawHtml variable and other html works except frames. I made the required changes in skins/common/wikibits.js also.

I put following code.

 * <html>
   <frameset rows="80,*" frameborder="NO" border="0" framespacing="0">
   <frame src="http://somesite/php/g.php" name="topFrame" scrolling="NO" noresize>
   <frame src="http://somesite/php/n.php" name="mainFrame"></frameset>
   </html>

                                                                              -- 13:02, 10 Oct 2005

Try Using iframe rather then frame: e.g.

  <html>
  <IFRAME SRC="http://somesite/php/n.php" align=right valign=bottom WIDTH=820 HEIGHT=430></IFRAME>
  </html>
                                                                             -- 16:21, 10 Oct 2005

Change Default Message of Nonexistant Pages

When visiting pages that do not exist, the message "(There is currently no text in this page)" appears. How can I change this message? Thanks.

Go to Special:Allmessages on your wiki, search for that text, and edit the message page containing it. --brion 09:04, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Enable HTTP

Hello. I set MediaWiki up so that I am the only one who can edit pages. If possible, how can I allow HTML coding to work in edited pages? Thanks.

DefaultSettings.php contains the default state of all configurable settings. If you look through there you should find $wgRawHtml; copy this to your LocalSettings.php and set it. --brion 09:05, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

This does not work on MediaWiki >= 1.5.x, what can I do? Thanks

Opening Links in a New Window

Is it posible to make a link open in a new window in my Wiki? Maybe through a stylesheet with a class tag or a Javascript function or maybe using a template? If there is not something available already can I add something like this to a javascript file somewhere? What file would I need to add it to in that case?

<script type="text/javeascript" language="javascript"> function LinkNewWindow(URL, Text) { writeln("<a href='" + URL + "' target='_blank'>" + Text + "</a>"; } </script>

In normal HTML you can just do:

<a href='http://SomeUrl' target='_blank'>SomeName</a>

but that won't work in the wiki. Any help would be great.

have a look on http://www.giswiki.org/index.php/Benutzer:HeinzJ/MediaWiki_anpassen (German language)

Recent changes Via User name

Is it posible to generate a list or resent changes by a specific user. I want to have a list or users nad have links to see changes per users. Right now I just have use Special:Listusers and place the links manualy on each user's page but this is a pain.

Oh I found Special:Contributions&target=USERNAME. I will see if this will work.

I got it the way I wanted with the folloing change to \Includes\SpecialListUsers.php Add these line just after the 2nd line in function formatResult( $skin, $result ). Should start at Line 64.

//Talk and Contributions Links for \Includes\SpecialListUsers.php
//By Jeremy Pyne
//8/1/2005
//jeremy_pyne@gmail.com
$name .= ': ' . $skin->makeLink( $wgContLang->getNsText($result->namespace) . '_talk:' . $result->title, 'Talk' );
$name .= ' ' . $skin->makeLink( 'Special:Contributions', 'Contributions', 'target=' . $result->title );

See this page for more info.

External Search Engine link not Working

I am trying to use the code where you can add links after the search results (# 5.13 How do I add search-engines to the Search-Results for further investigations). I am doing everything it says and it won't let anyone use more than one word. If there is more than one word entered, the link only works up to the first word, and anything after that is printed out. I am using 1.5b4. In the link to the test site, it worked fine because it put a '+' between the words (and they used 1.44). Is this something I'm doing wrong or is this because of 1.5b4?

gallery failure

why the thumb images can't be shown in galleries with following warning: Warning: imagejpeg(): Unable to open '/home/virtual/site38/fst/var/www/html/wiki/images/thumb/120px-Sample.jpg' for writing in /home/virtual/site38/fst/var/www/html/wiki/includes/Image.php on line 1082 thanks, 85.181.2.123 21:08, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Check permissions. --brion 05:28, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Dynamic Page List extension broken

I'm using MediaWiki Ver. 1.4.7 and I've downloaded the latest version of the extension. I've done the include in LocalSettings.php but whenever I try to use the extension ie.

<DynamicPageList>
category=example
</DynamicPageList>

I get this error:

A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: 
(SQL query hidden)
from within function "". MySQL returned error "1146: Table 'r&d.page' doesn't exist (localhost)".

Does anybody know whats wrong or going on?

Thanks

Solved the problem, the version for DynamicPageList for the 1.4 series can be found here http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Amgine/DynamicPageList_1.5_for_MW_1.4.6

Scandinavian (and other?) letters show/no show?

I just installed and got running mediaviki yesterday for the first time. I am using Finnish language on CentOS (UTF-8) and everything seemed to be ok. After the first time editing a page the scandinavian letters ö ä å Ö Ä Å turned into commas (,) if they were in a word (eg työ). But individual letters rendered fine?

