Post on 07-Dec-2014
description
James Howard
Working with Mediawiki
James P. Howard, IIMarch 2008
Working with Mediawiki2 James Howard
Some Conventions
WIKI_URL The base URL for your wiki installation
Wiki and Mediawiki are used interchangeably
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Mediawiki & Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a collection of information repositories Encyclopedias, dictionaries, reference texts, and
images Scales well: eighteen languages with more than
100,000 encyclopedia articles Mediawiki powers Wikipedia
Open access, with limited access restrictions Full revision history for text, with comparison
generator
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Environment
Mediawiki was developed in PHP Default start page is WIKI_URL/Main_Page Each user has wikispace with URLs beginning
with WIKI_URL/User:USERNAME/ Each page has an associated “talk page” (also
called “discussion page” for discussing that page) Clicking “edit this page” will take user directly
into page editor “history” will show user the history of that page
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Basic Text Formatting
''Italic text'' '''Bold text''' '''''Bold italic text''''' ==Header Level 1==
===Header Level 2=== ====Header Level 3====
...and so forth, table of contents autogenerated from headers
Provide a blank line between paragraphs
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Links
[[Internal Link]] – creates a link to the wiki page “Internal Link” even if that page is non-existent [[Internal Link|This is an internal link]] – creates a
link to “Internal Link” but with the alternative text If page is non-existent, a red link will take user to
editor for that page [http://www.jameshoward.us James Howard] –
creates a link to the non-wiki page given #REDIRECT [[Other Page]] will create a redirect
page, transparent to end user
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Unnumbered Lists
* Create unnumbered lists
* With asterisks
* Presents as bulleted lists
** Sublists are created by nesting asterisks
*** There is no limit to nested asterisks
**** This is four levels down
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Numbered Lists
# Create numbered lists
# With hash marks
# Presents as numbered lists
## Sublists are created by nesting hash marks
### There is no limit to nested hash marks
#### This is four levels down
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Categories
[[Category:Some category]] – will add a page to the given category
Categories are infinitely nestable and may contain an unlimited number of pages
Pages can be in an unlimited number of categories Category pages are lead text that is editable just
like a wiki page
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Working with Images
Images can be uploaded at special URL WIKI_URL/Special:Upload
Can be included in a page with [[Image:Some image.png]]
Can be captioned with [[Image:Some image.png|caption text]]
Can be resized with [[Image:Some image.png|200px100px|caption]]
Full revision history of images included
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Other Special Files
Other can file types (PDF, OpenOffice.org, &c.) uploaded at WIKI_URL/Special:Upload
Download links [[Media:Some Doc.pdf]] Follows standard internal linking form, otherwise Some restrictions on file types: no HTML, PHP Full revision history of files included Maximum file size is 16M
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Templates
Templates create preformatted text Used with {{Some Template}}
May include variables and run-time settings May be static Uses include creating preformatted boxes for
displaying page-specific data See examples on Wikipedia, e.g.,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
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Treats & Tips
Mediawiki understands TeX formula formatting <math>\sqrt{2}</math> →
Interwiki links for linking to pages in other wikis [[Wikipedia:James Howard]] → prefacing a page
name with “Wikipedia:” will create link to the English Wikipedia page
Mediawiki supports footnotes <ref>Some note</ref> Place notes anywhere with <references />
2
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Extensibility
Mediawiki is highly extensible beyond templates Plugins create new features and commands
Shortcuts for integrated outside video into pages Authentication frameworks RSS and Atom feeds for blog integration
Extensions are written in PHP Cannot be installed by the end user
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Suggested Reading Mark S. Choate, Professional Wikis (Indianapolis, IN: Wrox,
2007).
Anja Ebersbach et al., Wiki: Web Collaboration, 2nd completely rev. and enl. ed. (Berlin: Springer, 2008).
Mizanur Rahman, MediaWiki Administrators' Tutorial Guide: Install, manage, and customize your MediaWiki installation (Birmingham, UK: Packt Publishing, 2007).
Dan Woods and Peter Thoeny, Wikis For Dummies (Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, 2007).
James Howardhttp://jameshoward.us