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== Preface ==
This article is the basis for a presentation on MediaWiki that will be given at the January 14th 2009 meeting of the BostonPHP group. [http://www.bostonphp.org/component/option,com_gigcal/task,details/gigcal_gigs_id,65/Itemid,42/ Please RSVP to the calendar item at the BostonPHP website] if you plan to attend.
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internal notes
== Intro ==
<!--
Cue POTY slideshow and play in loop 30 minutes prior to presentation
Cue mediawiki MediaWiki slideshow 5 minutes prior to presentationThere is video, but so far I haven't been able to slice it and keep the audio track intact.-->These screenshots of [[:Category:MediaWiki Sites|sites running MediaWiki]] illustrate the breadth of usage in the software world, and also some compelling theming examples. Audio of my presentation is at http://www.archive.org/details/collaboration.at.wiki.speed-audio-part1 <!-- and locally at http://freephile.com/mediawiki-greg.mp3 (45 minutes long) --> == What's a Wiki? ==Wiki is the Hawaiian word for quick, and Ward Cunningham - the inventor of the wiki - named his project after the wiki wiki shuttle. A backcronym that is probably equally apropos is WIKI stands for "What I Know Is..." MediaWiki is the free software (GPL) that runs Wikipedia under the auspices of the [http://www.wikimedia.org/ Wikimedia Foundation].
What's a Wiki? Wiki is the Hawaiian word for quick, and Ward Cunningham - the inventor of the wiki - named his project after the wiki wiki shuttle. A backcronym that is probably equally apropos is WIKI stands for "What I Know Is..." MediaWiki is the free software (GPL) that runs Wikipedia under the auspices of == Meet the speaker ==[[httpImage://wwwThomas Jefferson rev.wikimediajpg|thumb|right|He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.org/ Wikimedia Foundation].]
I'm Greg Rundlett [http://iic.harvard.edu/people] [http://freephile.com] [http://rundlett.com], a free software advocate who lives in Newburyport, MA with my wife and two sons.
[[Image:Thomas Jefferson rev.jpg|thumb|right|He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.]]<!--What do I know about wikis in production? Well, back in 1999 when I was a web developer at RagingBull, we used a wiki system as a content creation and management backend to our website front-end. Starting in 2005, I used MediaWiki as the platform to organize operations, development and technology services at OASIS. Most recently, I've been deploying MediaWiki in my new role at the IIC at Harvard. I'm here to share some of that experience with you. The great thing about sharing knowledge; like sharing free software; is... [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson quoting Thomas Jefferson] ''He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.''<ref>[http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson], 13 Aug. 1813. ME 13:333</ref>
Plus our organizer Mark Withington has arranged through the BostonPHP association with O'Reilly Media for some free books to be given away as well.
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== Using it - Why? ==
Wikis are immensely popular and come in many flavors. It was late 2006 to early 2007 when 'wiki' reached it's zenith as a buzzword in the news.<ref>[http://www.google.com/trends?q=wiki Google Trends for keyword wiki]</ref> But wikis have not faded into the sunset like last years fashion. I'll point out a few reasons why you should choose MediaWiki as your wiki platform.
The growth curve of MediaWiki is exponential. The quality of the software is excellent.
Does your wiki have [http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page conferences]?
[[Image:Logo
WikiPedia now has over ten million articles across 250 languages!
; WYSIWYG editor :Weird Yucky Sucky Interference With Your Goodness
# <ol><li> [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Cacycle/wikEd WikEd] is a full wysiwyg editor with special features for MediaWiki. You can install it for yourself in a single browser as a user script http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/12529 or you can install it into your mediawiki MediaWiki installation. {{Messagebox ||type=normal|text=wikEd is enabled sitewide on this wiki. Turn it on in your [[Special:Preferences|Preferences]] settings}}# <li> FCK Editor is a full wysiwyg editor that includes page link searching as you type# <li> Java project called Textile-J is now an Eclipse plugin called the "Mylyn WikiText component" that does wiki markup http://www.eclipseplugincentral.com/Web_Links-index-req-viewlink-cid-1098.html# <li> Kaltura does a collaborative video editing solution http://corp.kaltura.com/wiki/index.php/MediaWiki_Extension</ol>
==== WikEd ====
==== FCK Editor ====
* http://www.mediawikiMediaWiki.org/wiki/Extension:FCKeditor_(by_FCKeditor_and_Wikia)
In 2007 it was announced that a WYSIWYG editor would be built for MediaWiki. Wikia (Jimmy Wales' for-profit venture) started work on it. It still isn't ready for prime time. Note that I had to patch a minor bug to get it to work and even then, it did funny things with my article (wanted to collapse a line-break between template tag and next line resulting in a space being inserted prior to the next line, resulting in preformatted text rendering for that line.
Other points about using MediaWiki
* Style sheets and
* Use this http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/6372 Greasemonkey script to show any mediawiki MediaWiki page as a presentation
# Import/Export (TODO talk about exporting to text)
# Special pages
##<pre>[[Special:ListGroupRights]]</pre>
# Image Galleries like [[Special:NewImages]]
# SVG support
# Protection (lock a page) Not to be confused with 'versions' that helps with things like versioned documentation for software products.