Solved the problem by commenting out the mbstring.func_overload = 7, that is needed/proposed by eGroupWare installation. Also phpMyAdmin complains about it if its not commented out.

Under no circumstances should anyone ever use mbstring.func_overload. It's one of those dangeorus stupid data-corruption options that somebody slipped into PHP without thinking about the consequences. --brion 05:28, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

so confused

I cant made any pages. when i do a search, none of the stuff you say should apear. it just saus

[snip]

This is addressed in the FAQ; did you read it?

You do not make pages through a search on a wiki. You make pages by creating links to them. That's the whole idea. There are links from pages to other pages. --brion 07:22, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

How do I add Metatags

Their seem to be a mistake in the help regarding "How do I add Metatags", it says to add

$wgOut->addMeta ( 'KEYWORDS' , $a.', your Keywords, Comma seperated) ;

but are you sure a ' is necessary after $a

Shouldn't it be

$wgOut->addMeta ( 'KEYWORDS' , $a., 'your Keywords', 'Comma seperated') ;

Regards,

Lmartenot 09 August 2005

Just tried this, it should be as on previous page

$wgOut->addMeta ( 'KEYWORDS' , $a. ',your Keywords, Comma seperated') ;

eg

$wgOut->addMeta ( 'KEYWORDS' , $a. ',wiki,metadata,adding') ;

the quotes go round the whole list, the . after the $a seems to apppend the contents of the quotes on.

Ta

tarlachmoorhouse 05/04/2006

Adding a box in the left menu

I'd like to add a box containing uncategorized categories between the navigation box and the search box, how may i do that?

Add another top-level heading in MediaWiki:Sidebar. --brion 05:27, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

$wgSitename NOT changing

quoting from the faq:

Quoting the FAQ:

I've changed settings in LocalSettings.php, such as $wgSitename, but they don't show up in my browser. Why not?

(Note: As always, first ensure that you're not viewing a cached page - perform a "hard refresh", clear the browser cache, or view a page that didn't exist before the change.)

There was a bug in versions of MediaWiki prior to 1.3.6 where variables, such as $wgSitename, were interpolated into user interface messages at install, rather than when the message was requested (Bugzilla:296). The result was that any later changes to these variables would have no effect on these messages, since the software simply saw them as plain text; all UI messages can be reset to their defaults (with the new variable values) by running the maintenance/rebuildMessages.php script. If you upgrade to the latest version of MediaWiki first, these will include dynamic references to the variables (e.g. {{SITENAME}}) and should therefore reflect future configuration changes.

seems like it is still doing it to me... my MediaWiki is displayes correctly in the MediaWiki:Pagetitle page, but it is not being displayed in the browser title-bar... what am I supposed to do? Look at it with your own eyes here: ---> http://www.studentistatale.it/uniwiki/index.php/MediaWiki:Pagetitle

--MiloMinderbinder 22:03, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Looks fine to me (assuming the title should be of the form "Pagina principale - UniWiki"). I suspect that this is a caching problem your end; as the FAQ says, try looking at a page that didn't exist until you changed the setting, and performing a hard-refresh (hold down control/shift while reloading) on pages that did. - IMSoP 13:31, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Changing Main Page

Is there a way to change the first page of the wiki so that instead of going to main page first, it goes to another page when someone enters the wiki?

Edit MediaWiki:Mainpage. --brion 05:26, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Possible to Add Google adsense (javascript forms)?

Is there any way to add a javascript form to mediawiki? I would like to add google adsense to particular pages, and I cant figure out how to do this.

Edit the skin. Please look at the files in the distribution. --brion 05:26, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

See mw:Extension:GoogleAdSense (but note comments on talk page)

See mw:Extension_Matrix which may also help. 69.138.243.26 07:54, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Easy download/install for Wikipedia Mediawiki help pages?

Using the wikipedia help pages for a local Mediawiki installation may well be much better than having no local help! Is there an easy way to integrate the Wikipedia help pages into a local Mediawiki's help tree?

Not at this time. --brion 05:26, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

If I use MediaWiki to manage my own content, will my content become public domain?

No.

Corrupt files?

I'm having trouble uploading files to my wiki, running MediaWiki 1.5rc4. Like a few other people, I'm getting the "File is corrupt or has an incorrect extension" error that a few others have gotten, but no one has a solution. The workaround posted further up the page works, but I'm also getting the problem of images not displaying because their mimetype is registered as text/plain.

I've gone through the PHP files as best I can (Image.php, SpecialUpload.php, DefaultSettings.php) and my Apache and PHP configs, but I can't find anything glaringly obvious. I've reinstalled the wiki (using the same database), so I don't think it's due to anything I've changed in any of the config files.

