Project:Support desk/Archive 17

= Resolved Topics = Feel free to browse these for ways to make articles better.

(RESOLVED) new wiki: two directories (akin to /w/ and /wiki/ here)
I'm going to install a new wiki soon.

I know that Wikipedia and MediaWiki have some articles in a directory "wiki" and other pages in a directory "w". I've heard this helps with writing robots.txt, so I would like to know how to do this for my own wiki.

How do I do this? Thank you.

(Also, as a side note, is there any purpose for this practice other than robots.txt?)

Smaug 04:42, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * All the files for these wikis are in /w/ (the pages themselves are in the database, and are retrieved through index.php). They then used an alias in apache to redirect /w/index.php?title=xxx to /wiki/xxx (see Manual:Short URL). The two main purposes of this are 1) to have prettier URLs, and 2) the ability to prevent robots from using any actions (like action=edit) which revert to the ugly URLs. Please note that if you want to set this up in your wiki, make sure that there is no folder named /wiki/, it WILL mess things up if there is. As for the Robots.txt they use, the basic one is for the user agent *, you disallow /w/, /wiki/Special:Random and /wiki/Special:Search (as those two special pages should'nt be indexed). --Skizzerz talk [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  21:54, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much! Smaug 17:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Vertical Scroll Bars
I've been trying to find code that limits the height of formatted text areas and then add vertical scroll bars. I've seen it created elsewhere on the Gentoo Wiki (http : // tiny url com / 2fv3gx), but for the life of me I just can't figure it out myself. I've searched the MediaWiki help sections to no avail.

Could someone please lend me a helping hand!!!

Cheers,

ak.


 * From that site's MediaWiki:Monobook.css:


 * and they have a template to generate that box. You can tweak it as you like. Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 02:54, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Reply:

Thanks so much for that. I now have my Box File template working. Is it possible to do this for all formatted text without having to "Box" it in?

You should be able to do that by using:

That makes it so you don't have to wrap the &lt;pre&gt; sections in &lt;div&gt;s. Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 04:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Custom namespaces and orphaned pages

 * MediaWiki: 1.11.0
 * PHP: 5.2.4 (cgi-fcgi)
 * MySQL: 4.1.22-standard-log

I created a custom namespace called Manual:, and since then a few pages have been added. One of these pages has now become orphaned (no links pointing to it). I checked the page's 'what links here' to make sure nothing linked to it. But when I went to Special:Lonelypages, the page wasn't listed. What's the catch? Something I forgot to configure?

—CodeCat 21:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * There is no such thing as Special:Lonelypages. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  23:39, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Huh its a special redirect, you really meant Special:Orphanedpages. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  23:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I guess, but both links lead to the same place, and the link in Special:Specialpages says Lonelypages. --CodeCat 01:32, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * PatPeter: It's Lonelypages. Special:Orphanedpages redirects to Special:Lonelypages. See MediaWiki 1.11 release notes.


 * CodeCat: I have a hunch that "orphaned pages" only counts pages that fall within the criteria of $wgContentNamespaces. Try tweaking your settings so Manual: is considered a content space and see if it shows up. Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 05:21, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I was wondering the same thing, but I just checked and it already has  $wgContentNamespaces[] = NS_MANUAL; , with NS_MANUAL defined as 100. So that can't be it. --CodeCat 12:18, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm, there's not a lot of documentation on that special page (that I can find) either. Maybe "it's not a bug; it's an undocumented feature." :P


 * Seriously, though, I'm out of ideas. :( Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 00:18, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I looked in the source files, and found this in includes/SpecialLonelypages.php:
 * So it seems that the whole thing is in fact hardcoded into the source. Worth fixing in a next release? --CodeCat 01:27, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * So it seems that the whole thing is in fact hardcoded into the source. Worth fixing in a next release? --CodeCat 01:27, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You got a Bugzilla account? I think this page is a good candidate for the namespace picker such as seen on Special:Contributions. I hope that thing's just a reusable module. It would take some tweaking, but it would make a good enhancement request. Or perhaps it should just use ; I think the chooser is better, personally. If you don't have a Bugzilla account I'll be happy to report the bug for you (unless you want to do it yourself). Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 04:10, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Posted it myself: link. Thanks for the help though. :) --CodeCat 13:17, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Wikipedia
How is it that on some non-English editions of Wikipedia talk pages have a colored background and rounded "article", "discussion", "edit" and "history" buttons. Is this a feature of older versions of MediaWiki or is it a customization (if that's the case, how would I go about doing it?). Also, some Wikipedias have a feature that when one replies on a talk page using the colon indent the text appears in a box like on [this http://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversa:Portada] page. Can anyone help? --58.169.232.209 09:08, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The coloring, rounded corners, and boxes are all tweaks to the site CSS. I've rounded corners in my own account on en.wp (see w:en:User:Voyagerfan5761/monobook.css), and you should be able to easily find the code that does it -- I've commented it well. Of course, it looks kind of bad (frankly) in Internet Explorer 6, so perhaps the WPs you've seen are using different code. (Can you post the language of one that has rounding? I'd like to make it so my account doesn't blow up at the library. ;-) )


