Manual:Extensions

Extensions are compilations of PHP code that add new features or enhance functionality of the main MediaWiki core. Extensions are one of the main advantages of MediaWiki. They give wiki administrators and wiki end-users the ability adapt MediaWiki to their requirements.

Depending on your goals you can use extensions to:


 * extend the wiki markup used to write articles through variables, parser functions, and custom XML tags - see Category:Parser function extensions and Category:Parser extensions for examples.
 * add new reporting and administrative capabilities through special pages - see Category:Special page extensions for examples.
 * change the look and feel of MediaWiki via skins and various user interface extensions - see Gallery of user styles and Category:User interface extensions for examples.
 * enhance security via custom authentication mechanisms - see Category:Authentication and Authorization Extensions for examples.

You can browse Category:Extensions by category to see the full range of extensions that have already been written. For information on installing these extensions or writing your own, see below.

Installing an extension
MediaWiki is ready to accept extensions just after installation is finished. To add an extension follow these steps:


 * 1) Before you start
 * A few extensions require the installation of a patch. Many of them also provide instructions designed for installation using unix commands. You require shell access (SSH) to enter these commands listed on the extension help pages.
 * 1) Download and install .
 * Some extensions, especially newer ones, require a helper file called .  ExtensionFunctions includes a series of functions that allow extensions to be modularized away from the MediaWiki core code. The best way to install this file is to download the current version from SVN. This file is visible to the public here at all times. Once downloaded, copy the   file to the   subdirectory of your MediaWiki installation.
 * 1) Download your extension.
 * Extensions are usually distributed as modular packages. They generally go in their own subdirectory of .  A list of extensions documented on MediaWiki.org is available on the extension matrix, and a list of extensions stored in the Wikimedia SVN repository is located at svn:trunk/extensions.
 * 1) Install your extension.
 * Generally, at the end of the  file, (but above the PHP end-of-code delimiter, " "), the following line should be added:
 * This line forces the PHP interpreter to read the extension file, and thereby make it accessible to MediaWiki.
 * While this installation procedure is sufficient for most extensions, some require a different installation procedure. Check your extension's documentation for details.
 * While extension declaration can be placed in other places within the LocalSettings.php file, never place extensions before the  line. Doing so will blank the extension setup function arrays, causing no extensions to be installed, and probably will make your wiki inaccessible until you fix it!
 * While extension declaration can be placed in other places within the LocalSettings.php file, never place extensions before the  line. Doing so will blank the extension setup function arrays, causing no extensions to be installed, and probably will make your wiki inaccessible until you fix it!

Writing Extensions
Conceptually each extension consists of three parts:


 * setup
 * execution
 * internationalization

Internal organization of an extension
The internal organization of extensions has changed over time. Initially extensions were simply single files named after the extension and you may still be able to find some examples of this organization. As MediaWiki has matured this organization has been deprecated. Instead, each extension is placed in a directory containing one or more files corresponding to the three parts: setup, execution, and implementation.


 * myextension/myextension.php - stores setup instructions. (Note: Some extensions name this file  )


 * myextension/myextension.body.php - stores the execution code for the extension for simple extensions. For complex extensions requiring multiple php files, the implementation code may instead be placed in a subdirectory,  .  For an example, please see Semantic MediaWiki


 * myextension/myextension.i18n.php - stores internationalization information for the extension.

Writing Setup Instructions
Your goal in writing the setup portion is to consolidate set up so that users installing your extension need do nothing more than include the setup file in their LocalSettings.php file, like this:

If you want to make your extension, user configurable, you need to define and document some configuration parameters and your users setup should look something like this (replace XXX with myextension:

To reach this simplicity, your setup file will need to accomplish a number of tasks:
 * define and/or validate any configuration variables you have defined for your extension.
 * prepare the classes used by your extension for autoloading
 * determine what parts of your setup should be done immediately and what needs to be deferred until the MediaWiki core has been initialized and configured
 * register any special pages, custom XML tags, parser functions, and variables used by your extension.
 * define any additional hooks needed by your extension
 * setup internationalization and localization for your extension

Making your extension user configurable
If you want your user to be able to configure your extension, you'll need to provide one or more configuration variables. It is a good idea to give those variables a unique name. They should also follow MediaWiki naming conventions (e.g. global variables should begin with $wg).

For example, if your extension is named "Very silly extension that does nothing", you might want to name all your configuration variables to begin  or. It doesn't really matter what you choose so long as none of the MediaWiki core begins its variables this way and you have done a reasonable job of checking to see that none of the published exensions begin their variables this way. Users won't take kindly to having to choose between your extension and some other extensions because they chose overlapping variable names.

It is also a good idea to include extensive documentation of any configuration variables in your installation notes.

Preparing classes for autoloading
If you choose to use classes to implement your extension, MediaWiki provides a simplified mechanism for helping php file the source file where your class is located. In most cases this should eliminate the need to write your own  method.

To use MediaWiki's autoloading mechanism, you add entries to the variable $wgAutoloadClasses. The key of each entry is the class name; the value is the file that stores the definition of the class. For a simple one class extension, the class is usually given the same name as the extension, so your autoloading section might look like this (extension is named Foobar):

.

