Manual:Interface

Documentation of MediaWiki's user interface and how to customize it.

User interface labels
Text labels of MediaWiki's user interface elements can be customized on specific per element pages in a particular wiki's own MediaWiki: namespace.

To edit an interface label:
 * 1) Log into your wiki with sysadmin user powers
 * 2) Go to your wiki's Special:Allmessages page (actually named System Messages in Special pages)
 * 3) Use your browser's Find feature to find instances of the current user interface label you want to change.
 * 4) Click on the link in the left column correspondingly to go to a page that sets that label.

Example: to change "discussion" tab label to "talk", go to your wiki's Special:Allmessages page, Find "discussion" (if the search box on the page proves helpless, use your browser's Find feature). There may be more than one instance of this word, "discussion", on that page so look at them all and use your head choosing which you want. Then click on the link in the left column of the corresponding table row to go to the MediaWiki: namespace page that controls that text, in this case MediaWiki:Talk (not its Talk page link of course). Edit that page to change that user interface element's label, say from "Discussion" to "Talk".

Here is what the Allmessages table would show after this was done:

The Allmessages table heading has a blue background. The table contains two columns, with the right column split horizontally into two cells, labeled Default text and Current text. The right column data cells appear split only if, as in this case, the Current text value (the green cell) has replaced the Default text (the red cell). When the default text is used for a message, the MediaWiki: namespace page for that message is empty, and only the default cell, with the red background, is shown. The right colum shows the message text, but it is read only, you edit the text on a separate page.

The left colum, with the heading Name, is also effectively split horizontally into two cells, although they are not distinguished by background color. The contents of these cells are links, clicking on one of them opens the related MediaWiki: namespace page for editing. To edit a message, click on the upper link, containing the name of the message. This link is red if the default text is in use, because the edit page is empty. The talk link is blue in the example because the current text page is not empty and the current text has replaced the default text in the user interface.

The lower link in every cell pair in the name column is Talk because message pages, like all wiki pages, have talk (discussion) pages, and this link gives you access to the talk page for the message named above it. Like the message page itself, the Talk link is red if the page is empty.

Note: the default MediaWiki style sheet makes these user interface elements display all lowercase. So the style sheets are where to change capitalization if that is what you want.