I have a couple of questions: How can I check that MIME verification is working on the server, independently of the wiki? What other routes of asking for help are there apart from these Talk pages? I can't seem to find an obvious link to a messageboard or forum, and I can't believe that this is the only option for MediaWiki support.

- 194.193.78.142 09:43, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

---

I tried to trace the code and found that the problem is in function verify in file specialupload.php, more specifically, the section below:

$data = @getimagesize( $tmpfile ); if( false === $data ) { # Didn't recognize the image type. # Either the image is corrupt or someone's slipping us some # bogus data such as HTML+JavaScript trying to take advantage # of an Internet Explorer security flaw. wfDebug( "$fname: getimagesize() doesn't recognize the file; rejecting.\n" ); return false; }

I seems that the getimagesize function does not recognize the images I am trying to upload correctly. (refer to --> http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.getimagesize.php).

I also download a version 1.5rc4 but found its verify function is very different.....

I don't know ..... maybe 2 options: 1) comment out the section mentioned above , 2) upgrade to 1.5rc4 to try my luck :-)

   Tony 9/30/2005

---

I decide to go with option 1 and it works fine now ;-) I know it is unsecure but I have to live with that now ..... will try to upgrade to 1.5 stable version later! :-)

   Tony 9/30/2005

---

Hi, you can also do the following to fix this:

Add the following line to LocalSettings.php
$wgMimeDetectorCommand= "file -bi";

Basic HTTP auth

I think it's not possible from what I read in the FAQ but are there plans to use HTTP auth for the Wiki instead of the normal auth?

How to change the MySQL port for the whole MediaWiki?

Currently it seems not to be possible to change the port, the MediaWiki connects to...

A problem that occured while playing around with MediaWiki on an USB-stick is, that it interfered with an existing MySQL database that already resides on the local PC. The local MySQL instance is setup to its default port 3306. So I changed the MySQL instance on the USB-memory to 3309. Apache and phpMyAdmin was easy to change to access the database on a different port, but unfortunately MediaWiki seems not to offer the possibility to change the port...

BTW: I used UniServer from Sourceforge, because it keeps everything you need for running MediaWiKi.

Anyone with the same problem out there? Or is there someone out there who already fixed this issue?

To be honest - I do not have any experiece with PHP yet...

M.

Set $wgDBserver with a port number. --brion 05:25, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Tooltips in non-English installations

I have a basic working setup in English and German (on Windows, two totally separate installations of 1.4.10), successfully turning off a couple of links in the navigation bar. Problem: the tooltips in the German wiki are in English, even though in LanguageDe.php they're there in German (and $wgUseDatabaseMessages is off). I've seen this exchange on mediawiki-l but it doesn't really solve my problem. German Wikipedia has German tooltips so what gives? Thanks for any help. (I'd settle for being able to turn the tooltips off, though German ones working would be preferable of course.) 193.60.75.86 18:25, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally the tooltips are in English with databasemessage on as well. 193.60.75.86 18:36, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

As I said in the e-mail you just referenced, I think the tooltips are defined (or should be defined) in MediaWiki:monobook.js (or, with database messages off, a 'monobook.js' entry in LanguageDe.php). Now I look, I see that de:MediaWiki:monobook.js does indeed define them, so just copy those across. If I was logged into the OS where I have a CVS client, I'd probably upload a new version of LanguageDe.php right now (ich kann genug Deutsch um es zu korrigieren wenn gebraucht...); maybe I will some other time. - IMSoP 19:38, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

There's the rub (I eventually figured out) - LanguageDe.php does define the tooltips - but as 'tooltip-mytalk' => 'Meine Benutzerdiskussion [alt-n]', not in the monobook.js form (ta[\'pt-mytalk\'] = new Array(\'n\',\'Meine Benutzerdiskussion\');) found in Language.php. I tried copying and pasting that section into LanguageDe, but that doesn't seem to be enough, presumably there's other bits needed to make this alternate form work. Aaargh!! 193.60.75.86 10:34, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

OK, panic over. The above problem is indeed fixable by copying de:MediaWiki:monobook.js to my own MediaWiki:monobook.js. I didn't want to use the MediaWiki namespace, but it's not so big a deal and it does work, including for other languages (eg fr:MediaWiki:monobook.js). Thanks for helping me figure this out (now wondering how I didn't get there sooner). 193.60.75.86 18:48, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

While I'm asking questions - I've looked all round MediaWiki; if it explains how to edit the Special:Userlogin page (I need to add a registration link as I'm using PHPBB/Users Integration) I've missed it. 193.60.75.86 18:36, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I was about to tell you to use "Special:Allmessages" to find and edit the appropriate message (MediaWiki:loginend), but I get the feeling you want more than that. In which case, you need to edit the source directly - it'll be in includes/SpecialUserlogin.php if I'm not mistaken. - IMSoP 19:38, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanx - looking in includes/SpecialUserlogin.php refers me to includes/templates/Userlogin.php which does exactly what I need. 193.60.75.86 10:34, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

URL for to display only page content?

