Manual:Extensions

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What are extensions?
Extensions let you customize how MediaWiki looks and works.

Wiki users can browse through existing extensions or request a new extension. System administrators can install (or remove) extensions on the MediaWiki installations that they manage. Developers can write new extensions or improve existing extensions.

Search the extensions by keyword(s):
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Depending on your goals you can use extensions to:


 * extend the wiki markup used to write articles - see Category:Parser function extensions and Category:Parser extensions for examples.
 * add new reporting and administrative capabilities - see Category:Special page extensions for examples.
 * change the look and feel of MediaWiki - 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.

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

Checking installed extensions
Only someone with administration access to the filesystem on a server can install extensions for MediaWiki, but anyone can check which extensions are active on an instance of MediaWiki by accessing the Special:Version page. For example, these extensions are active in the English Wikipedia.

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 your extension.
 * Extension Distributor helps you to select and download most of the popular extensions.
 * 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. Some extensions are available as source code within [ this wiki] . You may want to automate copying them.
 * Unofficial bundles of the extensions in the Wikimedia SVN repository can be found on the toolserver. These bundles are arbitrary snapshots, so keep in mind they might contain a broken version of the extension (just as if you load them from the developer's repository directly).
 * 1) Install your extension.
 * Generally, at the end of the  file (but above the PHP end-of-code delimiter, " ", if present), the following line should be added:
 * This line forces the PHP interpreter to read the extension file, and thereby make it accessible to MediaWiki.
 * Some extensions can conflict with maintenance scripts, for example if they directly access $_SERVER (not recommended).
 * In this case they can be wrapped in the conditional so maintenance scripts can still run.
 * if (!$wgCommandLineMode) {
 * require_once( "$IP/extensions/extension_name/extension_name.php" );
 * }
 * The maintenance script importDump.php will fail for any extension which requires customized namespaces which is included inside the conditional above such as Extension:Semantic MediaWiki, Extension:Semantic Forms.
 * The maintenance script importDump.php will fail for any extension which requires customized namespaces which is included inside the conditional above such as Extension:Semantic MediaWiki, Extension:Semantic Forms.

Upgrading an extension
Some extensions require to be updated whenever you update MediaWiki, well others work with multiple versions. To upgrade to a new version of an extension:
 * 1) Download the new version of the extension
 * 2) Replace all the extension files in the extension/ExtensionName directory with the new files. Do not remove the extension configuration present in LocalSettings.php
 * 3) Depending on the extension, you may have to run the Update.php maintenance script. Most extensions will mention if this script needs to be run or not. (Running the update.php script when its unnecessary will not hurt anything, so if you're unsure don't be afraid to run it). If you don't have command line access, you can also use the web updater.
 * 4) That's all you need to do. In most cases any extension configuration you have in LocalSettings.php will also work with the newer version of the extension.

Developing extensions
This complex topic is handled on under the developing extensions manual page.