Project:Support desk/old

Trackback spam
I got hit by trackback spam of a huge proportion. I turned off trackbacks but they won't go away. How do I get them off my site? Can I clear the table to make all the spam like trackbacks go away? The trackbacks table is empty. They seem to autoregenerate when I delete them. --PurplePopple 12:36, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * MediaWiki doesn't have tracebacks. Disable whichever extension you have that adds them. Emufarmers 03:18, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Um, yes it does: $wgUseTrackbacks. PurplePeople, most like it is just stuck in your cache, that is why it wasn't going away. Try clearing your objectcache table and clearing your browser cache. --12.219.103.195 22:21, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

editing Pages
how can i add new articles using just MySQL... i mean without using my web site.. please answer me at : makievski@gmail.com

Makievskij Anton

—77.122.191.47 10:06, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * See the information about Exporting and Importing articles. --Dr DBW 23:03, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I would very strongly advise attempting manual database manipulation, due to the plethora of changes actually involved in creating a new page or updating an existing one, including altering the page record, creating a new revision, creating an appropriate text record and setting text flags, updating the link tables, recent changes table, etc. - and that's before you run into any of the classic gotchas such as character sets.


 * Your best bet might be to adapt a maintenance script such as maintenance/importTextFile.php, using MediaWiki as a library to a PHP script which does the job. robchurch | talk 01:37, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

PCRE missing UTF-8 Support?
I am trying to install MediaWiki 1.10.1 on a Debian Etch box, with PHP 5.2.0. I'm using the standard Debian Etch package for PHP and for PCRE (libpcre3).

I got the wiki installed, and it comes up, but on every page, toward the top and overwriting the header, are PHP errors:

Warning: preg_replace_callback [function.preg-replace-callback]: Compilation failed: this version of PCRE is not compiled with PCRE_UTF8 support at offset 0 in /home/ss1/www/multi/dev/includes/MagicWord.php on line 284

Warning: preg_replace_callback [function.preg-replace-callback]: Compilation failed: this version of PCRE is not compiled with PCRE_UTF8 support at offset 0 in /home/ss1/www/multi/dev/includes/MagicWord.php on line 284

Warning: preg_match [function.preg-match]: Compilation failed: this version of PCRE is not compiled with PCRE_UTF8 support at offset 0 in /home/ss1/www/multi/dev/includes/MagicWord.php on line 236

Warning: preg_replace_callback [function.preg-replace-callback]: Compilation failed: this version of PCRE is not compiled with PCRE_UTF8 support at offset 0 in /home/ss1/www/multi/dev/includes/MagicWord.php on line 284

...etc. Some pages have more than others. I tried fixing this by compiling my own version of libpcre configured with the --enable-utf8 flag, but I couldn't seem to get PHP to actually *use* it. (I don't know if that was because pcre was linked into PHP statically, or if it was because the Debian package pcre was libpcre.so.3, and my compiled version was libpcre.so.0.) Anybody know how I can fix these errors?

Part of the headache is that a TON of Debian packages depend upon libpcre3, so I'd feel really nervous about replacing it with a different version.

—198.51.119.157 15:14, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * http://uk2.php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php suggests using --with-pcre-regex=  to direct the PHP configuration script towards the right libraries. You might also be able to convince it to use a shared module. robchurch | talk 01:35, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Admin's confirmation for new accounts
How should I set up MediaWiki, if I want every new user account to be not activated before administrator's confirmation's? —83.237.226.11 21:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Explain activated. If you mean that you want to make it so that only "activated" users can edit or read pages, see extension:Require Editor Privilege.  If you just mean just "edit", that may require a bit more instruction, post here if that's what you mean. :-)  Cbrown1023  talk  01:43, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki does not have a concept of account "in limbo". Thre are basically two solutions: HTH -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 22:14, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) prohibit account creation by anons and users. So people have to ask you to create an account for them
 * 2) allow account creation to all (default), but take away the right to edit from normale users (and the "autoconfirmed" and "emailconfirmed" groups). Users would only be able to edit if they are assigend to a group which has the edit privilege.


 * You might also take a look at the ConfirmAccount extension, which is under development. It's marked as stable, although it is quite new, so take that with a pinch of salt... robchurch | talk 01:33, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Using MediaWiki for online encyclopedias with NON-user-created content?
If one wanted to create a for-profit online encyclopedia (in no way related to Wikipedia) where content was NOT user-created but rather supplied to the user, would MediaWiki still be the choice software? —75.51.70.95 23:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * If it is a large site yes. But be sure to restrict account creation properly. Aaron 00:57, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Wait... you're asking for a non-wiki? or are you asking about something like Citizendium (which uses MediaWiki)?  Cbrown1023  talk  20:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

It depends on what exactly you want. But http://lexikon.meyers.de/ (online version of one of the best known german encyclopedias) is based on MediaWiki. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 22:11, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * MediaWiki is a wiki engine. Everybody's got a slightly different idea of what a wiki is, but the basic definition that's agreed upon is a web site which is open for contribution by a wide number of users, and usually, public contribution. If your needs are radically different, then MediaWiki may not be the ideal solution for you.


 * It's worth noting that many companies, including Novell, and several high-profile organisations, such as the Mozilla Foundation, make regular use of MediaWiki for slightly different purposes, and many other organisations, educational institutions, etc. often deploy it as a convenient base for a collaborative knowledge base. robchurch | talk 01:32, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Using MSSQL instead of MySQL
Hi there,

Can anyone tell me if it is possible to use mediawiki using MSSQL instead of MySQL? —81.175.86.30 07:31, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * No, it's not possible. Implementing support for MSSQL would be doable, but quite some work. Postgres is supported though, and I think partial/experimental support for Oracle also exists. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 22:08, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Note that there was some recent work in this area (see http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9767), but I'm not quite sure what the status of that is at the moment. There's no official roadmap for inclusion of support for other DBMS; support for, e.g. PostgreSQL has become available thanks to a dedicated maintainer with a strong interest in making this happen. From our point of view, there's no benefit in supporting DBMS which we don't use in production.


 * The Oracle support was, at one point, removed from the software, and was re-added, but has once again slipped into an unmaintained state. robchurch | talk 01:30, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Help! Need to secure the MediaWiki.
Hello, I need some help in securing a MediaWiki. I want to make it impossible to view anything until a user logs in, and the creation of new user accounts to be allowed only from a couple of IP addresses. Can this be done? How? Any useful links? Thank you very much

—85.186.56.13 07:55, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Please read Rob's disclaimer first. Then, you could do Manual:Preventing access (there should be everything you need in there about only allowing read/edit for people with accounts and for disabling account creation unless you are a user).  Not sure how to allow it only from a few IP addresses.  Cbrown1023  talk  14:35, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Edit links for sections sometimes disappear
Edit section link are invisible for the same authorized accounts at different PC. Is this a bug or a known issue? —Salmira 12:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * MediaWiki 1.10.1 with security settings in LocalSettings.php
 * $wgDefaultUserOptions ['editsection'] = false;
 * $wgGroupPermissions['*']['read'] = false;
 * $wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit'] = false;
 * $wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = false;
 * Browsers: IE6 sp2, Maxthon 1.5.9.(b80)
 * OS
 * Works correct at MS Windows 2003 Server
 * Sometimes disappears at MS Windows XP Pro SP2

Upload File from URL
I'm been searching all over for an extension that will allow you to upload a file from a URL instead of from a resource on your local machine. Does anyone know if something like this exists? Thanks much.

—Blckdmnd99 17:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I know of one that has to do with uploading from Flickr that is used widely on Wikia, but there may be some others listed in Category:Media handling extensions.  Cbrown1023  talk  20:32, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

It's built in. From DefaultSettings.php: /** Allow for upload to be copied from an URL. Requires Special:Upload?source=web */ $wgAllowCopyUploads = false; -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 22:05, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I wanted to use language links, how can I enable it?
I wanted to have the language links like this page : http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Template:Languages

I copy and paste 2 templates related to this template (Template:Languages and Template:Languages/Lang ) but when I browse Template:Languages page I saw the functions like "ifexist" hasn't been executed. how can I solve the problem? —80.191.15.10 17:26, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * You need Extension:ParserFunctions -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 22:03, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

login and password maintenance under https?
Is there a setting, extension, or code example that allows someone to place just the login page and preferences pag under https protocol while the rest of the site runs under http? I've searched, but haven't found one. Thanks. --Vjg 18:36, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * All you need is to have the whole site accessible via either, but force any access to the login special page to return a redirect to the https if access is attempted from just normal http. This could be added in to LocalSettings.php such as in this (untested, off the top of my head) example: --Nad 02:54, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Hide from Certain User
Is there a way to hide a certain part of a page from a specific user or admin? How would I do this? Thanks. Smaug 22:36, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * no. you can hide entire pages from users not belonging to a special group (using an appropriate extension), but you cannot hide parts of pages. This would mess with caching, among other things. Note that hiding things in mediawiki isn't 100% air-tight anyway, mediawiki is not designed for this. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 10:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for answering. Smaug  13:36, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Wiki onto Google
How can I get my wiki onto Google? The URL is http://www.iaskmd.com. —24.7.119.253 01:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * be patient. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 10:11, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Nice answer. You can submit your site to google, http://www.google.com/addurl/ and wait to be crawled --Zven 02:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

pgsql.so
Where do i get pgsql.so? I have php_pdo_pgsql.dll but MediaWiki refuses to take it. —83.86.35.112 17:12, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Sounds like you are using Windows. Try uncommenting this line in your php.ini file (by removing the semicolon) ;extension=php_pgsql.dll Turnstep 18:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Sidebar Help
I need some help please. I cannot seem to edit/customize the sidebar. Here is my setup.


 * Windows Server 2003
 * PHP 5.2.3
 * MediaWiki 1.10.0
 * Mysql 5.2.3790
 * Monobook skin.
 * IIS 6
 * Running on an intranet, so no domain in url. just one word Take2Wiki.

I'm logged in as admin

After reading the helps and various tutorials, I'm pretty sure I just need to be editing my MediaWiki:Sidebar by going to this url.

http://Take2Wiki/MediaWiki:Sidebar

where http://Take2Wiki is the root of my Wiki site. However, it's returning an HTTP 404 error (Cannot find). I've also tried

http://Take2Wiki/index.php/MediaWiki:Sidebar

but to no avail. Am I missing something? Or could it possibly be my setup, or maybe the fact that I don't have a fully qualified domain name??

