book

Professional Wikis

by Mark Choate

December 2007

Beginner

322 pages

8h 20m

English

Wrox

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Who Should Read This BookHow This Book Is OrganizedChapter 1: Wikis at WorkChapter 2: Installing MediaWikiChapter 3: Getting Started with MediaWikiChapter 4: Writing and Editing ContentChapter 5: Images and FilesChapter 6: Page Actions and Version ControlChapter 7: Information Architecture: Organizing Your WikiChapter 8: Magic Words, Templates, and SkinsChapter 9: ExtensionsChapter 10: The MediaWiki APIChapter 11: Wiki PerformanceWhere to Find More InformationConventionsSource CodeErratap2p.wrox.com
1.1. Wiki History1.1.1. Web 2.0 and Social Media1.1.2. New Business Models1.1.2.1. Proprietary versus Open Standards1.1.2.2. Network Effects1.1.2.3. New Publishing Model1.1.2.4. Wikis, Blogs, and Meme Trackers1.2. Web Content Management Systems1.2.1. Content Management Life Cycle1.2.1.1. Content Acquisition1.2.1.2. Content Organization1.2.1.3. Content Storage1.2.1.4. Content Distribution1.2.2. Workflow and User Management1.2.2.1. User Access Control1.2.2.2. Workflow Policies1.2.2.3. Change Monitoring1.2.2.4. Version Control1.2.2.5. Spam Prevention1.2.3. Content Authoring1.2.4. Organization1.2.4.1. Taxonomy1.2.4.1.1. Folksonomy1.3. When to Wiki1.3.1. Running a Successful Wiki1.3.1.1. Alignment of Goals1.3.1.1.1. A Culture of Collaboration1.3.1.2. Community Custodianship1.3.1.3. Clearly Defined Rules for Posting Content1.3.1.4. Monitoring User Behavior1.3.2. Wikis in the Enterprise1.4. Summary
2.1. Development Environment2.2. Installing the Prerequisites2.2.1. Installing Apache2.2.1.1. Macintosh OS X2.2.1.2. Windows2.2.2. Installing PHP2.2.2.1. Compiling PHP2.2.2.2. Configuring Apache and mod_php2.2.3. Installing MySQL2.2.4. Installing Postgres2.3. Installing MediaWiki2.3.1. Step One: Download MediaWiki2.3.2. Step Two: Copy to Web Server2.3.2.1. Directory Structure2.3.3. Installing Through the Web2.3.3.1. Site Configuration2.3.3.2. E-mail Notification and Authentication Setup2.3.3.3. Selecting a Database2.4. Configuring Short URLs2.5. Summary
3.1. The MediaWiki Application3.1.1. Code Organization3.1.1.1. Global Functions3.1.1.2. Global Variables3.1.2. Architecture3.1.3. Customizing the Installation3.1.3.1. Settings3.1.3.1.1. LocalSettings.php3.1.3.2. Debugging3.1.3.3. Profiling3.2. Fresh Wiki3.3. Wiki Pages3.3.1. Creating Pages3.3.2. Wiki Titles and URLs3.3.2.1. Title Rules3.3.2.2. Title Suggestions3.3.2.3. Title Customizations3.3.3. Page Types3.3.3.1. Finding Pages (Search)3.3.4. Article Pages3.3.5. Redirect Pages3.3.6. Disambiguation Pages3.4. Namespaces3.4.1. Category Namespace3.4.2. Image Namespace3.4.3. User Namespace3.4.4. Talk Namespace3.4.5. Project Namespace3.4.6. Help Namespace3.4.7. MediaWiki Namespace3.4.8. Template Namespace3.4.9. Special Namespace3.4.10. Media Namespace3.5. User Actions3.5.1. Users and Roles3.5.1.1. Anonymous Users3.5.1.2. User Registration3.5.1.2.1. Using Real Names3.5.1.2.2. Password Length3.5.1.3. Registered Users3.5.1.3.1. Preferences3.5.1.3.2. My Talk3.5.1.3.3. My Watchlist3.5.1.3.4. My Contributions3.5.1.4. Autoconfirmed3.5.1.5. Emailconfirmed3.5.1.6. Bots3.5.1.7. Sysops and Bureaucrats3.5.2. Changing Permissions3.6. Actions3.6.1. Custom Views with Parameters3.7. Summary
4.1. Writing for the Web4.1.1. Wikitext versus WYSIWYG4.1.2. Wiki Content4.2. Writing and Editing4.2.1. Editing Pages4.2.2. Previewing Changes4.2.3. Summary Field4.2.4. History4.2.5. Options for Logged-in Users4.2.5.1. Minor Edits4.2.5.2. Watch This Page4.3. Creating Links4.3.1. Wiki (Internal) Links4.3.1.1. Wiki Links4.3.1.2. Piped Links4.3.1.3. Special Cases4.3.2. External Links4.3.3. Interwiki Links4.4. Formatting and Styles4.4.1. Comments4.5. Headings4.5.1. Lines and Breaks4.6. Block-Level Elements4.6.1. Preformatted Text4.7. Lists4.7.1. Nested Lists4.7.2. Mixed Nested Lists4.8. Tables4.8.1. Basic Tables4.8.2. Table Attributes4.8.3. Colspan and Rowspan4.8.4. Combining Tables and Lists4.9. HTML on Wiki Pages4.9.1. Character and Entity References4.9.2. Sanitizing4.9.3. Ruby text, for East Asian languages4.9.4. Footnotes4.9.5. Signatures4.10. Editing Alternatives4.10.1. Toolbar4.11. Summary
5.1. File Uploads5.1.1. Enabling Uploads5.1.2. Uploading Images5.1.3. The Image Page5.1.3.1. User Preferences5.1.4. File Types5.2. Image Linking and Embedding5.2.1. The Image Namespace5.2.2. The Media Namespace5.2.2.1. Linking to the Image Description Page5.2.2.2. Using an Image as a Link5.2.3. Extended Image Syntax5.2.4. Image Display Width5.2.5. Image Alignment5.2.5.1. Clearing Elements5.2.6. Thumbnails and Frames5.2.6.1. Specifying a Specific Image for the Thumbnail5.2.6.2. Thumbnail Alignment5.2.7. Image Galleries5.3. Uploading Documents5.4. Summary