Is there a URL that will only display the core content of the page - that is without any tabs or navigation?

I am looking for a way to populate our static site with Wiki pages displayed in frames.

Users can see our "pretty" site but then follow links to the wiki if needed.

Is adding &printable=yes any use? -Sprintstar 10:25, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

No 130.199.3.130 20:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

URL parameters

I now searched so long but wasn't able to find information about the possible URL parameters. It would be great if someone could point me to a list with the possible parameters for index.php like action=raw a.s.o. --83.171.145.103 19:04, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Read the source code and check. --brion 05:05, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Screwed up Copyrights section

Hello. I'm a bit of a newbie. Just read all the FAQs, but didn't find anywhere a similar problem like mine. MediaWiki somehow managed to rename the 'something:Copyrights' section into 'The_text_I_typed_in_to_describe_the_section:Copyrights'. So now that everyone is editing the wiki, and they read the footer, they'll get a very awkward link to the copyrights section.

The weird thing is that the section can't be moved, but the text (not the page name) can be changed.

Is there a way to correct this weird error? --Rolandog 06:12, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like you typed in some huge long name for the wiki site name instead of something short and name-ish. Fix $wgSiteName in LocalSettings.php, then to make sure things are current update $wgCacheEpoch and perhaps run rebuildMessages.php. --brion 05:06, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Keeping user logged in over two Wikis

The FAQ artical is a little sparse with the information. I have 2 separate wikis, running on two separate databases, on the same server. I would like to allow the user to log in to one, then go to the other one and remain logged in. Is this possible with 2 databases?

This has to do with your cookie settings in your browser, if you accept cookies and tell it to keep you logged in on the wiki, you shouldn't have any problem being logged in to both at the same time.

I assume he wants to stay logged in on both wikis, not just the one he logged in on. Rspeer 08:01, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

What is the ini_set("session.name", "{$wgSitename}Session" ); line suposed to do? -Sprintstar 10:24, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Indeed I believe that's the question here. Let me rephrase: How can a login at one wiki remain in effect for the next wiki visited and for which the user also has an account? Is the aformentioned line of code supposed to make that possible? --Ikester 10:20, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Stopping Metawiki jumping out of "wrapper" or frame

I am using Metawiki on a site which also uses Joomla (formerly known as Mambo). It has a feature called a wrapper, which inserts other codes/script within the Joomla website pages. Trying to do this with Metawiki doesn't work, since it starts to load up, then it jumps out of the wrapper and takes over the full page. Have been looking through the configuration page to see if there is some setting to stop it over riding frames, but can't see anything. Any suggestions on how to stop this happening?

FYI, have been trying a few things out for this, including "MamboWiki" a component that integrates MetaWiki into Mambo. The instructions for installing that notes "In your MediaWiki installation edit skins/common/wikibits.js and comment out or remove the line: if( window.top != window ) window.top.location = window.location;" which seems to deal with putting the wiki on top of the window. Did the change and it didn't seem to work, the wiki still jumps out and takes over the entire browser window.

NB: Once you have made this change to skins/common/wikibits.js you need to clear the browser cache. Once you do this, the wiki will no longer jump outside the iframe.

Delete articles permanently

How do I delete articles permanently? --134.130.56.107 22:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

---

This page is not a support forum; you may not get any answer to a question asked on this page.

'Why can't we find anything on this topic, I have been searching for almost 30 minutes not and no one has the answer to how you go about deleting an article from a Wiki so it does not come up in searches. Is there anyone out there who has done this...ever?'

Bulk user adds

I can't find how to bulk add users. The only way to add users in MediaWiki that I've found so far is to use the UserLogin special page, which is an extremely tedious process for adding a large number of users. I'm thinking that it might be possible to insert values directly into the "user" SQL table, but is it safe to do so, or are there a lot of other things that must be kept consistent?

Setting the image size

I can't find a way to do an html equivalent of size="50%" for an image. I don't want to generate a new image at this size, but have the existing images rendered in the browser scaled down. I have seen syntax specifying a px value in the Image line (e.g. |200px) , but this expects a new image. e.g. img src="/wiki/images/thumb/4/43/Sunset.jpg/200px-Sunset.jpg instead of img src="/wiki/images/thumb/4/43/Sunset.jpg/Sunset.jpg

• Just add |200px to the image link. The server generates the new image file. Rspeer 08:00, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Protect only a section rather than a whole page?