Any help is most appreciated.

bill —64.182.114.1 18:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Go to your wiki main page, then replace  in the URL with  . --Dr DBW 00:09, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

SQL Server 2005 Express
Can I install MediaWiki to work with "SQLServer 2005 Express" or "SQLServer 2000" --203.24.1.57 23:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * No. robchurch | talk 15:37, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Short Name issue
I am hosting on hostgator and having problems getting mod_rewrite to work properly.

http://www.thevbcoders.com/codi/index.php/Main_Page

I have tried all rewrite rules from the article on this site but still nothing. I don't have root access which I can't use the root portion. Any ideas on the problem?

Thanks Steve —76.4.188.64 01:28, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * That wiki looks very nice ;-) Short urls can have problems if you don't have access to the Apache config, but have you checked Manual:Short URL? --Nad 21:25, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

locking pages for users and groups
How can I lock pages for other users or how can I say that "page xyz" is just readable for "group abc"? —213.214.18.64 07:23, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * See a couple of questions on this page, Project:Support_desk, Project:Support_desk --Dr DBW 07:25, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Undefined offset: 0 in Namespace.php on line 96
Recently upgraded to Mediawiki 1.10.1 from 1.9.3 and now the above error has appeared. Did the normal upgrading process, back up of files and database, copied new version over the top of the old, ran the updating script, then that was it. Any ideas on the cause of it? I didn't change anything to do with the LocalSettings.php file either. The contents of line 96 in Namespace.php is below --Dr DBW 07:24, 31 August 2007 (UTC) return $wgCanonicalNamespaceNames[$index];
 * Any suggestions? Something wrong in the LocalSettings.php?  I also updated two other wikis, on the same server, using the same procedure, and this error did not appear. --Dr DBW 21:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Something in your LocalSettings must be clearing that array because its content (including offset 0) are all defined in namespace.php. Maybe try commenting out extensions to see if any are causing the problem. And check if any localsettings are related to namespaces too --Nad 22:27, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the suggestion. Have worked out that it is due to the Extension:SidebarEx.  Off to the developer to see if they know why etc .... --Dr DBW 04:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Issue has been resolved. Was a bug in the extension code. -- Dr DBW  |  talk  23:15, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Another Question
I want to link words within a page to a master definitions list. How do I create a Master page that different words in different pages can link to. —67.161.224.23 14:54, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

—69.146.160.203 15:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Creating links from words to a master definitions or references page
I am creating a procedures wiki and I need to link individual words or phrases to master pages that will contain multiple definitions, references etc. I wish to create these master lists so that in the future, updating references, definitions are done on one page and not multiple procedures

trhixon —Trhixon 15:45, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The Glossary extension might do what you are looking for. --Dr DBW 00:16, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Adding Content in Sidebar
Hey,

I'm working with an organization at ASU that is using this Wiki software. I'm not familiar with it, so I am having difficulty getting some things accomplished...

Particularly, where (line #s, files, etc) do I go so that I can add content into the sidebar? We are wanting to add some images/logos at the end of the sidebar (underneath the toolbox). I'd like to just be able to go into a file and add the simple HTML code; but I haven't found the appropriate files/etc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Andrew

—149.169.101.176 18:21, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You may not need to touch the filesystem file structure of MediaWiki, try altering the article MediaWiki:Sidebar on your wiki (have to be a Sysop), however this adds content above the toolbox. See Manual:Interface/Sidebar for documentation details --Zven 20:09, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Images cannot be added into MediaWiki:Sidebar so it looks like you are going to have to find and alter the code. Have you already altered the logo? --Zven 20:36, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Blocking anonymous users from certain namespaces
I would like to block users that are not logged in (or not of a certain permission atleast) from viewing various namespaces. In other words, I don't want them to even be able to view the source.

In particular:
 * Mediawiki:*
 * Template:*

How can I do this?

—71.146.38.183 21:40, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * See Manual:Preventing_access --Dr DBW 23:33, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Special Statistics error and problems creating subdirectories
Hi, my Special:Statistics returns a figure of 18,446,744,073,709,551,615  articles. It would have been good if it were really true but the fact is that I have just started. Also, what is the command for counting the number of articles in a subdirectory.

I don't seem to be able to add any directory after 103.
 * $wgExtraNamespaces = array(100 => "Portal", 101 => "Perbincangan_Portal");
 * $wgExtraNamespaces = array(102 => "Istilah", 103 => "Perbincangan_Istilah");

I have tried other numbers such as 110 and 201 but it doesn't seem to work either. Also, 100 and 101 does not work either. Only 102 and 103. Is there a conflict somewhere?

(P/S: My version is 1.10.1. I just downloaded the patch, mediawiki-1.10.1.patch(3).sig. Which directory should I download it to?) -- PM Poon 05:13, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * About the statistics: There was a problem with the counting, and it went to the largest possible value.
 * About the counting of the pages in namespace (not "subdirectory"): Add the following code to LocalSettings.php (after the place you added the extra namespaces):

$wgAllowSlowParserFunctions = true;
 * Then use the magic word "PAGESINNS", e.g. . You can remove the line in LocalSettings.php if you don't want to use this magic word any more.
 * About the extra namespaces: You use wrong PHP commands. The later command overrides the earlier one. You should use only one command, for example:

$wgExtraNamespaces = array(100 => "Portal", 101 => "Perbincangan_Portal", 102 => "Istilah", 103 => "Perbincangan_Istilah", 104 => "...", 105 => "...");
 * Alternatively, you can use:

$wgExtraNamespaces[100] = "Portal"; $wgExtraNamespaces[101] = "Perbincangan_Portal"; $wgExtraNamespaces[102] = "Istilah"; $wgExtraNamespaces[103] = "Perbincangan_Istilah"; $wgExtraNamespaces[104] = "..."; $wgExtraNamespaces[105] = "...";
 * – rotemliss – Talk 15:51, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

'''Thank you very much, Rotemliss. The solutions given by you were very, very helpful. I had been searching high and low in Google Search but did not manage to find any answer.''' PM Poon 22:40, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Centering a table VERTICALLY on the page
Hi guys Is there a way to center a table VERTICALLY on a page? I can center horizontally no problems, but vertically, with the valign tag, it doesnt want to play ball. —58.175.34.241 05:56, 1 September 2007 (UTC)


 * http://www.w3schools.com/css/pr_pos_vertical-align.asp —Eep² 08:31, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

php error
I'm trying to install MediaWiki 1.11.0 on php 4.4.7. In the main page you have this

* Download MediaWiki (current stable version is 1.10.1) * Web Server such as Apache or IIS * PHP version 5.0 or later (5.1.x recommended) * Database Server o MySQL 4.0 or later o or PostgreSQL 8.1 or later (also requires plpgsql and tsearch2) o or Ingres 2006 or later (SVN-Download)

when i install, appear this error: "PHP 5.0.0 or higher is required. ABORTING." what can i do to solve this? thanks, and sorry for my bad english :|


 * You said you have PHP 4.4.7. It requires at least PHP 5.0 (5.1 recommended).


 * Either upgrade PHP, or use MediaWiki 1.6.x -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 22:14, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Coding Error from server not meeting all requirements?
What I mean is, the PHP Version, for example is actually 4.4.6 (I have a 1.9 in use for the wiki software). Could this be an interfearence in some codes not working right? (Example would be the hidden varible one, I CANNOT seem to get it to work)--TheSisko


 * Upgrade PHP to version 5, or use MediaWiki version 1.6.10. Emufarmers 03:18, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

How to Remove Top Links on the right - MyTalk, Preferences, MyWatchlist, My Contributions, but no Log in
Hi Guys, ive been struggling with this. I want to remove the: Top Links - MyTalk, Preferences, MyWatchlist, My Contributions, but KEEP the Log in/Log out link. Ive tried to do the following in Monobook.php, but it removes also the Login/Log out link. $wikidata[personaltools_header] $wikidata[personaltools_content] Any help appreciated. --203.5.136.234

Installation: Requested to Choose Application
I have uploaded MediaWiki (1.6.10) to my web host and MySql database is up, but when I direct browser to directory, the browser tells me I have chosen to open a file, and asks me to chose an application:



This happens in Mozilla Firefox, Netscape Navigator, and MS Internet Explorer. What I am doing wrong? —James R MacLean 09:40, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * As said on Bugzilla (11153), it's not our problem, it's a problem with your host's PHP. -- Sayuri 12:38, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The problem is now solved. What happened was that, initially, I had installed release MW 1.10.1, but my web host only supported PHP4.4, not PHP5 (which is a requirement of release 1.10.1).  So I used the SSH client to delete the /wiki directory and replaced it with a new one containing release 1.6.10.  This time, I got the same error.  That's when I posted here the first time.


 * A tech guy at my webhost kindly noticed that it worked for him, so perhaps it was necessary for me to flush my DNS resolver cache. It worked, and I'm in business.  Thanks to everyone for listening and diagnosing.

Optional linking
I have a question. That's why I'm here, you see. My question is this: I'm creating a bunch of templates on a Wiki of mine, and I was wondering if there was a line of code I could use that would link to a certain article if that article existed, but if it didn't, would link to another, default one.

Thanks. (And sorry if this is the wrong place to ask...) ~ ТģØ(Đ {ŧª∫Қ ↑¤ Мә} 14:01, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * If you install Extension:ParserFunctions, you get an ifexists directive: ParserFunctions -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 22:18, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

You are a very helpful person. Thanks! ~ ТģØ(Đ {ŧª∫Қ ↑¤ Мә} 04:24, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Faulty system clock has lead to strange wiki behaviour
My company's wiki server has recently had trouble maintaining the correct time (which was an OS/hardware problem, nothing to do with the wiki software). It's been fixed now, but as a result of the problem we have a wiki in which some articles have been time-stamped with a date in the future. This leads to problems displaying the most recently-edited version of an article.

Is there any 'official' way to correct this? I've considered possibilities such as hacking the database to set all versions to an arbitrary date (say 01-01-2007) but I suspect that such ignorant tinkering could well lead to further problems. Any advice will be much appreciated - thanks in advance. —WombatDeath 15:23, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Manually settings times in the revision table (most essential - bad timestamps in recentchanges ad logging are probably not so critical) is the only way i know to fix something like that. But what to set the time to is another problem. If the info is gone, it's gone... -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 22:20, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for your response! We'll look into that - no data appears to have been lost, so the situation should be recoverable.
 * WombatDeath 10:15, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

CategoryTree in SideBar Problem
Hi guys hope you can help. Ive got the CategoryTree working in the SideBar but there is a problem. It works fine when expanding out the tree on the Main Page. I can click on a child on the Main page and it goes to the right location. However, when Im at the new location other than the Main Page, I get a similar problem to what has already been discussed under "Clicking the [+] has no effect / gives JavaScript error".

The thing is: 1) On the new page, I can click on the root of the category tree, and it takes me to the right location. 2) On the new page, I can click on the root and goes to that root fine, but I cannot expand that roots children out. I CAN expand the CategoryTree out successfully on the Main Page only, but no other page.

