Extension:ColList

MediaWiki extensions manual - list

ColList Release status: Beta
Implementation	Tag
Description	A way to easily put a list of short items in columns (actually, a table).
Author(s)	JulieC
Last version	1.1.0 (2007-12-13)
MediaWiki	1.9.3
License	No license specified
Download	Source Code at MindCapers
Example	Example at MindCapers
Check usage (experimental)

ColList is an extension of MediaWiki which provides an easy way to put a lot of short items into columns. The items are give in a comma separated list. A working example, documentation and source code are located at mindcapers.com.

Category list display

To display your list in the same format as the category pages with the first letter capitalized, here is the code snippet to use in place of the table creation. This code snippit assumes that your list is already alphabetized. For short lists, the sort command could be added, but for long lists it will probably be too time consuming.

         $chunk = (int) (count ( $articles ) / 3);
 
                // get and display header
                $r = '<table width="100%"><tr valign="top">';
 
                $prev_start_char = 'none';
 
                // loop through the chunks
                for($startChunk = 0, $endChunk = $chunk, $chunkIndex = 0;
                        $chunkIndex < 3;
                        $chunkIndex++, $startChunk = $endChunk, $endChunk += $chunk + 1)
                {
                        $r .= "<td>\n";
                        $atColumnTop = true;
 
                        // output all articles in category
                        for ($index = $startChunk ;
                                $index < $endChunk && $index < count($articles);
                                $index++ )
                        {
                                // check for change of starting letter or begining of chunk
                                if ( ($index == $startChunk) ||
                                         (substr($articles[$index], 0, 1) != substr($articles[$index-1], 0, 1)) )
 
                                {
                                        if( $atColumnTop ) {
                                                $atColumnTop = false;
                                        } else {
                                                $r .= "</ul>\n";
                                        }
                                        $cont_msg = "";
                                        if ( substr($articles[$index], 1, 0) == $prev_start_char )
                                                $cont_msg = ' ' . wfMsgHtml( 'listingcontinuesabbrev' );
                                        $r .= "<h3>" . htmlspecialchars( substr($articles[$index], 1, 0) ) . "$cont_msg</h3>\n<ul>";
                                        $prev_start_char = substr($articles[$index], 1, 0);
                                }
 
                                $r .= "<li>{$articles[$index]}</li>";
                        }
                        if( !$atColumnTop ) {
                                $r .= "</ul>\n";
                        }
                        $r .= "</td>\n";
 
 
                }
                $r .= '</tr></table>';