 * The backgrounds on the responses are generated by this rather lengthy code in MediaWiki:Monobook.css:


 * All talk spaces are odd-numbered, which is why the  selectors don't affect articles. Does that help? Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 09:25, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you, that helped quite a lot. Excuse my poor English. A few Wikipedias have the rounded feature, these include the Bosnian, Italian, Romanian, and Esperanto Wikipedias. --58.169.232.209 10:06, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, how would I view the monobook "main.css" file of different language editions? I am trying to steal the code for rounding from the Spanish Wikipedia. I have tried "es.wikipedia.org/skins/monobook/main.css" but this gives me the standard file that comes with a fresh MediaWiki installation. The above code adds the feature nicely, but does not change the background color. Thank you so much for your help and patience so far. --58.169.232.209 10:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Don't worry about your English; I've seen much worse writing from English Wikipedia newbies who write from India or another Asian country. Sometimes I can't even figure out what they mean. :D Your writing, I'm not having trouble with.


 * So, I found the code for rounded corners on Pagina principală:


 * I'm guessing the header means "corner rounding", but I don't know Romanian. If you want the corners to be smaller, just adjust the em values to be smaller (like 0.5, for instance); making them bigger is similar.


 * The different styles you see aren't in main.css; they're located in either MediaWiki:Monobook.css or MediaWiki:Common.css. In the corners' case, the styles are probably in Monobook.css, since not all skins have the same elements whose corners would be rounded. Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 00:32, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Automatically undoing everything a vandalist has done
If a vandalist has written in dozens of articles, can an admin block its user and also automatically undo the relevant changes in dozens of articles? In other words, can blocking be retroactive?

If not, it's a huge issue. Imagine if you have even just 10 such vandalists. You'd have to manually revert hundreds (not to mention thousands) of articles! I know it's easier to revert for an admin, but it's still not feasible.

—79.176.153.180 17:51, 15 December 2007 (UTC)


 * If you look at the vandle's contributions there is a button for each edit called "rollback." Hold down shift when you click on it and it will do it in a new window.  100 clicks to do 100 reverts. Not so hard.  also, if the vandel makes a bunch of pages you can use Extension:Nuke. J.smith 18:38, 15 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Nevertheless, why not just allow block + revert in 1 click instead of 100? -79.178.93.100 23:09, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Extension:NukeDPL will allow mass nuking based on DPL queries, however you need to use with caution. --Zven 21:10, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That has nothing to do with reverting. -79.182.0.62 00:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No your right, I was thinking of the case where bots are creating lots of articles --Zven 00:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Is there no bot that can revert everything a certain user has changed? -79.182.0.62 15:24, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Its impossible because even normal user can't undo vandalism with conflicting edits. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  15:30, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Installation Error in 1.6.10

 * MediaWiki: 1.6.10
 * PHP: 4.3.3
 * MySQL: 3.23.58
 * Database:
 * URL: (not live since i'm having trouble installing)

When trying to install the software i keep getting an undefined function error in the parser. the following is the error page the software throws out. Additionally i cannot upgrade the MySQL or PHP, i tried the older 1.5x version of the software and it didn't work either. Same type of error; undefined function.

MediaWiki 1.6.10 Installation

Checking environment...

Please include all of the lines below when reporting installation problems.

* PHP 4.3.3 installed *     Warning: PHP's register_globals option is enabled. Disable it if you can. MediaWiki will work, but your server is more exposed to PHP-based security vulnerabilities. * PHP server API is cgi; using ugly URLs (index.php?title=Page_Title) * Have XML / Latin1-UTF-8 conversion support. * PHP's memory_limit is 8M. If this is too low, installation may fail! Attempting to raise limit to 20M... ok. * Have zlib support; enabling output compression. * Neither Turck MMCache nor eAccelerator are installed, can't use object caching functions * GNU diff3 not found. * Found GD graphics library built-in, image thumbnailing will be enabled if you enable uploads. * Installation directory: /home/wiki/public_html * Script URI path: * Environment checked. You can install MediaWiki.