The error code Im getting on pages other than the Main Page when using the CategoryTree from the sidebar is: Line 671 Char33 Error:Object Expected Code:0 URL:  I have checked all is correct with the notes on "Clicking the [+] has no effect / gives JavaScript error".

SUMMARY:

On the Main Page: I can expand the category tree successfully, and click on children successfully. On Pages other than the Main: [+]Category (If I click this, it goes to this page) [+]Category (If I click this, it goes to this page) [+]Category (If I click this, it goes to this page) eg. [+]VBScript (If I click on VBSScript, it goes to http://localhost/mediawiki/index.php/Category:VBScript When I hover over the [+] next to VBScript, the path is looking at http://localhost/mediawiki/index.php/Category:VBScript# Questions. This error Im getting. What file is the error coming from, and how to correct? Thank you. —58.175.32.33 19:49, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) I can click on the root of each category and go to that page:
 * 1) If I try and click on the [+] sign next to the Category Name, eg. the [+] next to VBScript, I get the error message.


 * as stated on Extension:CategoryTree, it does not work right in system messages. This is a known issue, and there's no simple and good solution (or at least, i don't know any). Basically, CategoryTree registers JavaScript code in the ParserOutput object if it gets used on a page. But system messages used as interface components (like the sidebar) are parsed differently, so the needed JavaSCript does not end up in the HTML head. So CategoryTree doesn't work.
 * A possible hack to work around this issue (untested!): in CategoryTree.php, find the function efCategoryTreeParserOutput. Remove the condition, so it always calls CategoryTree::setHeaders( $outputPage ); This causes the css/js for categorytree to be included on every page (which is not very smart generally, but what you want in your case).
 * Put a note on Extension talk:CategoryTree if this works :) -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 22:33, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Purging database
I made a mistake in my LocalSettings.php regarding namespaces and all my articles that should have gone into the Istilah namespace went into the main namespace instead. When I corrected my mistake in my Localsettings, all my Istilah:xxxxx articles disappeared. Now I rewrite all those missing articles and my Special Statistics hit 18,446,744,073,709,551,615. I added 2 articles in the main namespace and now the number of articles read 18,446,744,073,709,551,613.

I wonder whether there has been a conflict between the two Istilah type articles. How do I purge my database of those articles in the main namespace that is "missing"? Hopefully, this may solve the Special Statistics error. And also, I would like to purge all deleted data from time to time as the website that I rented is quite budget. PM Poon 22:52, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Here's some special-page extensions that may help with that: --Nad 03:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Extension:SpecialDeleteOldRevisions - deleting article history or archive for selected articles
 * Extension:Nuke - deleting articles and their history selected by author or IP
 * Extension:NukeDPL - deleting articles and their history selected by DPL query

Thank you Nad, for your recommendations. I have tried the first two but not the third one as I do not use DPL. The second one works but is not useful for me as my ISP assigns a different IP address each time I log in. I think the first one is what I need but unfortunately it returns the following error (I am using MediaWiki version 1.10.1):


 * Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/ekomrinf/public_html/ekompute/LocalSettings.php:147) in /home/ekomrinf/public_html/ekompute/includes/WebResponse.php on line 10.

The pertinent line 10 in /home/ekomrinf/public_html/ekompute/includes/WebResponse.php is:
 * /** Output a HTTP header */
 * function header($string, $replace=true) {
 * header($string,$replace);
 * }

while /home/ekomrinf/public_html/ekompute/LocalSettings.php:147 is:
 * include_once("$IP/extensions/SpecialDeleteOldRevisions.php"); &mdash; PM Poon 17:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Displying article and discusssion board on the single page
Please see the followin image. I want to display article and discusssion board on a single page. Is it possible to customize in media wiki. Please response quick Thanks in advance

—Bpishere 16:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Have a look at Extension:TalkHere -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 20:12, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

install-utils.inc
hi i have wiki 1.10.1 and php 5.2.1 and mysql 4.1.22-standard

everytime i go to install i get this message

Warning: require_once(includes/Defines.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/zendurl/public_html/s/stozy/config/index.php on line 46

Fatal error: require_once [function.require]: Failed opening required 'includes/Defines.php' (include_path='.:/home/zendurl/public_html/s/stozy:/home/zendurl/public_html/s/stozy/includes:/home/zendurl/public_html/s/stozy/languages') in /home/zendurl/public_html/s/stozy/config/index.php on line 46

what is going wrong ? nothing i do works. :(

—83.104.231.36 20:58, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Pretty URLs and namespaces with subpages
I'm running the latest version of MediaWiki, and have configured pretty URLs. They work fine, unless it relates to a subpage. For example: www.domain.com/wiki/article/article subpage. If you type in a pretty URL direct to a subpage it won't work and gives a 404 not found error. If you type in an unpretty URL - www.domain.com/wiki/index.php?title=article/article subpage - then it works fine. Any ideas on how to fix this? —Coldmachine 21:32, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It depends on what method you've used to set up the pretty urls --Nad 22:01, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Installing scripts to apply to all users: MediaWiki:Common.js
I have tried copying and pasting the js from a number of scripts (e.g. the Force Edit Summary script, and the Force Preview before save script) into MediaWiki:Common.js but none of them seem to work. I've tried with and without the initial pre and nowiki tags (and closing them at the end). If I omit both of those then the page looks pretty weird - some of the code is highlighted in a boxed area for example. If I include them both then still no luck. Is there an extension which needs to be installed prior to amending Common.js with scripts? Oh, I also tried importing via the importscript command both to external URLs and to an internal userspace-based article containing the code, and no luck there either. —Coldmachine 21:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You need to set $wgUseSiteJs to true for the MediaWiki:Common.js file to be included. --Nad 21:56, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Database corruption
Hi, I may be experiencing database corruption. My webhost has proposed that I delete the database and create a new one. If so, all my work goes down the drain. Fortunately the site is very new and has no other user contribution. How do I safeguard my contents in the future?
 * If you have access to the command line you could try running the php script in the maintenance directory php rebuildall.php. The corruption may be more severe, in that case you would need to use mysql tools to establish whether your database is recoverable. The mysql command;

mysqldump -u root -p --single-transaction -B wikidb > wikidb.sql
 * will back up your database at any time. --Zven

Also the use of ImageMagick requires exec to be enabled. I understand this is a very big security risk. &mdash; PM Poon 02:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Edit summary formatting (resolved)
Where is the edit summary formatted? Specifically, I want to get rid of the parentheses </tt> around it. I've already hacked Special:Recentchanges to be a sortable table but would like to fix the edit summary to not have parentheses (and "New page:" in it since the "N" symbol already represents that--I thought it would be editable via MediaWiki:Autosumm-new but removing "New page:" from that had no effect on the recent changes list). —Eep² 12:00, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, seems the "New page:" and other "autosumm-"* system messages are hard-coded into the recentchanges database table so existing edit summaries won't be affected (which is why, after editing MediaWiki:Autosumm-new, I didn't see any change). And I found where the parentheses are added: in ..includes/Linker.php</tt> (line 964) of all places. —Eep² 14:33, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

After setup of 1.6.10 since I am using PHP4, I get the following errors:

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at\wiki\LocalSettings.php:1) in \wiki\includes\OutputPage.php on line 496

Which repeats for 421,449,450,452, 503 and 510. How do I resolve this? —71.41.51.2 16:23, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Access resources outside MediaWiki
Greetings all,

My problem is as follows:

I have a MediaWiki (1.10) site up and working well. The versions of Apache & MySQL are at or within one minor release of current. On the whole, all is working as expected. My issue is that I have an internal client who wants to "advertise" their work on the Wiki without having to upload it. Rather, they want to have some screen on the Wiki look like a standard "Directory/File" display they can "walk down" to the file they want and let the user copy the file from wherever it is stored to the users local disk. These files are on a standard SMB capable Linux box.

The primary directory (containing all the other directories & files) can be mapped in Windows (or NFS) and, of course, there is an Apache Web server that could also be used for access (a new virtual host likely but that's fine).

I have searched EVERYWHERE I can think of, looking for an extension or other mechanism to do this but, no luck. I tried to make the FileProtocolLinks and FileLinkExtensions work but again, no luck (can someone provide a step-by-step to make EITHER of these work?).

I am assuming this can be done but maybe not...In any event, I would GREATLY appreciate ANY help anyone could offer.

Thanks,

Pete

—216.68.13.36 16:59, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You'd need to explain more clearly what items are being copied from where to where and what information the tree structure is reflecting, but it sounds like you'd need an extension made specifically for that. --Nad 22:05, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

--216.68.13.36 19:54, 5 September 2007 (UTC) Essentially, I need to be able to "approximate" the function of a file manager (like Windows Explorer or one of the Linux GUI FM's). The resources are different files (all Acrobat, WORD, Excel or PowerPoint). They all sit on an SMB accessible file server. I also have Apache running on the server so some kind of extension able to display something like a file system as seen by http or ftp (the GUI interfaces that is)would work. I WON'T have control of the directories and files inside the root directory but I DO have control of the parent (root) directory containing the folders & files. I hope this makes things clearer. I hate to have to do it this way but short of importing all the files in some kind of an "Internal Link" construction (which is way too much work and I KNOW the person in charge of these files won't do all the uploading), I'm not sure how to "encourage" MediaWiki handle this requirement.

Many Thanks, Pete

Upload Error (resolved)
When I try to upload a file I'm getting a rather long error. As far as I can tell I've got everything set up as it should be according to the FAQ and all other documentation that I can find. This is the error message I'm getting:

Warning: mkdir [function.mkdir]: SAFE MODE Restriction in effect. The script whose uid/gid is 7926/0 is not allowed to access /mounted-storage/home70b/sub001/sc16966-QTFK/www/wiki/images/archive owned by uid/gid 99/99 in /mounted-storage/home70b/sub001/sc16966-QTFK/www/wiki/includes/GlobalFunctions.php on line 1695

Could not copy file "/upload_tmp/phpNcZbbN" to "/mounted-storage/home70b/sub001/sc16966-QTFK/www/wiki/images/9/93/V1p4f.jpg". —68.148.110.107 19:09, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Any idea?

Thanks, Tyler
 * From what those errors are saying it looks like you need to change the permissions on your images directory as the script is not allowed to create files in there. --Nad 21:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Permissions are all set to write. That's why this is confusing me so much.

Tyler
 * I think that "SAFE MODE Restriction in effect" is bad and means that your ISP has disabled PHP's ability to create directories. If the ISP doesn't want to turn that off, then you may be able to still upload images by setting $wgHashedUploadDirectory to false which would mean all uploaded files would go directly into your images directory without needing to create new sub directories to put them in. --Nad 22:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Works perfectly now, thank you. I guess it would have help to have read through the LocalSettings.php file a bit more closely.