# Microformats Wikipedia implements microformats easily because through the power of templates, an author can fill out a template and not even know that he is using microformats in the final product. Firefox, through the tails extension, can [http://vimeo.com/192962/ export microformats via bluetooth], so that an employee directory on your intranet can talk to your mobile phone. @TODO: write up a contact template, a contact page and test the export
</dl>
# Subpages
#
[[Templates
]] "
[[transclusion
]]"## <pre><noinclude> </noinclude> <includeonly></includeonly></pre>
show [[Template:Messagebox]] example.
## arguments
## Templates used on this page
## copying from mediawiki MediaWiki [[Special:ExpandTemplates]]
# Categories
# Navigation (talk about in Administration)
== Administering it ==
The LocalSettings.php file is the main point of configuration for the wiki administrator. It overrides all the defaults set in includes/DefaultSettings.php
{{Messagebox
| type = restricted
| text = You can remove the database configuration lines into it's own file and then include that file from LocalSettings so that you now can commit LocalSettings to your version control repository without revealing the db credentials.}}
<source lang="php">
## Database settings
## moved to a separate file so that we can track changes to the general config in version control, without checking in our db credentials
require_once( "$IP/DatabaseSettings.php" );
</source>
One good practice is to have some sort of text version or other backup of your wiki in case the machine, webserver, or database that the system depends on is down. As an administrator, you can use the dumpBackup.php script found in the <code>maintenance</code> directory of you MediaWiki installation. Something like the following in a system [[cron]] would be good:
<source lang="bash">
/usr/bin/php /var/www/phase3/maintenance/dumpBackup.php --current --output=file:/var/backups/example.com/`date +%F`-wiki.text.export.txt
</source>
As a user, one tool that can come in handy is [[Special:Wiki2XML]] <ref>http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/wiki2xml/README, see also [[Format_conversion]]</ref>
Another useful tool to the Administrator is the bulk image importer. To import all the screenshots that I used at the start of this presentation, I did the following:<source lang="bash">php importImages.php --user= Administering it =Freephile --comment='Set of screenshots of sites using MediaWiki ' ~/Desktop/mediawiki/snaps/</source>* Custom menuNote how using a Category tag in the comment will automatically place the images in the Category specified.
== Developing it ==
# Extensions
# Conversion of existing wikis and documents [[Format conversion]]
# [[API]]s are very useful to developers. [[mw:Developers|MediaWiki Developers]] can use the [[mw:API|Application Programming Interface for MediaWiki]] which gets exposed at /api.php, as well as the http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pywikipediabot framework which helps to automate manipulation of the wiki.
# Database
=== Theming ===
=== Extensions ===
# [http://www.mediawikiMediaWiki.org/wiki/Manual:Extensions The Manual]# [http://www.mediawikiMediaWiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix An incomplete list of extensions]
So many examples, which ones to highlight?
* http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Special:Version
See more at [[MediaWiki/Extensions]]
==== Timelines ====
# http://www.mediawikiMediaWiki.org/wiki/Extension:EasyTimeline
# http://www.ehartwell.com/InfoDabble/MediaWiki_extension:_Timeline
MIT's SIMILE project Timeline is integrated into Semantic MediaWiki
* e.g. http://semanticweb.org/wiki/Events
=== Database ===
The MediaWiki software uses a MySQL database backend to store content and other data. The [[MediaWiki/Sql]] article offers a couple helpful queries; whereas [[mw:Manual:Database_access]] covers this area more completely including info on API functions and wrappers.
== Getting it, Installing it ==
MediaWiki is developed using a Continuous Integration approach meaning that their trunk is tested and running in production http://www.mediawikiMediaWiki.org/wiki/Version_lifecycle
{| class="datatable"
| bgcolor="#FF1000" | September 2008
|}
[http://www.mediawikiMediaWiki.org/wiki/Download_from_SVN use svn] to get it, and that way updating your installation is as simple as <code>svn up</code>
=== Creating Slideshows ===
[[MediaWiki/Slideshow]]
<pre><slide>flowerpixel</slide></pre> will create a nice slideshow<slide>pixel</slide>
from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:BR/S5_slide_for_mediawiki_documentation/en
=== Integration with Software Development ===
# CodeReview http://www.mediawikiMediaWiki.org/wiki/Extension:CodeReview e.g. http://www.mediawikiMediaWiki.org/wiki/Special:Code/MediaWiki/44245#c829# [http://www.mediawikiMediaWiki.org/wiki/Extension:ExtensionDistributor ExtensionDistributor] ([https://wikitech.leuksman.com/view/ExtensionDistributor info]) is a tool that automatically packages code from subversion and sends the user a tarball. There is a lot of interesting information at wikitech that describes how the WikiMedia Foundation is operated technically
=== Setup for an intranet and/or KB ===
* http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:UploadForm.js/Documentation
* http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Redesigning_the_upload_form
* http://www.mediawikiMediaWiki.org/wiki/User:Pfctdayelise/Manual:Uselang_hack
== Resources ==
<references />
[[Category:MediaWiki Sites]]
[[Category:MediaWiki Sites|sites running MediaWiki]]
[[Category:Book references]]
[[Category:Wiki]]
[[Category:Presentations]]
[[Category:Howto]]