Generating configuration file... * Database type: mysql

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: wfurlprotocols in /home/wiki/public_html/includes/Parser.php on line 55

—24.251.242.131 06:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Try one of the newer versions. It could be a typo in the program (or maybe not). Did you edit anything? --NorthStar 17:25, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I haven't edited a thing. And i was using this version because of the php and mysql limitations.


 * Wait what do you mean? You can't use the current versions? -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  17:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Changes not taking effect after editing Localsettings.php
After editing and saving localsettings.php, none of my changes take effect. Am I missing some obvious (and unspecified!) step, such as stopping services before editing, or running a script after editing? If so, which service(s) need to be stopped and/or what script needs to be run? Bastun 10:50, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * MediaWiki: 1.11.0
 * PHP: 5.2.4
 * MySQL: 5.0.45


 * You need to use a program to download LocalSettings.php like Filezilla, then edit it with Wordpad (NOT NOTEPAD), then press the button of the floppy disk (lol), then reupload and rewrite it. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  18:21, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No offence, but you don't appear to have read what I have written. Bastun 10:56, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No I did read what you wrote, you said you edited it and saved it, I told you how I edited it and saved it as you most likely did it wrong. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  20:07, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Changes made to LocalSettings.php should take effect straight away, I recall some have had problems with whitespace after the closing ?>, some people by convention remove it. What changes specifically were you making? --Zven 18:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It may be a caching issue with the server or browser, but that is highly unlikely. Anyway, you can try adding &action=purge to the end of the URL (or ?action=purge if using "pretty" URLs) and/or resetting your browser cache and see if that affects anything. Another possibility is that PHP is having some error with what you added, so it just skipped those lines (also unlikely, but anything can happen). --Skizzerz talk [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  03:12, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Another way to purge is to select edit, then the show preview button. --Zven 03:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Zven and Skizzerz: at this stage I'm trying anything to make localsettings display changes I've effected to it on the wiki :P My initial reason for editing was to include some extensions and to create custom namespaces (I'll then be setting grouppermissions on the new namespaces). As the new namespaces don't appear to have been created (not showing up in search, etc) I've done some things as basic as changing the logo and sitenotice in localsettings - no changes have any effect. I get the same logo and sitenotice as from when I made initial changes over a month ago when I first set up the wiki. My localsettings file has no closing "?>". Adding &action=purge, clearing browser cache and using edit preview don't show any changes either. Bastun 10:56, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Changing Manual:$wgSiteNotice is a good test. Your LocalSettings.php file should be in $IP, (something like, or  ). Are you editing a copy of LocalSettings.php that is in a different location by accident e.g. in  ?
 * If this is not the case you could try backing up your LocalSettings.php taking note of database passwords etc, then delete it. Rerun the process of configuring MediaWiki from the web browser url which will reconstruct a default LocalSettings.php in . Move the file and add a site notice message at the end again e.g.


 * You could then use a difference engine to examine the differences between your new version and your current one to see if there might be anything causing the issue. --Zven 19:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I've encountered this same problem on another wiki, and we've fixed it by restarting apache, so try doing that and see if that works (of course, we had to re-restart apache every time we had to change the config files... but that's because of our overly-agressive server-side caching). --Skizzerz talk [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  03:01, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Zven and Skizzerz - I'll try your suggestions out today and report back. Bastun 10:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Searching for singular words vs. plurals

 * MediaWiki: 1.10.0
 * PHP: 5.0.5 (cgi)
 * MySQL: 5.0.27-standard-log
 * Database: not sure
 * URL: http://siteground187.com/~mommypl1/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Is there a way to alter the search to include singular and plural forms of words? For ex: When I search for the term 'coughs' I get no results, but I do get results searching for 'cough.'

Similarly, when I search 'cough and cold medicine' I get no results, but I do get results for 'cough and cold medicines' that include        the full term, and results of just the word cough and just the word cold.

It seems like there is some disparity in the search results and the way to go about achieving those results.

If there is no way to alter the search, it would be great to understand how to best articulate this disparity to users.