Is it possible to do this?

A: No. --Ikester 10:22, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

But it is possible to "transclude" (include) a protected page, which has a similar result. It would not be possible to edit the protected page, but unfortunately it would still be possible to delete the line which transcludes the protected page. Have a look at this to make sense of it: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing Jonathan1 00:47, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Or how about trasncluding an unprotected page into a protected page? If you do this I would recommend including a home-made 'edit this section' link in the protected page that takes you straight to editing the editable content to stop people getting confused. --HappyDog 09:58, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Edittools on my own Wiki

Hey, all the official wikipediapages have edittools[1], which is shown below edit and upload forms. But my MediaWiki version (1.5.3) does not have this. Could someone please tell me, how i can put it into my MediaWiki? Thanks a lot in advance! JPGoelz

You may find some information here.--Henrique 16:44, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Upper case for Navigation, Toolbox etc

How can the headings Navigation, Search, Toolbox, Discussion, Edit, History etc be made to start with upper-case letters?

Examples exist of sites that have these headings starting upper case, but the default lower case seems to be hard-coded, perhaps using an lcfirst function.

Is this correct? If it is (or even if it's not), would a ucfirst function be the way to go?

A helpful contributor to the gallery (Fredrik Johansson) has explained that this is achieved by editing main.css in the Monobook skin to change all instances of text-transform: lowercase to text-transform: none.

Thank you, Fredrik.

Filter edits by content?

I'm finding quite a bit of spam on my wiki lately, and there are distinct patterns with the content of the spam. Is it possible to automatically block/rollback/silently ignore edits matching a particular pattern (e.g. invisible 1px-tall DIVs, by means of a regex)? I'd rather not have to take the step of requiring users to log in. Ta in advance, 12:59, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

LocalSettings.php problem

I try to install wikimedia 1.5.2 [100webspace] account. I upload the files, make the MySQL database and make the CHMOD for config folder to 777. I fill config/index.php and press Install!. But there was no LocalSettings.php file in config folder. So I tried to install it on Windows XP (Apache + MySql) and there was no problem. What should I do to make it work??

Spammers/Removing bogus accounts!

I find it very agravating that I cannot remove spammer accounts created on my Wiki. Seems the Wiki admin does not have many tools to fight vandals (in version 1.2 at least). Hope someone adds some soon!

My 2 cents. Chris

A couple of links to check:

• Talk:Spam_blacklist
• Email authentication before editing

Then there's this one:

• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/PHPBB/Users_Integration

Useful if you are running phpBB forums. Tying user registration of the wiki to the forum registration could kill two birds with one stone: the spam issue and reduce the registration admin hassles.

--Ikester 10:40, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

How do I change someone's password?

Interestingly, there is no way to do this mentioned anywhere in the docs. I'm afraid if I do it in cleartext via phpmyadmin it will still try to hash whatever the user types against the field rather than taking it as a literal password. --StarKruzr 20:19, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

How to restrict wiki to local IP address

To prevent spammers, we prevented new user registrations by adding in LocalSettings.php:

       $wgWhitelistAccount = array ( "user" => 0, "sysop" => 1, "developer" => 1 );

Is there a way to alow access only to local IP address? So we can still alow new local user registration but not outside users?

"Is it possible to install more than one wiki (MediaWiki) on a server? How?"

I'm afraid the tips given here do not work using wikimedia 1.4.4:

1. setting included in ../CommonSettings.php get printed instead of executed (!?)
2. ini_set("session.name", "{$wgSitename}Session" ); has no effect

External URLs with spaces in them?

Okay, If I needed to link to [http://externalsite.com/File With Spaces.mp3] it doesn't seem possible since the spaces get turned to underscores. There are docs talking about using %xx escape sequences, but a %20 space sequence also gets turned into underscore. Is there any way to link to a URL that has spaces in it? --Allenhuffman 17:38, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Use %20: [2]. --brion 00:26, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Personal Wiki

Hi, I am a regular contributor to Wikipedia, and I am so used to the interface, the template, and the wikitags. I would like to instal a personal wiki for my own use. Am I able to instal Wikimedia as I only have a desktop personal computer (750+ MHz)? If not, what is the closest wiki that I will be able to find that is as similar to Wikimedia as possible? I have tried MoinMoin but I can't get very good page layout. — PM Poon 08:22, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

You should have no problem at all installing it locally, install Apache and MySQL. --69.182.124.122 03:47, 15 February 2006 (UTC)Igor

All links looks like external

Hi, I don't know why all of my internal links in wiki have that icon like external link. Can somebody explain me this?