Sidebar - Nqvigationsleiste
I have installed MediaWiki (german language). This is the URL of my Startpage: htttp://10.1.1.47/index.php?title=Hauptseite How can I edit the navigation Bar on the left side? htttp://10.1.1.47/index.php?title=Sidebar and htttp://10.1.1.47/index.php?title=Navigation are empty pages?? Can you please help me?

—213.70.219.139 08:23, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The sidebar article is MediaWiki:Sidebar --Nad 09:07, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, but what URL must I enter to edit the Sidebar?--213.70.219.139 09:16, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You should just be able to edit it like any normal article. If it's showing up as empty when you click edit, then maybe you need to set $wgUseDatabaseMessages to true in your LocalSettings.php file, but normally you shouldn't need to do that for the sidebar article... --Nad 09:31, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I think I do not have the right link. This is the link for my mainpage: http://10.1.1.47/index.php?title=Hauptseite now I edited it manually to htttp://10.1.1.47/index.php?title=Sidebar and it shows an empty page (even after adding your parameter). But it also shows an empty page when I enter a nonexistant URL like /index.php?title=DoesNotExist

--213.70.219.137 09:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The links your showing me here are intranet addresses and not accessible from outside your LAN. Also the link to the sidebar you've shown has the title "Sidebar", not "MediaWiki:Sidebar" which is the name of the article containing the sidebar links. --Nad 10:18, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * /index.php?title=MediaWiki:Sidebar works. Thank you!--213.70.219.137 11:20, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Thumbnails aren't being set with the correct permissions when created
When creating thumbnails either in gallery or just by using the thumb command, the actual thumbnails themselves aren't being set with the correct permissions. Any idea what could be causing this?

—81.150.229.177 13:43, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Images won't resize
I seem to have a problem resizing images of whatever type while editing. We have wikimedia 1.9.2 installed on a Linux server. At first I thought it had to do with the fact that there might be a problem with the MIME type being read incorrectly but when I check the uploaded files, the MIME type is correct. Is there something I need to change in the LocalSettings to enable resizing all together? I've found quite a few entries in the support pages related to ImageMagick but we don't have that installed and I don't think it is needed for basic image resizing.

Any suggestions?

-212.113.85.1 14:28, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I am no expert and I had a similar problem before. You need to use either ImageMagick or GD. My webhost gave me GD because you need to enable exec to run ImageMagick (something that is not wise because it presents a big security risk).

The relevant part of LocalSettings.php reads:
 * '' ## To enable image uploads, make sure the 'images' directory
 * '' ## is writable, then set this to true:
 * ''$wgEnableUploads      = true;
 * ''$wgUseImageMagick = false;
 * ''$wgFileExtensions = array( 'png', 'gif', 'jpg', 'jpeg', 'svg', 'ogg' );

As you can see, you need to disable ImageMagick. However, you will need to enable GD in one of the files to get GD to work. I can't remember which file it is. Can anyone else help? &mdash; PM Poon 16:48, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

How to tell MediaWiki to use different php version
How do you tell MediaWiki to use a different version of php? On one server that are trying to install on, default is some 4 version, but 5 is installed and available. Where can you tell it to find php in a different to the standard location. --Dr DBW 00:39, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Just found out that if use .php5 then it will use version 5. But that means have to rename all the .php files, though suppose that isn't that much of a problem ... --Dr DBW 00:54, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * If want to rename files, can use, however, penny just dropped that that solution wont help, as there are lots of includes inside the MW code, which are directed at .php files, not .php5, so this idea doesn't get anywhere --Dr DBW 04:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Another reason this wont work, is .php5 files on the server are still handled using cgi, so the #!php5 line still has to go inside all the .php files --Dr DBW 05:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * To avoid changing all the scripts to php5 (if using Apache) you can use mod-rewrite to append the "5" to all php scripts within a particular virtual-host. --Nad 02:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Would that mean that the .php file is then executed as a .php5 file though, or simply displayed back to the browser as having that extension? This is the response I got from my host when asked them about mod-rewrite: --Dr DBW 04:10, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Mod_rewrite will simply rewrite the URL of the file, not the files itself. I'm afraid the only option at this stage, apart from an upgrade to a PHP5 native server as you're already doing, is to manually add the shebang to each file.
 * Yeah that's true actually - you'd have to change the .php handler just for that virtual host... --Nad 05:15, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Seems you can use a .htaccess file setting to do that. Haven't worked it out yet how it is done yet though .... --Dr DBW 01:21, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * On the particular server I am running things on, you add  and , because they run php5 for some reason as a cgi module. Plus, within the .php files you need to have   at the top of the .php files. --Dr DBW 01:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * So this idea doesn't work either, since the #! line has to be added to the all the .php files. Only way out now is the above one using mod-rewrite --Dr DBW 04:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Since mod-rewrite is not an option, you could do a perl one-liner to add the she-bangs, such as this (make a copy of the dir structure first though incase it stuffs up):

perl -p -i -e "$/='%%%%%';s/^/#\!\/bin\/php5\n/" `find mw/ -name "*.php"` Those %'s set the record separator to something non-existent because otherwise the regexp applies to every line. Change "mw" to the mediawiki install basedir, and set the php5 path to suit. --Nad 05:51, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, here is what I have come up with (but have not as of yet tried it out), first run this script that will put the #!php5 code on the start of all .php files and save them as .php5 Then run this script that will rename all of the .php5 files back to .php --Dr DBW 05:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

And further refinement of the script, going to try this out (have to get my providers to run the script). If anyone has suggestions on how to get the script to do it on sub-directories as well, that will make life easier, as there are 17 directories with MediaWiki that contain .php scripts that will need to run it in. --Dr DBW 06:39, 6 September 2007 (UTC) And now made this into a bash script to run. Anyone here got an idea how to get it to go into sub-directories to do the same process? --Dr DBW 00:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The perl line above will match all .php's recursively and prepend a shebang to each, you could add a rename to it too --Nad 01:20, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the suggestion. Not needed now anyway ;-( --Dr DBW 02:51, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, not surprisingly, not as easy as I thought. .php files that are included into the original, called .php file, well you should have the #!php5 line in that, d'oh. Should have realised that. Damn, I wish they would just upgrade all to php 5, but they aren't doing that until Jan next year ..... --Dr DBW 02:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Adesense Advertisement Not Displaying
The Google tower-format advertisement in the right column could not display until I added the following line to my LocalSettings.php:
 * require_once("$IP/adsense.php");

Unfortunately, I got the following error:

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/ekomrinf/public_html/ekompute/adsense.php:4) in /home/ekomrinf/public_html/ekompute/includes/WebResponse.php on line 10

What could be causing the problem? &mdash; PM Poon 04:07, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Automatic replacement of string from more than one page
Hey, i've a problem.

How can i replace (automatic) a string from more then one pages.

In an older Mediawiki version i used html image links (<img src=".."/>). now, in mediawiki i use the mediawiki image links, because the html links are wrong.

So i need a methode, to replace from all pages the old links.

Please help!

—62.8.155.19 10:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You'll need to use an external script to loop through the pages and adjust them, here's a few approaches you could use:
 * Create a simple match & replace http robot based on existing mediawiki-client code like libwww-mediawiki-client-perl or wiki.pl.
 * Create a script which loops through and modifies the article by accessing the database, such as caretaker.pl which is desgined to loop through all articles daily and apply a set of match & replace rules on each.
 * Bot can can be simplified by installing Extension:Simple Forms which adds extra query-string options which can be used for matching and replacing content. Yi-bot is an example script which uses this method of mass replacement.
 * --Nad 10:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

wikidb.text table not found
I am upgrading our wiki from 1.4 to 1.10.1... I have copied over all files as shown, i have tried the php update.php and re installing it from the config.. I get an error saying wikidb.text is not found. I am logged in to phpMyAdmin and there is not text table. There are alot of tables so i'm sure everything is here as was before. The wiki worked well before trying to update is there something I should be renaming or otherwise?

Thank you Jasin

—138.162.128.52 15:46, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Main Page Design
Dear friends of MediaWiki, we want to use Mediawiki in our club for our own Intranet. We welcome all the useful tools of Mediawiki. Please take a look on our Main page. We would be very happy if someone could help us with the formatting. How could we better arrange the little pictures? We protected our intranet by password. Should anyone anyway could open it, so tell me please. I would give a password to trustable Users. --Ulli1105 11:57, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

MySQL 1062 Error
I'm using a web-hosting(I don't have server.) and I setup the latest Wiki(Korean). and everything was OK in setup process. but when I try to make another account or try to write a post, then they print "MySQL 1062 Error"(i'm not sure that was whether 1062/1026). the servers told me to delete all tables, and I did, and I setup again, and still I have that ploblum. —121.147.10.228 16:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Sysop?
I've uploaded a photo. Now I wanna delete it but the wiki says that I have to have administrative privileges. what should i do? —128.95.94.46 17:51, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Log in as a sysop; such an account was created for you during installation. robchurch | talk 15:05, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Extra tabs
How do I add an extra tab (in an extension e.g.) only for one user group? Thanks, SPQRobin 18:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Here's a snippet to be added into LocalSettings.php for adding an extra tab conditional upon users group --Nad 20:35, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Adding a Category Tree [+] Tab next to Edit, History, Protect, Delete
Hi guys, Just wondering how you would go about adding: 1) An extra tab next to Edit, History, Protect, Delete, for every page. 2) A Category Tree [+] tab next to Edit, History, Protect, Delete, for every page. Thank you. —58.175.32.33 22:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Totally removing the Sidebar, toolbox etc column so the page extends full width
Hi guys! Probably not explaining myself very well, but what Im trying to do is to totally remove the column that contains the logo, navigation (sidebar), toolbox, so that each wiki page extends the entire width of the screen, similar to when you click on "Printable Version" in the toolbox. Any help greatly appreciated. —203.5.155.234 01:27, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Try some of the other skins available, one may be like that? --Dr DBW 02:27, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You could change your CSS to remove the sidebar and reposition the main content. --Nad 02:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Putting a "back to top" link underneath each Section [Edit] link on the page.
Hi guys Just wondering if it is possible to add another link underneatch each Section [Edit] link that when clicked on, takes you to the top of the page you are on..similar to an anchor, but so that this functionality would appear on every wiki page. Any help on this appreciated. —203.5.155.234 01:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Project:Support_desk/Archive_10 - that one sort of asks, why do you actually need this function? Personally, I don't understand why people want / need top / end links).  Anyway, I suspect if you look through the archives here, search them may be? you should be able to pull up some options.  I seem to recall this has come up a few times, and there is likely to be a solution available in there somewhere. --Dr DBW 02:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * [Home]</tt> key? robchurch | talk 14:57, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

automatic numbering like the 'table of contents'
Hey,

I've a question.

