Extension:FileLink

Automates the creation of file:// links prompting user to select a file using a dialog.


 * Description and Installation


 * IMPORTANT: This extension is useful only in the context of mediawiki sites within controlled network environments. (e.g. Personal wikis, Intranet wikis, etc.) Even in such cases care should be taken to safeguard the integrity of the wiki.


 * IMPORTANT: To use with Firefox 3.0, several additional steps are required and a patch is needed. The patch will be uploaded here soon.


 * PLEASE VISIT: http://assela.pathirana.net/FileLinkExtension FOR UP TO DATE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS EXTENSION (the following has been duplicated from that site on 22/07/07

Context and Purpose
When MediaWiki is used as an internal collaborating platform or a Personal Information Management tool, its access is mostly limited to a single computer or a single subnet (shared network environment). In such situations, it is sometimes useful to have the "file://" protocol enabled, so that links to files that can be normally accessed can be made in the documents. MediaWiki FAQ explains. (Needs to enable the functionality in MediaWiki AND all the client browsers. Once both those changes are made, it is possible to make links like    in wikitext and clicking on them will open (or download) the respective link.

One of the issues in this approach is that the users need to make the file:// link themselves. This can sometimes be an tedious and error-prone process (particularly in windows environment). This extensions adds a editor toolbar button which will trigger a file open dialog so that the user can simply select the file to be linked. The extension places the correctly formatted file:// protocol link in the current position of the edit box.

Warning
Using fileprotocol links, even in a intranet environment can kill the integrity wiki, unless it is very carefully controlled. For example, one should never link files that will be later moved to some other place, or the are not shared (with the same path) among all the client computers.

How to use

 * Download the source code: FileLinkExtension.0.2.tar.gz from http://assela.pathirana.net/FileLinkExtension (FileLinkExtension.tar.gz is no longer valid.)
 * Expand it at the MediaWiki extensions folder
 * Add the following to the LocalSettings.php

To be done

 * Consider this as an alpha version. Not tested for many OS/browser environments yet.
 * Conversion of filenames to urls (e.g. escaping the spaces, converting \ to / in windows, etc.) are done in an ad-hoc fashion. Have to find a better way to do this.

Update
Sometimes the edit button of the extension appear several times on the toolbar. In order to avoid this problem. the following changes were done: Change to

Thanks to all who pointed this out by mail (and on the discussion page.)!

To make buttons appear in 'preview' mode
If you need to have the Filelink extension button in preview mode as well, just do the following mod.

Replace  with

This is the source I use : This corrected the fact that when the page is saved, the javascript part of adding the button to the toolbar was added to the page.