The problem is done. It was visible only in Opera TP1. Now i have TP2 and everything is all right.

Microsoft SQL Server?

Is it possible to use Microsoft SQL Server instead of mySQL?

And what about PostgreSQL ?

How do set a blank string in Special:Allmessages

A blank string means default value. There are some tricks to set a blank string to remove a message from the UI (eg. &nbsp ;) but this can introduce bad side effects. What is the clean way to do that ?

Jej 15:25, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Is it possible to copy the entire structure of an entry that is protected to a new article?

I would like to be able to setup a template for a planning document, and then allow users to "create new" a document for their particular area and fill in the data.

Help:Template#Subst 158.135.133.13 18:50, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Problems with thumbs at linux/debian

I have set up a mediawiki 1.5.6, which by now seems working properly. One exception: I did not find out how to make thumbs. I have read the instructions (#2.11), but this concerns only windows, not linux. I have tried several settings, but no one is working. The dirs images/thumbs, images/temp and images/archive are created and set to 777. Is there also a ImageMagick to install for linux?

How can I change the base directory after installation?

Hi,

Is it possible to change the base directory after installation?

eg from www.mysite.com/wiki

to www.mysite.com/newname

Thanks.

Move the folder and change all references to the old name in LocalSettings.php Plugwash 23:53, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Is it possible to use different color or font size when editing the page?

Hi, I notice that I can use <big> or <small> to change the font size, is it the only way? Anything I can do to change the color?

Thanks.

How delete a file with bad title?

Hi there? How can you deleted a file which name ueses unallowed chars, such as %? 217.225.105.99 15:22, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

VERY SPECIAL image-formatting - blocking linking to image-page

you know, one can block viewing the image but linking to it like Image:example.jpg but I need a way to do it the other way round!! how to just display the picture without linking to it? is there any code for this??? If there is no code, I have to change it in the php-files --- you know where? I just found "makeImageLinkObj" in the parser with some variables ... but where is this then going to??

thank you very much!!!!!

How to to add different Sidebar for some page?

Navigation Sidebar always look like the same to each page that we open, how to make individual Sidebar for one Page, for example, if we open FAQ page, the Sidebar will change to something different like FAQ 1, FAQ 2, etc? thank you.

I think you will need to use Javscript to do this. Or else just make a template and put it on all the FAQ pages, that's probably easier.

Problem with Image MIME Types

I am running MediaWiki 1.5.7 on Redhat Fedora Core 4 and I am having with it not recognizing MIME types of images. At first, MediaWiki would not upload files at all, so I used the external Linux command

'file -bi'

which solved the uploading problem. Now when it uploads the image, the Image:Filename page lists the MIME type as 'unknown/unknown' and the image does not show up on the page.

What's wrong here?

I want anonymus users to enter a code before adding a url to pages

seems to work here in meta... anyone an idea ?

i think, we are using en:CAPTCHA here... but i don't know how to install...

See Captcha extensions.

How do you use the command line?

I found lots of help about that you should use the command line but nothing about how to actually start it. How?

If you are on a cheap shared hosting soloution you probablly can't (there is i belive a php based workaround floating arround though) if your running your own server then this is basic knowlage that you should have learnt before even considering taking on a dedicated server. Plugwash 22:46, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

May thumbnails link to articles instead of their description page?

May thumbnails link to articles instead of their description page?

MediaWiki for FAQs

From the first question:

For example, Mediwiki should not be used to create open-ended FAQs like this page. Users may be directed here by various search engines with perfect matches (for example, if the question they ask is listed on this page) but users are never guaranteed an answer! (Shock, and surprise!) Search engine results are thus diluted and everyone trying to find help on such topics lose out. Thanks, MediaWiki!

That's a pretty bad argument. Nothing wiki-specific about that: if someone asks a question on a web forum, and no one answers, we have the same situation. Wikis are most excellent for FAQs! /skagedal^... 20:36, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Import of SQL Database into mediawiki

I have an SQL Database and i want to import this database into my media wiki. The import was successful.But in my media wiki no data are indicated. What do I make wrong or where are the data stored away in wiki?

After editing page or choosing a random page it drops the www. and I get a file error

Ok can anyone help me. I just installed wikimedia version 1.5. everything works fine but when I edit a page it drops the www. and I get a file not found error. The Wiki is installed to a sub directory called /wiki. (www.md-society.com/wiki). It works to get to the page and do almost everything in the site except when I edit it i get the page not found error. When I add the www. infront of the address in the address bar it take me to the right page and the changes or edits are there.