6.1. How Pages Work6.1.1. Components of a Page6.1.2. Revisions6.1.2.1. The page table (MySQL)6.1.2.2. The revision table6.1.2.3. The text table6.2. Actions6.2.1. Permissions6.2.2. Viewing Pages6.2.2.1. Viewing Specific Versions6.2.2.2. Viewing the Raw Wikitext of a Page6.2.2.3. Viewing the Wikitext Rendered as HTML6.2.3. Editing and Modifying Pages6.2.3.1. Edit/Submit6.2.4. Previous Versions6.2.4.1. Diff6.2.5. Deleting Pages6.2.5.1. Deleting Files and Images6.2.5.2. Move (Rename)6.2.5.3. Purge6.2.6. Protecting Pages6.2.6.1. Protect/Unprotect6.2.6.2. Watch/Unwatch6.2.6.3. Patrolling6.2.6.4. Blocking6.2.7. Page Metadata6.2.7.1. Info6.2.7.2. Credits6.2.7.3. dublincore, creativecommons actions6.3. Redirects6.4. Special Pages6.4.1. Importing and Exporting Pages6.5. Summary
7.1. How Users Find Information7.2. Site Navigation7.3. Search7.3.1. Search Preferences7.3.2. Search Options7.3.2.1. Using Google as Your Search Engine7.3.2.2. Using an External Search Engine7.3.3. Apache Lucene Search7.4. Category Pages7.4.1. Adding a Page to a Category7.4.2. Creating Categories7.4.3. Linking to Category Pages Using Alternate Text7.4.4. Sorting Categories7.4.5. Editing Category Pages7.4.6. Subcategories7.4.7. Multi-Faceted Categories7.4.8. Categories as Folksonomies7.5. Improving Findability7.5.1. Redirects and Synonyms7.5.2. Disambiguation Pages7.6. Wiki Gardening7.7. Summary
8.1. Magic Words8.1.1. Directives8.1.2. Variables8.1.2.1. Date and Time8.1.2.2. Information About the Page8.1.2.3. Revisions8.1.2.4. Statistics8.1.3. Parser Functions8.1.3.1. String Functions8.1.3.2. URL Functions8.1.3.3. Namespaces8.1.4. Creating Links with Variables and Parser Functions8.2. Templates8.2.1.8.2.1.1. Parameters8.2.1.2. Named Parameters8.2.1.3. Substitution8.3. User Interface8.3.1. Interface Messages8.3.1.1. Sidebar8.3.1.2. Site Notice8.3.1.3. Copyright Warning8.3.2. Skins8.3.2.1. Displaying a New Logo8.3.2.2. Skin Settings and Preferences8.3.2.3. Customizing CSS and JavaScript8.3.2.3.1. Site JavaScript and CSS8.3.2.3.2. User JavaScript and CSS8.3.2.3.3. Skin Output8.3.2.4. Creating a New Skin8.4. Summary