—24.9.162.3 20:50, 3 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Create a page, Coughs, that says:


 * 1) REDIRECT Cough


 * -PatPeter, MediaWiki Support Team  21:00, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. While this addresses this one specific situation, is there a solution that will work site wide, not relying on specific terms, like cough?


 * No you will have to make a redirect for every page that has plurals. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  20:26, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Is WildCard Search possible?
The search in Mediawiki does not search for partial words. for eg if the name of the document title is "VoyagerTesting", and I give a search of "Voyager", it wont find the page by the title."Voyager" and "testing" are both dictionary words. I need to work on this and try to see if I can bring tis functionality in our wiki page.

Even if I give the wildcard serach, I am not able to find the page. For eg giving serach "voyager*" wont find the page titled "voyagetTesting".

Can you let me know if I Media wiki has this functionality??If yes, can you let me know how this can be done ?? If No, Can you give me some other alternative of bringing this functionality??

Thanks
 * You could try the Lucene Search extension, which is what Wikipedia uses. --Skizzerz talk [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  21:56, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) How do I add new categories to the wiki?
How do I add new categories to the wiki?
 * MediaWiki: 1.11.0
 * PHP: 5.2.5 (apache2handler)
 * MySQL: 5.0.45-5-log
 * Database: (sorry I couldn't find this but I dont think it is relevent anyway)
 * URL: http://www.tbsracing.freezoka.com/Wiki/

—79.68.198.170 19:39, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Please have a look at m:Help:Category. --WIKImaniac 20:05, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Rename a user
How do I rename a users in Media wiki (v1.10) —12.146.131.5 20:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Extension:Renameuser --Nad 20:32, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Powered by MediaWiki -- GNU License
Am I required by the license that comes with MediaWiki to keep the little box in the lower-right corner of my site that says "Powered by MediaWiki" on there? Smaug 02:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No, you are not required to keep anything down there. If you need help removing it, see this entry in the FAQ. --Skizzerz talk - contribs [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  02:46, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Smaug 03:11, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) What Extensions are you running

 * MediaWiki: 1.11.0
 * PHP: 5.2.3 (apache)
 * MySQL: 4.1.22-standard
 * Database:
 * URL: http://www.vibe-ent.com/w/index.php

I was wondering what extensions this site is running as I have copied the Help Pages and a couple of pages are not showing correctly. Also the export template needs to be updated as there are now a couple of extra templates on the help pages

—210.1.216.73 12:21, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * See here. This extension will allow you to use the
 * i Alex  15:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Ahhhh I didn't notice I had done that until after I started screwing around with Manual:Short URL, forgetting that a couple days before I copied Wikipedia's monobook.css. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  15:22, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Deleting users

 * MediaWiki: 1.6.10
 * PHP: 4.4.4
 * MySQL: 4.1.22-standard
 * Database:
 * URL: http://imsaw.com/mediawiki/
 * Know how to block users but how do i delete users?
 * By using Extension:User Merge and Delete or running the removedUnusedAccounts maintenance script (think that's what it's called). --Skizzerz talk - contribs [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  02:13, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I have to say, the UserMergeAndDelete extension just saved my butt from some early bogus test-users that were plaguing my wiki. It's a great extension! --Töff 02:49, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) CrossNamespaceLinks Extension

 * MediaWiki: 1.11.1
 * PHP: 5.2.3
 * MySQL: 4.1.22-standard
 * URL: Vibe Entertainment

I am having trouble installing Cross Namespace Links extension as there is no documentation for it. What to I place in my LocalSettings.php to make it work

—210.1.216.73 14:58, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * In your LocalSettings.php, you should put the line:


 * That's assuming you've put the extension's files into the extensions/CrossNamespaceLinks folder. Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 09:33, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I've tried that however when doing it I get a blank page and no wiki 210.1.216.73
 * I manage to fix it I ended up using

210.1.216.73

(RESOLVED) Force Preview in 1.10

 * MediaWiki: 1.10.0
 * PHP: 5.2.5 (cgi-fcgi)
 * MySQL: 5.0.24-community-nt
 * URL: (internal company wiki)

I want to enable Force Preview in MediaWiki 1.10. When I copy the information from MediaWiki:Common.js into my wiki's Common.js, it only appears as text. The parts between the { and } appears as text in div boxes. (UseSiteJS is set to true in DefaultSettings.php)

I tried to locate the EditPage.php code mentioned in the FAQ ( How can I force users to preview before they save  ), but using my Wordpad's Find function doesn't locate the text recommended to be replaced.