What do I need to change to make it work right. I added a sub domain called wiki.md-society.com to see if that will fix it but my domain provider is saying that it will take about 24 - 48 hours to propogate and work.

I also added md-society.com as a way to get to the website but again 24 - 48 hours until that works.

Is there something that I need to do in the actual localsettings.php to make this work right?

Help.

I've no Sysop in my Wiki!

How can I add an Sysop manually trough the database, because I haven't got any Sysop in my Wiki. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.68.37.157 (talk • contribs) 11:30, 9 April 2006.

The easiest way to manually give sysop access to yourself is through LocalSettings.php (see Configuration settings).

1. Assign user rights access to all registered users by adding this line to LocalSettings.php, near the bottom:

   $wgGroupPermissions['user']['userrights'] = true;

2. Log in to your account on the wiki.
3. Go to Special:Userrights on your wiki
4. Type in your username and hit "Edit user groups".
5. In the "Available groups" list, highlight sysop (CTRL+click to select any others at the same time) and click "Save user groups".
6. Very importantly, remember to go back into LocalSettings.php and remove the line you added in step 1.

You should then have sysop access. // Pathoschild (^talk) 12:17, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

excellent topic......mandyavenkatesh

problems with thumbs

I have set up a mediawiki 1.6.3 and static-compiled imagemagick 4.2.9. The options in the LocalSettings.php are correct.

 $wgEnableUploads		= true;
 $wgUseImageResize		= true;
 $wgUseImageMagick 		= true;
 $wgImageMagickConvertCommand = "/homepages/1/xxxxxx/htdocs/wiki/im/convert";

If I post a picture, then an error comes. [ [image:Eg8.png|thumb] ]

 Error creating thumbnail: convert: Unrecognized option (-resize) [No such file or directory].

The dir /images are created and set to 777.

What can I do, in order to provide thumbs? please help me :-)
Andreas 84.182.200.224 17:50, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

 I have exactly the same problem on a test windows server - what could this be?

 It's the problem of imagemagick 4.2.9. - use the current one - voila, resizing is nor problem anymore.

how do i have the customized navigation box for each mediawiki1.5.5 page(windows platform)?

hi

see we can customoze the wiki page with mediawiki:sidebar, that will customize only the navigation of that mediawiki:sidebar page,suppose if i want that customization for my own wiki page ,what we need to do?(i hope the question is clear)

thanks
mandyavenkatesh

ya i got this

How do I move my site to a different Server?

I need to move my site to a different server (which can cope with the site better!) How do I do this?

Look at Help:Export and Help:Import to export/import XML wiki pages

HTML export

How do I export all pages to (X)HTML? So that all links/refs are in the same (local) directory, eg. linking to <A HREF='Main_Page.html'> and <IMG SRC='mypic.jpg'>

* dumpHTML.php is part of the MediaWiki. "php dumpHTML.php -d /tmp" is supposed to write a
  copy of every page as static [[HTML]] into the /tmp directory. Does not work for me (errors).
* offlineWiki is a java program developed in Germany. Development is incomplete and has halted in 2003.
* "wget -m http://yourwiki/wiki/Main_Page" creates a static HTML copy of yourwiki. Now HTMLDOC can
  create a PDF file out of it. This is not a good solution.

After this I can create ONE PDF file from that with HTMLDOC.

refcard/quick reference guide

Is there a refcard (ala emacs refcard.tex), that quickly lists all wiki syntax to put on your desk? If not, I may make one...

yes, please make one and post it here! -- Duesentrieb 17:55, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes there is one. See commons:Image:Cheatsheet-en.pdf.

Disable the image Upload warning?

Is it possible to turn off this Upload Warning:

A file with this name exists already, please check Image:example.jpg if you are not sure if you want to change it.

I want to make it so the image downloads without the warning page at all.

signed:Travb 06:55, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

As I have told you before: you will have to hack the code. Go into includes/SpecialUpload.php and search for the following line:

    if( $nt->getArticleID() ) {

replace it by this:

    if( false ) {

that should fix your problem: you will now never notice if you are overwriting an existing file. This is generally a very bad idea, but if you must have it that way, go ahead. -- Duesentrieb 17:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Hello Duesentrieb, the change to the file is temporary.

Thank you. You did mention going to includes/SpecialUpload.php but I must have missed the details. Thank you SO much.Travb 20:09, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

IT WORKS! thank you so much!Travb 20:19, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Usergroups

Hi,

I want to set up some new user groups. In the LocalSettings.php I have added the following rows:

$wgGroupPermissions['gast' ]['move'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['gast' ]['read'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['gast' ]['edit'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['gast' ]['createpage'] = false;

and so on......

But: When I give an user the 'gast'-rights, it hasn' any effect.

What is wrong??

