Manual:Interface/Sidebar/Hacks

This page lists hacks that used to be mentioned in Manual:Interface/Sidebar. These have been removed because they involve modifying the core .php code and are not supported. They are only here for historical interest.

Change sidebar content when logged in (PHP)

To get anonymous users to have their own sidebars change includes/Skin.php. There is a function called buildSidebar. Edit this function to check for $wgUser->isLoggedIn() and call a different system message than sidebar.

 if ($wgUser->isLoggedIn()) {
   $lines = explode( "\n", wfMsgForContent( 'sidebar' ) );
 } else {
   $lines = explode( "\n", wfMsgForContent( 'anon_sidebar' ) );
 }

Then in your Wiki, go to MediaWiki:anon_sidebar and create your new sidebar. You may need to add $wgUser to the list of global variables in the buildSidebar().

You'll also have to add $wgUser in the globals declaration of the function.

Allow wiki markup (PHP)

Many people on support desk have been asking about how to put arbitrary wikitext into the side bar. You can hack your skins/Monobook.php file (if you're using monobook) and replace the following section of code.

MediaWiki < 1.13.2

Replace this:

<?php foreach ($this->data['sidebar'] as $bar => $cont) { ?>
<div class='portlet' id='p-<?php echo Sanitizer::escapeId($bar) ?>'<?php echo $skin->tooltip('p-'.$bar) ?>>
        <h5><?php $out = wfMsg( $bar ); if (wfEmptyMsg($bar, $out)) echo $bar; else echo $out; ?></h5>
        <div class='pBody'>
                <ul>
<?php           foreach($cont as $key => $val) { ?>
                        <li id="<?php echo Sanitizer::escapeId($val['id']) ?>"<?php
                                if ( $val['active'] ) { ?> class="active" <?php }
                        ?>><a href="<?php echo htmlspecialchars($val['href']) ?>"<?php echo ... </li>
<?php           } ?>
                </ul>
        </div>
</div>
<?php } ?>

with this...

<?php
global $wgUser,$wgTitle,$wgParser;
$side = new Article(Title::newFromText('Sidebar',NS_MEDIAWIKI));
if (is_object($wgParser)) { $psr = $wgParser; $opt = $wgParser->mOptions; }
else { $psr = new Parser; $opt = NULL; }
if (!is_object($opt)) $opt = ParserOptions::newFromUser($wgUser);
$wikitext = "__NOEDITSECTION____NOTOC__\n";
$wikitext .= $side->fetchContent();
$html = $psr->parse($wikitext,$wgTitle,$opt,true,true)->getText();
echo preg_replace("/<li>\\s*<\\/li>/",'',$html);
?>

If php4 on your sys

$html = $psr->parse($wikitext,$wgTitle,$opt,true,true);
$html = $psr->mOutput->getText();

MediaWiki 1.13.2

Replace this:

                $sidebar = $this->data['sidebar'];
                if ( !isset( $sidebar['SEARCH'] ) ) $sidebar['SEARCH'] = true;
                if ( !isset( $sidebar['TOOLBOX'] ) ) $sidebar['TOOLBOX'] = true;
                if ( !isset( $sidebar['LANGUAGES'] ) ) $sidebar['LANGUAGES'] = true;
                foreach ($sidebar as $boxName => $cont) {
                        if ( $boxName == 'SEARCH' ) {
                                $this->searchBox();
                        } elseif ( $boxName == 'TOOLBOX' ) {
                                $this->toolbox();
                        } elseif ( $boxName == 'LANGUAGES' ) {
                                $this->languageBox();
                        } else {
                                $this->customBox( $boxName, $cont );
                        }
                }

with this:

global $wgParser, $wgUser, $wgTitle;
if (!is_object($wgParser)) {
    $wgParser = new Parser;
    $opt = $wgParser->mOptions;
}
if (!is_object($opt)) {
    $opt = ParserOptions::newFromUser($wgUser);
}
echo $wgParser->parse(wfMsgForContent( 'sidebar' ),$wgTitle,$opt,true,true)->getText();
$this->searchBox();
$this->toolbox();
$this->languageBox();

Content of MediaWiki:Sidebar

That will allow the MediaWiki:Sidebar article to be proper wikitext. You will need to include the 'pBody' div tag to ensure the portlet is styled correctly, so your MediaWiki:Sidebar article will need to look something like the following example after the change:

<div class="portlet">
<h5>Navigation</h5>
<div class='pBody'>
*[[Main Page]]
*[[Community portal]]
*[{{fullurl:Special:Recentchanges}} Recent changes]
*[[Sandbox]]
*[[Help]]
</div>
</div>

Add a banner to the sidebar (PHP)

You can add one or more banners to the sidebar by hacking your skins/Monobook.php file (if you're using monobook) to include the following piece of code.

Find (line 188):

?>
                </div><!-- end of the left (by default at least) column -->

Include:

?>
        <!-- begin of banner1 -->
        <div class='generated-sidebar portlet'>
        <h5><?php $this->msg('sidebar-banner1-headingtext') ?></h5>
        <div style="border: 1px solid #B0B0B0; background-color: #FFFFFF;">
        <a href="<?php $this->msg('sidebar-banner1-url') ?>">
        <img width="100%" title="<?php $this->msg('sidebar-banner1-alttext') ?>" 
                alt="<?php $this->msg('sidebar-banner1-alttext') ?>" 
                src="<?php $this->msg('sidebar-banner1-imgsrc') ?>" /></a>
        </div></div>
        <!-- end of banner1 -->
                </div><!-- end of the left (by default at least) column -->

Now in your Wiki, create four System messages: (i.e. articles named MediaWiki:sidebar-banner1-...)

parameter	value
sidebar-banner1-headingtext	The text that will be displayed as the banner heading ("advertisement", "sponsor" etc.)
sidebar-banner1-url	The destination URL of this banner
sidebar-banner1-alttext	Title for the site. Content of the alt="" parameter of an HTML <img> tag.
sidebar-banner1-imgsrc	URL of the banner image. It may be the address of an image uploaded to your Wiki (magic words may be used, e.g. {{filepath:banner1.png}}), or the address of an external image. Content of the src="" parameter of an HTML <img> tag.

To add more banners, just repeat the process renaming "banner1" to "banner2" etc.