Is there a posibility of an automatic numbering of the subcategories?

e.g.

HeadlineSize1 1. HeadlineSize2 1.1 HeadlineSize3 2. HeadlineSize2 2.1 HeadlineSize3 2.2 HeadlineSize3 and so on, like in the 'table of contents'

In Mediawiki, subcategories get no number(in the text)

Please Help.

Thanks!

—62.8.155.19 08:20, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Extension:DynamicPageList together with Extension:Tree view can make category trees. Using CSS these trees could be made to render in a similar style to the table of contents. I made an example here --Nad 10:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Email Authentication
I was just wondering if someone might be able to help me with an problem I'm having with email authentication in MediaWiki. $wgEmailAuthentication is set to true in my LocalSettings.php file but when I send a request for an email authentication message to be sent to confirm my email address is correct I never receive the authentication email. I've tried a different email address too and its the same for that one. I've double checked that the address being sent to is correct so I'm stumped as to what the problem is. Do I need to change a setting somewhere else? I'm also using Apache on my iMac. Do I need to change how Apache is configured? Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks very much.—62.8.155.19 08:20, 7 September 2007 (UTC)]] 10:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd look at it from the point of view that the email isn't being sent, unless you can confirm it is (MTA log), and work from there. robchurch | talk 14:56, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Quick Log In
Is there a way to embed a login form/ username:password fields onto either the front page/ sidebar or top menu bar? That way people can log in right from the start Bouncingmolar 13:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You could inject a form into a page using a parser hook extension, and into the skin using a skin hack. The login form isn't an includable special page, though. robchurch | talk 14:55, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I added a login form example to Extension:Simple Forms. --Nad 05:40, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * cool i'll check it outBouncingmolar 08:11, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Spam Attacks
A wiki I implemented at the university of Oldenburg is constantly attacked by a spamer working under ever changing IPs. I never saw such stuff on the English WP. Does anyone have experience with such attacks? (I know, I could of course block all IP-Users - yet I wanted to have the thing as open as the original WP so that my students got some insight into the thing.) regards, --Olaf Simons 14:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Is the advice at Manual:Combating spam useful at all? robchurch | talk 14:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

some more buttons for "admins" would be nice

 * It would probably be helpful if only I were the "real" (instead of formal) admin of the wiki our university implemented on my request. The source texts remain hidden, I do not see where I could include the given code fragments. It seems I'll have to protect our child through an exclusion of all IP-edits. Here again I miss the button I have to press as the "admin" or "bureaucrat". The decision how open the structure was to be, seems to have been made with our wiki's implementation, which I did not influence...


 * PS. A special problem is the lack of experience-based information. It would be good to have some kind of guess on the effect of decisions - I had (as a German Wikipedia admin) some clues about what personal vandalism can mean in this medium, I had, however, no idea that I would spend much more time on blind attacks bots seem to produce. I never saw such attacks on the recent-changes at either the German or the English Wikipedia. If we decide to allow logged-in users only - is there any experience whether this will end the automatic attacks? --Olaf Simons 18:46, 12 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Requiring login to edit will not stop spambots if the create-account form is still publically accessible. I use Extension:ConfirmEdit which prevents spambots from using forms. Just using it on the account-creation form is enough to stop them if you have to log in to edit. --Nad 21:55, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

How to change URL format
I have installed mediawiki for http://www.rrules.com/. URL of home page or any page appears as http://www.rrules.com/index.php?title=Main_Page but i want this url as http://www.rrules.com/index.php/Main_page. Please help to fulfill this requirement. Thanks in advance
 * That's covered in Manual:Short URL and Manual:Very short URL --Nad 21:05, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

CAN MEDIAWIKI RUN WITH A 12MB MEMORY LIMIT?
Dear Support, —66.214.124.4 19:16, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) 12MB OF MEMORY IS THE LIMIT AT OUR SERVER ENVIRONS.  CAN MEDIAWIKI RUN WITH 12MB?
 * 2) Can the new version run on PHP4 by renaming files as they generate?
 * As long as MySQL is running ok, then MediaWiki should be able to work, but you'd be likely to have out of memory errors if there were too many concurrent users or any advanced queries. MediaWiki has not been able to run on PHP4 though since about version 1.6. --Nad 21:12, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Special Pages have disappeared?
I'm running Mediawiki version 1.8.2 on a Linux machine with PHP 5.1.6 and MySQL 5.0.42.

I haven't had any problems with Mediawiki until about 2 weeks ago when all of my Special Pages stopped working. All of the code is still on the server, it's like it's just not recognizing that they are special pages anymore. All of my content is still there and I can still edit files, but I can't login, upload, go to a random page, etc, etc. Instead of loading the .php files that contain this code it tries to get me to add them in as regular wiki pages that haven't been given content yet.

I've searched but can't find any references to this problem anymore. Please let me know how I can fix this.

—205.155.65.226 20:13, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It sounds like the namespaces array has been modified so the the "special" namespace is being treated as a normal one. Do you have any extensions or localsettings which might have affected that? --Nad 21:15, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * No extensions running and afaik the localsettings haven't been changed since the install. Is there anything specific I should look for? —205.155.65.226 21:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * One thing I'm noticing, I'm not seeing my links show up as (http://blah/mediawiki/index.php/Special:Random), instead it's removing the 'Special' so it's just (http://blah/mediawiki/index.php/:Random). Typing it out by hand doesn't work though, but this seems like it's doing something wrong. —205.155.65.226 21:55, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I want to change status of multiple page at once
I want to change a page content and automatically the status of another page that I defined will change. example in practice : It is useful when I want to edit "use case" of one feature of software and automatically wiki change the status of "test case" of that feature (for example add a flag of "use case changed" above the test case page). is there any extension? —213.233.160.30 01:38, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

How to run Maintenance scripts from my server! :(
This is a really stupid question but I can't figure out how to run maintenance scripts from my server. Do I use PHPMyAdmin to do this. I'm on siteforge and I'm not (obviously) a coder. Also what would be the particular name of a maintenance script code that I run through my database? Thanks in advance. —Zezek
 * The maintenance scripts are designed to run from the command line. See m:Help:Maintenance scripts overview --Nad 03:33, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I just don't understand where the command line is? I'm not a programmer at all. Can you describe where that is if I'm being hosted on Siteforge?
 * You need what's called "shell access" to your host. Your ISP may not supply that level of access, you'll have to ask them about it. But their may still be some options for you even if they don't give you shell, such as PHP-Shell which emulates shell access specifically for PHP scripts. You may be best not to be dealing with the maintenance scripts unless something's actually not working though, and make sure you back up your database before you begin (you can do that with your PHPMyAdmin). --Nad 04:19, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I appreciate this level of input on such a, as I imagine, simple question.--Zezek 05:00, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

External images in articles
Is it possible to use external images in articles from e.g. imageshack.us? This will save a lot of space on my server.

—81.69.162.167 14:44, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Manual:$wgAllowExternalImages should help. --Flominator 15:26, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

No sysop account present
During my installation no sysop account was generated. It is also not possible to add sysop rights to an existing user, as sysop is not in the list of available groups (only administrator, bot and buerocrat are there). As a consequence I cannot edit the navigation bar. I already tried to add all the $wgGroupPermissions['sysop']... parameters from defaultSettings.php to localSettings.php, but this had no effect at all, the group sysop is still unknown to the wiki. Any help would be gratefully appreciated! Thanks Jo Fagor —194.24.158.17 11:30, 9 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Add the line $wgGroupPermissions['user']['userrights'] = true, then promote (via Special:Userrights) yourself to 'Bureaucrat, Sysop', then immediately remove the line. Alternately, you can use a direct DB query to insert a row with the 'Bureaucrat' right for user id #1 in the usergroups table. Aaron 12:17, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - I tried it, but this does not change anything. The problem seems to be that the group sysop does not exist at all - therefore it is not in the list of available groups and therefore I cannot promote myself to sysop. Another strange thing: I cannot see the page MediaWiki:sidebar in the list of special pages, in fact I was not able to find it anywhere! Jo Fagor

Warning: Cannot modify header information
I am trying to use the SpecialDeleteOldRevisions function but encountered the following error:


 * Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/ekomrinf/public_html/ekompute/LocalSettings.php:149) in /home/ekomrinf/public_html/ekompute/includes/WebResponse.php on line 10

When I tried to install Adsense in my LocalSettings.php, I too encounter a similar error.


 * Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/ekomrinf/public_html/ekompute/adsense.php:4) in /home/ekomrinf/public_html/ekompute/includes/WebResponse.php on line 10

What could be the possible cause or causes? &mdash; PM Poon 17:41, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Data base
Hello,

After having installed a mediawiki 1.10.1, 110 Articles later I noticed that the database was already 26MB. Is there a possibility not to write Article Revisions in the text table, but to write those revisions directly on the hard disk.

If not, which functions or classes I should modify to get this feature.

How can wikipedia run an encyclopedia of 2 000 000 articles with many revisions, using only database memory ? —Pppswing 18:45, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Database information is stored on the hard disk, the RAM is used as a local cache of current queries and information. --Nad 22:00, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * What about the text table ? I can't see any wikitext on the hard disk only image. Pppswing 03:34, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It's up to your database server where on the disk the data is stored (MySQL usually stores your data somewhere like /var/lib/mysql), but you should not access these files directly, use the a proper database backup utility such as the mysqldump command or the PhpMyAdmin web application. The images you can see are part of your wiki file structure and are not part of the database storage. i.e. when you back up your wiki, you must do a database backup and also separately back up all the images files too if you want a complete backup of all information in the wiki. --Nad 02:39, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

apache2 postfix email wasnt delivering
Put your question here—BEFORE the signature! And, again, DELETE THIS COMMENT! --> —84.56.194.202 19:10, 9 September 2007 (UTC) hi @ll,

'''is used the apache2, postfix. emails cannot be send to me. why?'''

here is the log-file:

Sep 9 20:34:27 localhost postfix/pickup[5808]: AF25A2E2FCD: uid=33 from=<www-data>

Sep 9 20:34:27 localhost postfix/cleanup[5848]: AF25A2E2FCD: message-id=<20070909183427.AF25A2E2FCD@lserver>

Sep 9 20:34:27 localhost postfix/qmgr[5809]: AF25A2E2FCD: from=<info@agentur-net.de>, size=1280, nrcpt=1 (queue active)

Sep 9 20:34:28 localhost postfix/local[5850]: AF25A2E2FCD: to=<admin@agentur-net.de>, relay=local, delay=1, status=bounced (unknown user: "admin")

Sep 9 20:34:28 localhost postfix/cleanup[5848]: 10A142E370C: message-id=<20070909183428.10A142E370C@lserver>

Sep 9 20:34:28 localhost postfix/qmgr[5809]: 10A142E370C: from=<>, size=2907, nrcpt=1 (queue active)

Sep 9 20:34:28 localhost postfix/qmgr[5809]: AF25A2E2FCD: removed

Sep 9 20:34:28 localhost postfix/local[5850]: 10A142E370C: to=<info@agentur-net.de>, relay=local, delay=0, status=bounced (unknown user: "info")

Sep 9 20:34:28 localhost postfix/qmgr[5809]: 10A142E370C: removed


 * That's a problem with your postfix configuration (done in a file called main.cf probably in /etc/postfix). It's thinking that the destination is local instead of forwarding it to another mail server. --Nad 21:57, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Distinguishing preloads from abandonned new articles
Recently I accidentally marked (and unmarked) something (Template Extension Sample!) for speedy deletion because it was an empty template and no links showed up when I checked "what links here". Fortunately someone caught the fact that it was being used as a preload. So now I'm wondering...