Thank you

Mail

Boujour,

Si un utilisateur met une adresse devenue invalide dans ses préférences, et que des personnes lui envoient des messages, où passent ces messages ? Sont-ils mis en attente quelque part dans la base de données ?

Merci.

FAQ at mediawiki.org

This page was never moved to mediawiki.org. We get questions all the time on #mediawiki that are answered on here but not on the new page, and I'm sick of having to answer them by searching back through the revision history of this page. It makes it difficult to give a smug "RTFM" response to a question when the manual has been so carefully hidden. I don't know what is going on with the move, why a new page was started there and why this one was deleted without being copied anywhere, but I'm happy having the full page here for now, until someone wants to fix it. -- Tim Starling 04:21, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

There's more about this at Meta:Proposed page moves#MediaWiki FAQ → MW:FAQ. Basically there was a move carried out in a rather rough and ready manner. This was reverted.

It was the right idea in principle, but the Meta:MetaProject to transfer content to MediaWiki.org needs to go about these things more carefully than that. A lot of useful information was thrown away (only to be found in the page history here as you say). The reason for that was partly a misunderstanding about licenses.

I hope eventually this page does get moved to mediawiki.org, but should not involve disposing of any useful information ...and maybe, if it's done well, it might even encourage people to RTFM :-)

-- Harry Wood 10:46, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

set width of sidebars?

Is there a known way to make the width of the sidebars wider? Themindset 00:44, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Why does Mediawiki convert sometimes < and >?

hi,
without using any own css, i expected the tags ul and li interpreted the same way:

<ul class="a">
<li class="b">
<ul>
<li>hello</li>
<li>world</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>

nevertheless, the sourcecode of the result looks like:

<ul class="a">
<li class="b">
<ul>
&lt;li&gt;hello&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;world&lt;/li&gt;
</ul>
</li>
</ul>

any suggestion why there is a substitution?
THANKS

Can I remove the [edit] editsection links from article pages?

This makes the magic word __NOEDITSECTION__ default for all article pages. It works only for visitors. Edit LocalSettings.php and add this somewhere:

$wgDefaultUserOptions['editsection'] = false;

How do I rename an uploaded image and all (some) of the links to it

Is this snippet enough to rename an uploaded image (for my private Mediawiki)? Or what more do I need to change?

update low_priority image set img_name='NewFilename' where img_name ='OldFilename';
update low_priority imagelinks set il_to='NewFilename' where il_to='OldFilename';
mv images/NewFilename images/OldFilename

//Rogper 10:53, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

language change still give blank page

The tips given to change the language does not work with 1.8.4 version ... changing the variable and then using the script still give a blank page. Even if I reset the var to its old value and redo a language rebuilding. Even if uninstall mediawiki and let the database entire. I have to remove the db, remove mediawiki, remove config file remaining and do a fresh install ... great day ... I hope (for other people) there is an other solution !

Searching for short words

Hello everybody, if got a „small“ question. I created an article called „09 Toyota“. Using the search-function with the word „09“ shows me the information, that there is no article called „09“. Is it possible to insert keyword into the article, so wiki finds exactliy that word „09“. (Search for short words like 09, M3, 45, 112, …)

Thanks everybody!

MediaWiki just on my own PC?

Is it possible to run MediaWiki on my Windows without a webserver and an internet-connection?

I thought you would be able to set up everything except the server, and just direct your browser to the index.php file. I tried that on my installation and it sent me to download the file instead of opening it. So it would work if the base file was in html but it looks like it is in PHP

How does MediaWikki interact with dotnet?

Hey i am new to medi wikki. I want to know how does it interact with dotnet?

Where I can change the syntax transformation to HTML?

I am seeking for the place, where I can change the settings for transform wiki syntax to HTML?

How adding title icon ?

Hi,

I would like to know how adding an icon near the title of an article (like the little star in feature articles in english Wikipedia).

Thanks

Fuhraih 08:38, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Can we replace this with a soft redirect to mw:Manual:FAQ?

Tisane 00:46, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

How do I assign a username to an IP address?

You can use the IPAuth extension to automatically log users coming from a specified IP into a specified user. --Efreak on Wikipedia. 68.183.131.121 02:15, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Feel a modification should be made to the file:// uri faq entry

I just posted a comment in the new faq regarding an entry in this faq. To restate, I found the file uri qualifier to be very helpful. However, rather than implementing it as suggested, I added the following line to my LocalSettings.php file and feel this should be listed in this faq.

 array_push($wgUrlProtocols, 'file://');

How to change tag <title>

How do I change the tag <title> on on certain pages? Previously, I have tested meta.php and CustomTitle extensions, but in version 1.16 it does not work.