For complex extensions with multiple classes, your autoloading section might look like this:

Registering features with MediaWiki
MediaWiki lists all the extensions that have been installed on its page. For example, you can see all the extensions installed on this wiki at Special:Version. It is good form to make sure that your extension is also listed on this page. To do this, you will need to add an entry to $wgExtensionCredits for each special page, custom XML tag, parser function, and variable used by your extension. The entry will look something like this:

validextensionclass must be one of specialpage, parserhook, variable, other, as specified on Manual:$wgExtensionCredits.

In addition to the above registration, you must also "hook" your feature into MediaWiki. The above only sets up the Special:Version page. For details, please see the documentation for each type of extension:


 * Manual:Special pages
 * Manual:Variables
 * Manual:Parser functions
 * Manual:Tag extensions

Deferring setup
LocalSettings.php runs early in the MediaWiki setup process and a lot of things are not fully configured at that point. This can cause problems for certain setup activities. To work around this problem, MediaWiki gives you a choice of when to run set up actions. You can either run them immediately by inserting the commands in your setup file -or- you can run them later, after MediaWiki has finished configuring its core software.

To defer setup actions, your setup file must contain two bits of code:
 * the definition of a setup function
 * the assignment of that function to the $wgExtensionFunctions array.

The php code should look something like this:

Writing the execution portion
The technique for writing the implementation portion depends the purpose of your extension:


 * Wiki markup: Extension that extend wiki markup will typically contain code that defines and implements custom XML tags, parser functions and variables. You can click on any of the links in the preceding sentence to get full details on how to implement these features in your extension.
 * Reporting and administration: Extensions that add reporting and administrative capabilities usually do so by adding special pages. For more information on writing a speca, please see Manual:Writing a new special page.
 * Article automation and integrity: Extensions that improve the integration between MediaWiki and its backing database or check articles for integrity features, will typically add functions to one of the many hooks that affect the process of creating, editing, renaming, and deleting articles. For more information about these hooks and how to attach your code to them, please see Manual:Hooks.
 * Look and feel: Extensions that provide a new look and feel to mediaWiki are bundled into skins.  For more information about how to write your own skins, see Manual:Skin and Manual:Skinning.
 * Security: Extensions that limit their use to certain users should integrate with MediaWiki's own permissions system.  To learn more about that system, please see Manual:Prevention access. Some extensions also let MediaWiki make use of external authentication mechanisms. For more information, please see AuthPlugin.  In addition, if your extension tries to limit readership of certain articles, please check out the gotchas discussed in Security_issues_with_authorization_extensions.

See also the Extensions FAQ.

Internationalizing your extension
If you want your extension to be used on wikis that have a multi-lingual readership, you will need to add internalization support to your extension. Fortunately this is relatively easy to do.

 For any text string displayed to the user, define a message. MediaWiki supports parameterized messages and that feature should be used when a message is dependent on information generated at runtime. Assign each message a lowercase message id. In your setup and implementation code, replace each literal use of the message with a call to . Store the message definition in your internalization file (myextension.i18n.php). This is normally done by setting up an array that maps language and message id to each string. Each message id should be lowercase. A minimal file might look like this:  In your setup routine, register each message. This is normally done by including the localization file (so as to define $allMessages), looping through each message and adding it with :  

For more information, please see:
 * Internationalization - discusses the MediaWiki internationalization engine, in particular, there is a list of features that can be localized and some review of the MediaWiki source code classes involved in localization.
 * Localization checks - discusses common problems with localized messages

Extension techniques
Extensions can be categorized based on the programming techniques used to achieve their effect. Most extensions will use more than one of these techniques:


 * Subclassing: MediaWiki expects certain kinds of extensions to be implemented as subclasses of a MediaWiki provided base class:
 * Special pages - Subclasses of the SpecialPage class are used to build pages whose content is dynamically generated using a combination of the current system state, user input parameters, and database queries. Both reports and data entry forms can be generated.  They are used for both reporting and administration purposes.
 * Skins - Skins change the look and feel of MediaWiki by altering the code that outputs pages by subclassing the MediaWiki class SkinTemplate.
 * Hooks: A technique for injecting custom php code at key points within MediaWiki processing. They are widely used by MediaWiki's parser, its localization engine, its extension management system, and its page maintenance system.
 * Tag-function associations - XML style tags that are associated with a php function that outputs HTML code. You do not need to limit yourself to formatting the text inside the tags.  You don't even need to display it.  Many tag extensions use the text as parameters that guide the generation of HTML that embeds google objects, data entry forms, RSS feeds, excerpts from selected wiki articles.
 * Magic words: A technique for mapping a variety of wiki text string to a single id that is associated with a function. Both variables and parser functions use this technique.   All text mapped to that id will be replaced with the return value of the function.  The mapping between the text strings and the id is stored in an array passed to each function attached to the LanguageGetMagic hook.  The interpretation of the id is a somewhat complex process - see Manual:Magic words for more information.
 * Variables - Variables are something of a misnomer. They are bits of wikitext that look like templates but have no parameters and have been assigned hard-coded values. Standard wiki markup such as   or   are examples of variables.  They get their name from the source of their value: a php variable or something that could be assigned to a variable, e.g. a string, a number, an expression, or a function return value.
 * Parser functions - . Similar to tag extensions, parser functions process arguments and returns a value.  Unlike tag extensions, the result of parser functions is wikitext.