A page whose sole use is as a preload will have no links and no content and is indistinguishable from a page that was created with that preload and then abandoned. The former we definitely don't want deleted and the later we do. Relying on someone to remember that page X is used as a preload is seems bit high risk.

a) is there any facility for finding links used by preloads/
 * --Nad 21:09, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

ReInstall to Change Settings?
Question: do I need to reinstall the wiki to change the settings? I need to enable file uploading which I seemed to miss during the install process. Can someone help? - 71.165.236.27


 * You simply add the required settings to your LocalSettings.php file. List of options available here Manual:Configuration_settings -- Dr DBW  |  talk  00:53, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Different logo ($wgLogo) for each namespace, and (possibly) for each custom Category?
Hi guys! I have created a few different namespaces and different categories, and just wondered if it is possible when you go to each new namespace and or category, that you can have a different logo for it, instead of using the same logo for every namespace? Thanks guys. —58.175.32.33 03:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * By "going to a namespace or category" do you mean "going to any article" but setting the logo based on what categories or namespaces the article may be in? if so, you add something along these lines to your LocalSettings.php file: --Nad 09:44, 12 September 2007 (UTC)


 * ...or then do it with CSS. If you would have a custom namespace numbered 100 (and its talk counterpart, namespace number 101), you could add this to your wiki's MediaWiki:Monobook.css or MediaWiki:Common.css:


 * -- Sayuri 09:53, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Edit Verification
Would there be any way to have a verification process for edits?

I have created a wiki for my high school (900 students), disabled registration, integrated it with our other account systems, and restricted edits to only local machines.

However, this is still not secure enough, in the opinion of the Superintendant, as well as his superiors.

Would there be any way to allow edits, but put them 'on hold' to be later verified and applied by an administrator?

Thanks for your time. —137.164.95.15 16:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I've thought about that before but never implemented it, the way I would go about it would be to allow the edits to go through, but make articles default view stay at the older revision until authorised to move to the current state. --Nad 22:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the subject would be templates
I want to have a "default" article displayed whenever users and editors create a new page. In other words a pre-populated document with a certain format of categories and headings. How should I go about accomplishing this? —68.35.119.165 16:55, 12 September 2007 (UTC) Nate
 * All the text of the MediaWiki interface can be adjusted from the system-message articles which are listed in Special:Allmessages. You need to set $wgUseDatabaseMessages in your LocalSettings.php file for the edits to take effect first. The message which corresponds to the text above the edit box when creating a new page is the MediaWiki:Newarticletext article. (Note that these articles are empty unless they're changed from the default message) --Nad 22:02, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

True delete of old revisions
Hello, I would like to truly delete some revisions in order to save space in the data base. I know that the wikitext are hold on the text table. How can I truly deleted some old revisions ?

—Pppswing 19:40, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Here's some special-page extensions that may help with that: --Nad 21:56, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Extension:SpecialDeleteOldRevisions - deleting article history or archive for selected articles
 * Extension:Nuke - deleting articles and their history selected by author or IP
 * Extension:NukeDPL - deleting articles and their history selected by DPL query


 * Hi Nad, I tried Extension:SpecialDeleteOldRevisions but had this Warning: Cannot modify header information for my Wikimedia Version 10.0.1. However, things seem so easy with Version 10.0.0 which I had installed in both in my personal computer and in another webhost. I have been told that it is due to some blank spaces or bytecodes before the php tag in LocalSettings.php but I couldn't find any. Till date, it cannot be resolved. &mdash; PM Poon 22:56, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Make sure there's non after the final php delimeter either --Nad 23:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Main Page blank after installation
After I succesffully installed MediaWiki, the main page, "wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page" is not rendering - i.e. there is simply a white background present. LocalSettings.php is in the parent directory.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

—71.235.91.201 03:16, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Does the empty page have any html source? also try ensuring your php is able to output errors, and if not find where it logs them to see if maybe an error's happening but not being reported to output. --Nad 04:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Splash page
How can I have a splash page with a login prompt for my Wiki? —Zezek 04:36, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You could apply a different css to the login page which removes all the wiki components and applies some bg images etc --Nad 04:56, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * did zezek mean making the initial page load with login fields? Bouncingmolar 08:09, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Software doesn't open images with a "+" in the name
Hello, I'm an administrator of an Italian wiki (part of the Wikia project). We have a problem in opening images that have a "+" character in the name. In particular: "http://nonciclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Immagine:6+1498.jpg"
 * 1) I go on the "Not Categorized Images" page ("Immagini prive di categorie", in Italian),
 * 2) I click on the image named "6+1498.jpg" (in order to categorize it),
 * 3) The software tells me that "Un file con questo nome non esiste; caricarlo ora?" ("A file with this name doesn't exists, do you want to upload it now?") and the URL isn't
 * but

"http://nonciclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Immagine:6_1498.jpg"

If I try to change manually the URL, placing a "+" where is a "_", then the software replace the "+" with the "_" and tells me the message again.

What shall I do?

PS. I use Firefox 2.0.0.6

—Heavymachinegun 12:03, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The "+" character is not allowed directly in a URL because it has special meaning (it's used as a space character, which mediawiki then changes to underscore), so you'd need to replace your plus's with "%2B"'s (percent-encoded). --Nad 20:57, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * If I replace the "+" with "%2B" in the address-bar the software replace again with "_" :-(. I have to rename these images but they are completely unreachable for displaying, deleting and renaming. Is there a workaround? --Heavymachinegun 21:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I guess you should also encode the percent, then. Try the link http://nonciclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Immagine:6%252B1498.jpg -Color probe 15:59, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It worked! Thank you veeery much! --Heavymachinegun 18:40, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Looking for Calendar/Holidaylist Extension for Mediawiki
Hello,

I´m looking for an extension like the holidaylist plugin for Twiki. link HolidaylistPlugin

Does Someone know, if there exist such an plugin?

Thanks for answering.

Best Regards.

—204.104.55.244 12:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Have a look at the calendar extensions, some of them may do what you're looking for --Nad 21:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Javascript problem
I have a problem with the MediaWiki installation. I have tried everything to make the javascript work, but failed. I have set the parameter in the Localsettings.php, I have checked the configuration in different browsers (all set to allow Java(script)), I have checked if the installation of the server and network might prevent Javascript from running. CSS in common.css and Monobook.css works fine.

Does anyone have any idea what would cause it, what should I check or enable? Info: we are working with MediaWiki 1.7.1 and I intend to upgrade to 1.11, if I figure out how. We run Windows 2003. I gave it away already: I am not an IT-specialist. Londenp 12:38, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Please define problem more clearly - what parameter did you set in LocalSettings? $wgUseSiteJs? and what javascript are you having trouble running? is it absolutely all of it that's not working such as enhanced-recentchanges, edit-toolbar-buttons etc, or just additional extension scripts? --Nad 21:03, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * These are the parameters:

$wgAllowUserCss 	= true; $wgAllowUserJs 		= true; $wgUseSiteJs 		= true; $wgUseSiteCss 		= true;
 * 1) Css und JavaScript zugelassen?
 * enhanced-recentchanges works.
 * I have also tried Extraeditbuttons, moveEditsection, InsertButtonsToToolBar, Main Page tabber (from wikiality.com). Tooltips only without any other javascript works though. On the Dutch Wikibooks I have editted several times the Common.js and Monobook.js files and that worked well. I don't rule out programming mistakes, but copy/paste is not that difficult. Maybe you can suggest a simple code to test if the javascript for MediaWiki:Monobook.js works or not? Londenp 07:32, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Format Standardization of Pages throughout Wiki
I'm in a corporate environment and using MediaWiki for supplementing our documentation needs. What is the best way to standardize the pages so they are consistent across pages/users. I have tried using full page templates but the Table of Contents don't render them properly. What is the best way to enforce a standard look and feel throughout the wiki? I am looking for a way to have two different documented projects by two different people have the same Wiki formatting. —65.124.141.254 17:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * If the content is just straight forward headings, bullet/number lists etc then everything should already be consistent, so is the problem with more advanced content such as tables and images? templates are probably the solution (and probably a "best practices" page to specify some documentation conventions), but I'd need to know what exactly the nature of the inconsistency is. --Nad 21:09, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I created a template that has standard headings like say heading1, heading2.. Then under each heading I have a variable container to put the next for each project. The issue that I am having is I also want to have a Table of Contents but I have tried adding a tags to the template with no luck. The TOC doesn't render. Below is an example of my template. When I use my template I only get =heading= and not an actual rendered page. What do I need to do to have a full page template that also support a TOC? =heading1=     =heading2= —65.124.141.254 22:46, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * There must be a problem somewhere with your install or with the template syntax as the toc should render fine. Are all braces closed? --Nad 04:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

How to remove %28 %29 etc escape chars from URL?
Although in the status bar the page name appears normal e.g. .co.uk/A_(B) once you click on it it appears in the browser URL bar as .co.uk/A_%28B%29

Is there any way to change this to make it prettier? (presumably some server setting). Thanks in advance. —Jonathan3 22:21, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, I don't think that's possible. They are escape chars, after all. However, there may be some addons for addons which will tidy up the URL bar, for example Locationbar². Of course, that's specific to only those who install it, but that's the best that can be done. -Color probe 15:53, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

User Toolbar alignment issue
I've set up a new Wiki, but at some point the user toolbar (Login, my talk, preferences etc) shifted across to the left, rather than aligning to the right. I'm unsure how this has happened, and it's showing as this on multiple PC's and different (IE and Firefox) browsers.

