Manual:Hooks/SpecialPage initList

SpecialPage_initList
Available from version 1.7.0 permits filtering of the list of special pages enabled for the system
Define function:	public static function onSpecialPage_initList( &$aSpecialPages ) { ... }
Attach hook:	$wgHooks['SpecialPage_initList'][] = 'MyExtensionHooks::onSpecialPage_initList';
Called from:	SpecialPage.php

For more information about attaching hooks, see Manual:Hooks.
For examples of extensions using this hook, see Category:SpecialPage_initList extensions.

Use cases

MediaWiki installations use the SpecialPage_initList hook when they want to add to or remove pages from the special page list. They can use this to:

• dynamically add special pages from a database or other resource
• remove undesirable built-in special pages from the default list
• enable context dependent list of special pages - e.g. lists that depend on current server load, user's access method (local host, VPN, public internet)
• replace the default class associated with a special page with a custom subclass
• limit access to special pages based on user identity even in cases where the special page is not permissions aware

Background

A special page is a "virtual" MediaWiki article. Instead of being loaded from a file or database like a normal MediaWiki page, its content is generated on the fly using PHP code.

By default, MediaWiki builds the list of special pages from two sources: a list of builtin special pages hard coded into the MediaWiki core and the configuration variable $wgSpecialPages. As a final step, MediaWiki passes the default list to all the functions attached to the SpecialPage_initList.

Usage

Functions attached to this hook add and remove elements from $aSpecialPages. This array has the same structure as $wgSpecialPages.

The hook function should return true so as not to interfere with other functions that might be attached to this hook.