Am I missing something from Common.js that isn't showing in the above links?

—Fmmarianicolon 15:41, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * see Manual:Force preview for an overview of various ways to implement this. --Skizzerz talk - contribs [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  18:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I added the first set of code from Manual:Force preview. The result does not look like the Common.js from the French or English Wikipedias.  Here is a screenshot. Am I missing a Javascript tag that I need to place before it?  --Fmmarianicolon 18:58, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The appearance of it is due to the fact that the Wikipedias are running a newer version of MediaWiki than you are (and they have the GeSHi highlighter extension). It should work as expected regardless. resolving again because appearance of Common.js was not the intent of this thread. If you want to discuss ways to get your Common.js to look better, start a new topic. --Skizzerz talk - contribs [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  19:44, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not explaining myself very well, sorry about the confusion. The code that I added from Manual:Force preview did not enable Force Preview.  I saved common.js with the code, then logged into a regular user account.  On both the sysop and regular user account, I can Save the page without being required to preview first.
 * The reason for the above screenshot: I thought the different look of my common.js would provide a clue as to what its missing to get Force Preview working. If the screenshot does not show that I am missing something from common.js, what else should I check to get Force Preview working? Thanks, --Fmmarianicolon 20:12, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This js only forces preview for anonymous users. All logged-in users can still save without previewing with that javascript. Change the part way at the top from  to   if you want to force it for all non-sysops. --Skizzerz talk - contribs [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  20:20, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It's working now. Thanks much, you help is very appreciated! --207.114.205.130 15:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * (Oops, forgot to log in, but that was from me!) --Fmmarianicolon 15:51, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) mp4 quicktime crashes videolan player

 * MediaWiki: (Reported by your Wiki's Special:Version page)
 * PHP:
 * MySQL:
 * URL:

I have a Sanyo Xacti 1000 HD camera. The Quicktimes are mp4. Quicktime 7.1 plays it back but very choppy. Newer quicktime releases do not play the file back, only a green screen. I tried to play the clips back in the Videolan player but it immediately crashes. What vieo editing program will support and be stable. Please help anyone.

The system is xp pro, lots of ram, raid 0 satas, with a g force 7200 512mb card.

steven@rudeanimation.com

—Steven Rude 23:09, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Does this have something to do with MediaWiki? I don't think anyone here will help you if it's not. Did you mean to post this on the Wikipedia Reference Desk? Smaug 02:08, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Not relevant to MediaWiki. Closed. --Skizzerz talk - contribs [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  03:33, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) How can I add an INTERNAL LINK WITH A NAME-VALUE PAIR?
Q. How can I add an INTERNAL LINK WITH A NAME-VALUE PAIR?

I would like to use, for example, Special:Listusers&group=Writer to list only the users within the 'Writer' group, or Special:Userlogin&type=signup to jump directly to the account creation (not login) screen.

I can make an EXTERNAL link with a name-value pair, and use my site's own URL, but that's just kinda silly (and deceptively marks the link with the "external" icon).

The INTERNAL link parser doesn't seem to pick up the name-value pair appended to the link. I just get a "No such special page" error. Grr.

... I tried to come up with a clever #REDIRECT, but redirects use internal links, also, don't they. Dead end.

Thanks in advance, —Töff 02:45, 27 January 2008 (UTC)