Help?

enigmablue@gmail.com

—61.29.55.106 00:49, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Biggest Problem with MediaWiki (Only my opinion)
Hi guys Firstly I just want to say I love MediaWiki and use it. I know there are other options available for Document Management Systems, but Im trying my hardest to implement this as viable working document management solution. The biggest problem by far Im finding is: <b> EASE OF UPDATING DOCUMENTS AND ADDING NEW DOCUMENTS</b> For mediawiki to be adopted especially by management, it has to be simpler to update documents. Currently, I see that it is not management-user friendly. They just dont have the time to click on Edit, and understand the wiki/html syntax. If only a genius out there has come up with a form based submission to editing documents, this would solve my problem. I also would find it hard to believe that no-one has contemplated this, because in my opinion, this is the number 1 reason management would not adopt it. Im not talking about TinyMCE and those other editors, but rather a form-based editing submission system. I havent explored all options yet to make it easier yet, and would love some advice here. For a savvy mediawiki user, this is not a problem. But when you want management to start using it, it is laborious for them to click on [Edit], and understand how to insert modifications with wiki and html syntax. To the point, that it becomes so time-consuming in terms of getting it done correctly for them, that they dont want to use it. Scenario: <b>Management need to update a Progress Wiki Document, that has a custom tag<b> Management go to the wiki page and click on [Edit]. What they are confronted with is a series of lines like the following....... <NewTaskTag> Task = Time = Priority = Updated by = </NewTaskTag> <NewTaskTag> Task = Time = Priority = Updated by = </NewTaskTag> In the above, management need documentation on how to insert data, and how to use the new tag. What would be great: --Form Task: <Task Text Box where Management simply enter the task without having to write "Task = "> Time: <Time Text Box where Management simply enter the time without having to write 'Time = "> etc etc Submit: <A submit button which submits their changes> Guys! If you know of any extensions or something that would throw up a form so the users have an easier way of editing pages, that would be FANTASTIC!!!!! I think at the moment this is the NUMBER 1 reason why mediawiki is second to other document management systems, but please correct me if there is already available something to this, because I love mediawiki. Thanks. —203.5.136.234 01:23, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Lower the learning curve for management. When they click on Edit, a form is presented to them in the following format:

MediaWiki has lots of ways to do this, but no easy way to find them (not yet). Also some of them require a bit of coding. Here's a few techniques:
 * empty templates embedded in preloaded wiki text - requires facility with wiki text skills and templates. No coding required. See Extension:CreateBox, Extension:CreateArticle, and Extension:Inputbox for more information.  For an example in active use, see Manual:Extensions and Template:Extension/CreateExtensionInputBox (the input box it uses).
 * special pages with forms - requires some coding skills - see Manual:Special pages
 * articles with embedded forms - requires HTML and PHP coding skills. For the HTML form, see Extension:HTMLets.  For using that form to create another page, see the  hook.

Over the next week, I'll be working on an article covering some of these techniques in more depth, please check Manual:Forms and the various articles it links to for periodic updates.

Note: each of these techniques require Extensions - use with care, extension status is currently self-assigned and represents only the opinion of the extension maintainer, not the MediaWiki development team. Egfrank 05:10, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Egfrank! And thank you SO MUCH for that information (champion). I followed your advice and looked at SemanticForms, which I have posted a question, that if this gets solved, then we will be REALLY HAPPY, as it will totally change the way our users use mediawiki. If your kind enough, or one of you gurus are kind enough to have a look at this post below (Article: "Creating a SemanticForm and using tags"), Id be really greatful. Thank you again. :>)

Infobox Template Questions
My questions are on the examples found here > http://www.vendpedia.com/infoboxhelp.gif

My questions are:

1. In "Template:Infobox Favorite", what code should I have? Just the code for the layout as shown in the first box above? Should the code from both of the exampled be inserted into this template file?

2. Does the list in box 2 example above need to be copied and pasted on each existing page I want the infobox to appear on? Is there any other way to pull this information from the template and have only what comes after the "=" signs be editable?

3. What if I down the road, I wanted the "color =" changed to "design =", would this have to be done on each page individually or can the "color =" be controlled via a template?

Thanks so much for any help and especially for your time. I have been stumped on trying to figure this out for 3 straight nights and just want to be sure I have as much control as possible over the infobox template before I move full steam ahead.

—97.100.47.148 04:34, 14 September 2007 (UTC)


 * First of all, there's a nifty parser extension called Parserfunctions, which you could install on your wiki. The most known function is #if:, which will do an if-then-else operation on the given parameters. An operation like   will conditionally show text or not, depending in the parameter "food". However, the function doesn't work great with tables. You should add Template:! to your wiki, with the only content a vertical line | . So, a piece of code could be:

{|




 * This will do what you expect. Now, on question 1, of course you can add more lines of these if you need. You could also see what Wikipedia does with infoboxes. And yes, you can add a description/example/whatever of the template between tags.
 * On number 3, there is a way around for that. In the above snippet, you would change it into

{|




 * That way, it will try both parameters, and thus it wouldn't break on all pages. Hope this helps! Color probe 15:46, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

more HTML tags
See Help talk:Formatting. —Eek 05:29, 14 September 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, maybe no one wants to visit the page and read it so here it is: I want to enable tags like  </tt>,  </tt>, and  </tt> HTML tags but not all HTML tags. How can I do this? —Eek 05:10, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Creating a SemanticForm and using tags
Hi guys hope you can help. If I can get this working, this will be a MAJOR thing for us :>)

Example: Lets say I have an extension called NewTaskTag, which lets you insert a <NewTaskTag> into a wiki page, then you manually insert parameters as follows..

<NewTaskTag> Task = This task completed at.. Time = 6pm Priority = Severe Updated by = </NewTaskTag> <NewTaskTag> Task = Time = Priority = Updated by = </NewTaskTag>

The extension then renders the html into a table like format.

Because this is a manual job, I wanted to make it easier to do this.

So, Ive installed Semantic Mediawiki along with SemanticForms.

These are great, but I wanted to know if you could use a form to do the above instead of using the normal edit option with Mediawiki.

The problem I see is how will the form know how to interpret and pass the entered bits/eg. the fields to the extension, and how would you say, in a form, place a filed to say to use <NewTaskTag>?

To further clarify what Im trying to say is the following.

If I want to use the <NewTaskTag> in a wiki page, I just go to a new page, click on Edit, and enter the following:

<NewTaskTag> Task = Time = Priority = Updated by = </NewTaskTag> <NewTaskTag> Task = Time = Priority = Updated by = </NewTaskTag>

I then complete each line, eg.Task = This new task, Time = 6pm, etc etc.

What Id like to do is the following:

Create a new form that has this format:

Task: [___ Text Box for Task entry___] Time: [___ Text Box for Time entry___] Priority: [___ Text Box for Priority entry___] Updated By: [___ Text Box for Updated By entry___]

All the user would have to do is then input in the text boxes the required data, then the <NewTaskTag> would do the rest. The questions I have though are:

1)How would the form know that each text box is actually in the format: Task =

Also the project is hosted at bluehost.com and they have Imagemagick installed, a support article from bluehost.com Also, image thumbnails work fine in the commons project

Any help would be greatly appreciated. David —60.52.107.235 02:52, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The thumbnails for shared images I think are created in sub-directories of that same location (defined in $wgSharedUploadDirectory) same scheme as with local thumbnails. So you need to have create-directory privilege for that shared location. If you can't set that permission for that location, then you can set $wgHashedSharedUploadDirectory to false so extra sub-directories need not be created there for new thumbnails. --Nad 03:34, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Nad, and thank you for the reply. Here is what is in the localsettings of my language projects:


 * I have tried everything, all the folders are read/write/execute but still it does not work. And setting wgHashed... to false fails to load the images in the language wiki, it just links to them. Do you have any more thoughts?  Thanks again David 60.52.107.235 04:14, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Try running a test line in you localsettings which writes a file to the shared upload location as follows:

If that also gives an error, then either the path is not correct, or it is outside where php is allowed to access in which case you need to adjust your php.ini to allow access, move the shared location, or create a symlink to it in an accessible location such as "$IP/wiki/shared-images". --Nad 04:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you, the solution was in changing localsettings to this: $wgSharedUploadDirectory = "$IP/commons/images 60.52.107.235 04:59, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Using extension tags in templates
Hi guys! Just wanted to know if you can use an extension as a template?

What im trying to do is the following....

We have an extension that we can use as follows:

<Issue> </Issue>
 * Number:
 * Accountable:
 * Impact:

So an example in a wiki page is:

<Issue> </Issue>
 * Number:1
 * Accountable:Simon
 * Impact:HIGH

The reason I want to place the extension stuff in a Template is to try and use a form (SemanticForm) where the parameters of the extension are on the form itself, and the user simply has to enter values for each one, instead of typing "*Number:1" for example. Instead, a field on the form would be called "Number" with a textbox where they would type the number in. I cant for the life of me get this to work.

Any help greatly appreciated.

—58.175.32.115 03:37, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * This is the same question you asked above - Semantic forms already maps the form input values to the parameters in the template syntax (except that you're using tag syntax instead of template syntax, but your template can generate tags if you really need to use tags). Is the problem here that it takes you to the preloaded edit form rather than also submitting the changes? --Nad 04:18, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Nad Im sorry for asking again. I just cant get my head around this. I dont know how to get the variables in the template that are between the extension tags expanded out.

So for example, in my template page:

--- Template:Issues <Issue> </Issue>
 * Number:
 * Accountable:
 * Impact:

When I save this template, the extension is rendered on the page like the following....

A table which the extension builds.....Column 1 comes straight from the extension code.

Column 1          Column 2 Issue Number Accountable Impact

Now, if I go to a page and insert the template as below:

When I view this page, I get:

Column 1          Column 2 Issue Number Accountable Impact

Instead of what i want which is:

Column 1          Column 2 Issue Number      1 Accountable       Simon Impact            An image for High (from the extension)

Im not getting the variables expanded out that are enclosed in the extension tags in the template.

Im so sorry for asking again. I really really want to get this working though. Ive spent so long on this and wont give up.

