Manual talk:Interface

inner names of the MediaWiki outer parts
Peter Blaise says: Does anyone know of or can we make this http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Interface include a "names of parts" page, making it easy to find the control for any MediaWiki screen element I'm staring right at! And when we do have something on screen with an apparent name displayed, it seems to be controlled by something under another name, such as, "discussion" is really "talk" and:


 * - on-screen "navigation"
 * ... = MediaWiki:Sidebar
 * ... = http://your_wiki's_URL/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Sidebar

And so on. Please help find the inner names of the MediaWiki outer parts, such as:


 * - on-screen "search [__________] [Go] [Search]" area
 * ... = (synonym?)
 * ... = place for a wiki admin to edit/control it


 * - on-screen "toolbox" area
 * ... = (synonym?)
 * ... = place for a wiki admin to edit/control it

Because I want to CONTROL those on-screen MediaWiki elements, and I can't find any reference to what that are called. As, as exampled above, the name on screen is not used in any support documentation I can search at MediaWiki.org. So, c'mon folks, if you know or can find it, please share links at MediaWiki.org or create it and then share links! Thanks!

-- Peter Blaise peterblaise 13:19, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you have a point. If the Wiki model is to be ubiquitous, it must be easy to administer as well as to use. This software system is as good a candidate for wide adoption as I have seen. However, this is an ambitious goal.

I think that the state of the software is too fluid to do what you want with manual methods.

Here are two questions to consider:
 * How can you find the name (program identifier, what you called inner name) of some message in the wiki, so that you know which row in the table to customize.
 * How can you automate your customization steps, because I think you may want to repeat them.

Perhaps the place to start is to see how the names of the message text items are added to the table in the Allmessages special page. I doubt the page is built by hand.

Jim 02:28, 8 June 2007 (UTC)