 * MediaWiki=1.11.0 / PHP=5.1.6 / MySQL=5.0.37 / URL=Pale Ravens.
 * p.s. I am a new MediaWiki admin and I am loving the software so far! Cheers to all the developers!
 * For Listusers, using Special:Listusers/writers would work (internal link). As for account creation, unfortunately there is no current way to do this. You can use CSS to prevent it from looking like an external link, but that's about it for the moment. --Skizzerz talk - contribs [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  04:20, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * "using Special:Listusers/writers would work (internal link)." -- That's cool! Is that kind of switch documented anywhere? I never saw that before! Too bad there's not one for the login page. --Töff
 * THAT WORKS GREAT! ... but again, is that switch, and more importantly other switches like it, documented anywhere? I looked, really.--Töff
 * How about using the fullurl parser function e.g. [ Signup] ( [ Signup] ), and use CSS to remove the external icon. One way would be to make a new template with its own span class wrapper and create the CSS rule --Zven 04:37, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * "use CSS to remove the external icon" -- I could, but the external link icon is a nice thing, a wiki standard, and I won't want to train my users to expect something different from our MediaWiki than they do from the thousands of other installations. It's just a conformity thing, I guess. I like the wiki system and I want to break it as little as possible, in the name of suiting my needs. --Töff
 * You can remove the icon on a case-by-case basis by wrapping the link in . Ex: [ Support desk page history] . Works like a charm on every (recent - goes without saying) MediaWiki installation I've come across. Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 07:10, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * "remove the icon on a case-by-case basis" -- Thought of that some time after I posted. I bet it's what Zven meant, and I didn't listen carefully enough ... and yeh, a template would be the way to go. Zven was way ahead of me. Imma try it, then I'll mark this resolved if I can actually make it work. Thanks! --Töff
 * OMG, I've spent an hour trying every combination I could think of, and I cannot get to the proper result. Embarrassingly, I must ask somebody PLEASE just to show me how it must be done. I can't even post what I tried, because I tried so many different things. Here, just a sample, I know it doesn't work, but neither do any of the other things I tried. Grr! ... Ampersands and Curlybrackets and Pipes, oh my! (Not to mention the spaces, or omission of spaces, before and/or after. Is this classic newbie floundering, or what?) Help! Please!


 * Template:Plainlink ...
 * [ ]
 * Wiki markup for use on my page ...
 * }
 * I'll add FYI, one of the problems seems to be using a pipe in the URL in place of the net-standard ampersand, e.g., |type=signup ... it confuses the template parsing, I think, maybe, I dunno, I am without a clue. But I did try pipe instead of ampersand, lots of different ways.
 * The reason your example above doesn't work is because the fullurl parser function must specify query string arguments as a separate parameter e.g.  fails (due to the[Manual:Short URL|short url] of entire argument and uuencoding expansion), and   succeeds. As your've indicated that you are a new user this may be useful to remember;
 * Link syntax -associations between articles
 * [ - external links
 * [[ - internal links
 * Transclusion -embedding within articles
 * {{ - templates / variables/parser functions
 * {{{ - parameters in articles such as templates
 * Skizzerz mentions below that pipes can confuse the parser as they are supposed to separate key=value pairs so Template:! is used to stop that happening. Now his example appears to be failing aswell, and I think it is due to a problem being caused by the {{#if ... }} statement, we need to make a simpler template so it will work. --Zven 23:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * {{ - templates / variables/parser functions
 * {{{ - parameters in articles such as templates
 * Skizzerz mentions below that pipes can confuse the parser as they are supposed to separate key=value pairs so Template:! is used to stop that happening. Now his example appears to be failing aswell, and I think it is due to a problem being caused by the {{#if ... }} statement, we need to make a simpler template so it will work. --Zven 23:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Try this: Template:Plainlink  Template:!   (yes, just a single pipe) Wiki markup on the page  . You'll need ParserFunctions for this btw. --Skizzerz talk - contribs [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  20:01, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Fantastic, thanks so much, that code is beyond my level and I never woulda figured it myself ... I'll try it! ... btw please see my question above about the Listusers switch. --Töff
 * It totally didn't work. I give up. It's not worth any more effort. THANK YOU, though, for the help! It's generosity like that, that makes the web go 'round.--Töff
 * there appears to be two issues, problems with the {{#if: ...}} parser function, and mixing of named and unnamed parameters such that unnamed parameters after named parameters should be explicitly refered by their index e.g. 2=second parameter. Template:Plainlink;

{{#if: {{{params|}}} | [{{fullurl:{{{target}}}{{!}}{{{params}}}}} {{{label}}}] | [{{fullurl:{{{target}}}}} {{{label}}}] }} ''
 * called with;

{{Plainlink|target=Special:Userlogin|params=type=signup|label=create a new account}} {{Plainlink|target=Special:Userlogin|label=create a new account}} ''
 * should work. --Zven 00:23, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Zven baby you rock my world :) This was a lot more trouble that it was worth for the one little icon, so I think we will call this a wonderful learning experience for future problem solving. Amazing how unforgiving some syntaxes and parsers can be, eh!? BIG THANX to Zven and Skizzerz and V'gerfan. Imma call this resolved! w00h00! (but Imma also stick on a new Q about the Listerusers switch).--Töff 01:18, 28 January 2008 (UTC)