Is this because the extension is escaped or something, and is called as is without the variables in the extension tags, in the template being expanded out before the extension is rendered? Is there any way around this eg.a parser thing etc?
 * There doesn't seem to be any use in using both tag and template syntax, why not just use templates and forget the tags? --Nad 05:48, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Nad, are you saying to forget using the extension? I would gladly forget the tag if I could call the extension from a template. The reason is because if I want to use a SemanticForm from my understandg, I have to use a template, and thus, have to somehow put the extension in a template, and expand its variables once the user submits in the form.
 * What is "the extension"? is it a third-party extension which you just have to accept uses tags, or is it a part of what you're working on. If the tag extension is your own code, then it would seem from your usage examples above that it would be more useful writing it as a parser-function rather than a tag-hook. --Nad 07:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Nad, it is our own code.
 * In that case you might want to think carefully about whether its the template phase or the tag/link phase of parsing that's most suited to your application. The first phase of parsing expands the braces syntax (parser-functions, variables and templates) and that content can be thought of as more content oriented, the final result of this phase is still raw wiki-text, but with all the braces syntax processed. The second phase is the conversion of tag and link syntax such as categorisation links and semantic annotations. The second phase is design and presentation oriented.
 * Either kind of hook (parser-function or tag) are very similar to implement, they both just build and return an output string based on the parameters and text content passed in. The only difference between them is that the parser-function returns wikitext --Nad 10:16, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * If your extension requires its output to be html and you don't want the wiki-parser's second phase to mess it up, then you can set the noparse option and return it along with the output text. I've included a small snippet here showing the steps involved in setting up a parser function and how to return the result as html. --Nad 10:16, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Nad you have been so helpful. I really do appreciate it. Here is the extension.

";     $output .= " ";

}  return array($output,'noparse'=>true);

} ?>

—62.13.172.78 11:58, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I've adjusted the above code to work as a parser function instead of a tag hook, which means it's easy to compose the content from other templates etc. So now the old and new syntax look like this:

<Issue type="foo"> </Issue>
 * Number:
 * Accountable:
 * Impact:

Hi! I would so much be grateful to see how you adjusted this code. :>)
 * I edited the changes into the code shown above, see the [ diff] of my edit. --Nad 22:38, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Admin panel
Excuse me, I have installed a new wiki but I don't find my admin panel. Thanks for help


 * Actually, there is no admin panel. To change settings, go to LocalSettings.php and edit the code. The only advantage of administraters as far as I see is that they are able to lock and delete pages, ban users and a few other tasks.  --NorthStar 
 * There are many special-pages which are sysop-only, and also the articles in the MediaWiki namespace such as JS and CSS articles and the user-interface messages are sysop-only. --Nad 22:41, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Uploaded images won't show up
I've uploaded a few images and all looks well. It has been uploaded to the site, I ftped in and checked, they are there. When they goto display, initially it shows as a missing X graphic then dispappears and won't show at all. Here is an example: http://filessite.com/Image:SSS-0802.jpg#file   Anyone have any ideas what I am doing wrong?

Thanks! Eroc —72.148.19.16 16:49, 15 September 2007 (UTC)


 * You are mapping the wiki pages into your domain's document root. How do you expect the server to load actual files, then? See, it's trying to load http://filessite.com/Images/thumb/4/4b/SSS-0802.jpg/725px-SSS-0802.jpg - which should be a file, but you are rewriting it to be a wiki page. YOu probably already have exceptions from your rewrite rule in place for the skin files - you need the same for uploaded files. And possibly for the extension dir. And all those exceptions mean you can't have wiki pages with those names. So basically: DONT DO THAT! Read Manual:Short URLs, including all the fat warning boxes about not putting stuff into the root dir. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 22:12, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * If you keep all the wiki's additional files such as skin, extensions, math, images etc in their default locations which is in the wiki's main directory containing index.php and LocalSettings.php then you can have a single rewrite rule such as the following which maps any requests outside /wiki/.... to index.php:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/wiki/ RewriteRule ^/(.*) /wiki/index.php/$1 [L]
 * --Nad 22:48, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Bots?
I was wondering how you can create a bot. I've searched through the site and can't find the instructions. Please either link that page for me or just tell me how to do it here please  --NorthStar 


 * Bots are not part of MediaWiki. They are just programs that know how to edit on a MediaWiki. The most popular one seems to be PyWikiBot, see Using_the_python_wikipediabot -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 22:14, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Another good one is libwww-mediawiki-client-perl --Nad 22:52, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Edit the "edit comments"
Is there any way to edit my "edit comments" shown in the history of the articles?

Sorry if this is the wrong place! —151.63.88.17 18:55, 15 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Nope, as far as I know, it is impossible unless you somehow hack the MySQL tables (not reccomended) --NorthStar 


 * I don't think it is a bad idea to be able to edit these commets..for example, you might want to edit them because you mistyped or missed something! —151.63.88.17
 * Yes but one missed typed character isn't really going to matter much though.--NorthStar


 * Edit comments are log entries. you can't edit log entries. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 22:15, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Protect wildcard page?
I want to protect the page: Sbi/wiki/index.php*

So it protects any page named Sbi/wiki/index.php, Sbi/wiki/index.php/sbi/wiki/sbi/wiki/index.php, Sbi/wiki/index.php/sbi/wiki/sbi/wiki/index.php/Sbi/wiki/index.php/sbi/wiki/sbi/wiki/index.php and so on. How can I do this? —Zeno McDohl 04:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by "protect"? if you just want to stop requests to any pages matching that pattern you could use apache's mod-rewrite, or add a line into LocalSettings which test $_SERVER['SCRIPT_URL']. --Nad 05:07, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Huh? I mean Protect. As in Protect. You know the button on a wiki page that says Protect? That is what I mean. --Zeno McDohl 15:45, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Well that's what I would have thought, except that the articles you're talking about sound like files having index.php in them etc, you can only protect existing articles. I don't know if the restrictions can be applied dynamically like that, you may have to try some of the security extensions. --Nad 22:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I am really in it now...
I don't know what to do. I am User:Anonymous Dissident, but I have forgotten my password. However, my user page states that I am Anonymous Dissident on en.wikipedia, and I can vouch for this if necessary. Is there anything that can be done? --59.101.20.99 09:46, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Put a note on your page on en.wikipedia stating that your are Anonymous Dissident on mediawiki.org. Then find someone who can directly access the database, perhaps in #wikimedia-tech on IRC.
 * Generally, remember to supply and confirm a valid email address for your accounts. Then you can reset your password any time. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 10:15, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It appears that no-one is terribly interested in helping me out. That being the case, I suppose all hope is lost. --59.101.20.99 11:03, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Only an [ admin] can help you with this problem --Nad 11:38, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * That is ok. The problem has been kindly fixed. -- Anon  Diss  12:22, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

How do I make specific pages in the wiki read-only?
—62.13.172.78 11:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Click on the "protect" tab. --Nad 11:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Changing Main Page title
Can anyone tell me how to change main page and home page title? Thanks —62.13.172.78 11:40, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You can just move "Main Page" to another title --Nad 22:23, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You can specify which page is used as the "home" page by editing MediaWiki:mainpage (on your wiki, of course). -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 23:51, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Error enabling Tex
Hullo,

i want to set up a litle wiki for myself, but i just cant get tex support working, and i need math formulars in my page.

I followd the installation dokumentation and the wiki seems to work fine, i installted texlive, this works too, i converted some local tex files to pdf, installted ghostscript, and all of this utilities seem to work.

When i add an math tag in an article, i get the standart error message "Failed to parse (PNG conversion failed; check for correct installation of latex, dvips, gs, and convert): /vec{a}"

Following the http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Troubleshooting_math_errors guide, i enabled debuing, but in the debug file i only get messages ending "Request ended normall" I even get tex files in ./images/tmp/

and converted them by hand into an png image. Everyting works fine.

I have no idea why i still get this error message, any clu?

—62.178.169.122 12:52, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You conversion-by-hand may not be the same command that math/render.ml is using, it uses dvipng or convert, if you can't get those working, then you could adjust render.ml to use the successfull by-hand command you used and then run make again. --Nad 22:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

database error - how to see the query?
I migrated some mediawiki installations to another server. If there wants to use the upload-function this mysql-error appears: „1062: Duplicate entry '0' for key 1 (localhost)“


 * 1) Is there any tool to rebuild the database?
 * 2) Or if not, how can i see the sql-query, which made this error?

Thanks a lot.

—84.158.165.89 12:59, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Try running the maintenance/rebuildall.php script from the command line. Also update AdminSettings.php first. --Nad 22:44, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * To see the actual query, set $wgShowSQLErrors = true; in your LocalSettings.php
 * Note that this makes things a bit easier for potential attackers, so turn if off after you are done. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 10:20, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Adding Login Form to Main Page
I want to add a login form on my main page is this possible if so how?

—62.56.69.156 22:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You can do that with SimpleForms, see Extension:Simple Forms --Nad 22:46, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Floating tables
Arghh, trying to work this out. What we have is two tables, one is on the right side of the window which is of set width. Then on the left there is another table, which contains text and it's maximum width is set by that text length. Both of them should appear at the same height. If you reduce the width of the browser window, I would like it to have the table on the left butt up against the one in the right, reduce it's width as the browser window gets smaller, and break the text onto new lines as required. Below is the code I have so far. What I do get though, is that the table on the right drops under the one on the left. And when the left one hits the edge of the browser window, it then breaks the text down to the next line as required. Any suggestions on how to get it to do what I want it to? -- Dr DBW |  talk  04:02, 17 September 2007 (UTC) And this then looks like this, so you can try it out yourself.

&lt ; &gt ; insertion by the wiki with certain templates rather than < >
I've been trying to use the navbox and infobox templates on my own local copy of the wiki but they dont draw right... its all garbled and I see "  text ... " etc.

When I view the source code I see that for some reason the table portion like this &lt ;table&gt ;

Any help understanding why this is the case would be appreciated. —Nick 04:34, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by the navbox and infobox templates? Are you using an extension? I don't believe there are any such templates built into plain vanilla MediaWiki. Egfrank 06:35, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You mean the Wikipedia:Template:Navbox? it relies on many other templates, do you have all of those and their dependencies copied across to your wiki? You can see a list of what templates are used in a page when you edit or view source --Nad 08:23, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Different Versions of Pages for users and anonymus
Is it possible to have different versions of pages for logged in users and anonymus ones, either by porptions of a page or two entirely different pages one for each.

The context is that I want some content on the main page only avaliable to anonymus users, some for only logged in users and some for both.

—129.12.38.148 08:59, 17 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Not normally, no. There may be extensions that try to do this, but MediaWIki is not design to support it, so such solutions tend to be messy. Most of all, this conflicts with the way page content is cached. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 09:27, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Have a look at Extension:PublicCat, we use this to use a private wiki to manage the content on a public site which doesn't require login but can only see articles in the "Public" category. If this is not quite what you want, try Extension:Simple Security which gives you an #ifgroup parser-function allowing you to generate content based on whether or not the current user is a member of a particular group. --Nad 09:31, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I think Extension:ConditionalTemplate, is the another option. Will experiment as to which is best.