9.1. MediaWiki Hooks9.1.1. The Parsing Process9.1.1.1. Step 1: Start with Raw Wikitext9.1.1.2. Step 2: Remove Text That Shouldn't Be Parsed9.1.1.3. Step 3: Generate Some (But Not All) of the Wikitext9.1.1.4. Step 4: Unstrip Everything That You Stripped (Except <nowiki> Text)9.1.1.5. Step 5: Fix Common Errors9.1.1.6. Step 6: Generate Block-level HTML9.1.1.7. Step 7: Put Links Back in9.1.1.8. Step 8: Do Something Obscure with Chinese Text9.1.1.9. Step 9: Unstrip <nowiki> Elements9.1.1.10. Step 10: Tidy Up the HTML9.2. XML Tag Extensions9.2.1. The Setup Function9.2.2. The Render Function9.2.3. The Complete Extension9.3. Parser Functions9.3.1. The Setup Function9.3.2. The Render Function9.3.3. The Magic Function9.3.4. The Complete Extension9.3.5. Default Values9.3.6. Return Values9.3.7. Using Global Objects9.4. Parser Functions with Messages9.4.1. The Extension Object9.4.2. The Setup Function9.4.3. The Magic Function9.4.3.1. ParserFunctionsLite.i18.php9.4.3.2. Messages9.4.3.3. The $magicWords Array9.4.4. The Complete Extension9.5. Hook Extensions9.5.1. ParserBeforeStrip Hook9.5.2. EditPage::showEditForm:initial Hook9.6. Special Pages9.6.1.9.6.1.1. SpecialPageExample.php9.6.1.2. SpecialPageExample_body.php9.6.1.3. SpecialPageExample.i18n.php9.7. Summary
10.1. Bots: pywikipedia.py10.1.1. Configuring pywikipedia.py10.1.1.1. profwiki_family.py10.1.1.2. user-config.py10.1.2. editarticle.py10.1.3. spellcheck.py10.2. API.php10.2.1. Configuration10.2.2. Accessing the API10.2.3. Actions10.2.4. Formats10.2.4.1. JSON Format10.2.4.2. XML Format10.2.4.3. WDDX Format10.2.4.4. PHP Format10.2.4.5. YAML Format10.2.5. Python Script10.2.5.1. Help10.2.5.1.1. ApiRequest.doHelp()10.2.5.2. Login10.2.5.2.1. ApiRequest.doLogin()10.2.5.3. Opensearch10.2.5.3.1. ApiRequest.doOpensearch()10.2.5.4. Feedwatchlist10.2.5.4.1. ApiRequest.doFeedWatchlist()10.2.5.4.2. RSS Feed10.2.5.4.3. Atom Feed10.2.5.5. Query10.2.5.5.1. Searching by Title, Page ID, or Revision ID10.2.5.5.2. Lists10.2.5.5.3. Generators10.2.6. In Development10.2.7. api.py10.3. Summary
11.1. Wikipedia Architecture11.2. Caching11.2.1. Purging the Cache11.2.2. Cache Types11.2.3. Browser Cache11.2.4. File Cache11.2.5. Memcached11.2.5.1. Benefits11.2.5.2. Installing11.2.5.3. Configuring MediaWiki11.2.5.4. Configuring and Running Memcached11.2.6. Alternative PHP Cache (APC)11.2.6.1. Installing APC11.2.6.2. Configuring MediaWiki11.2.6.3. Monitoring APC11.3. Improving Performance11.3.1. Serializing Messages11.3.2. Miser Mode11.3.3. Managing Spiders11.3.3.1. Robots Exclusion Standard11.3.3.2. Google Sitemaps11.4. Maintenance Scripts11.4.1. Configuration11.4.2. Backup11.4.3. Import Files11.5. Summary

Overview

This book shows you how to install, use, manage, and extend a wiki using MediaWiki—the wiki engine used to power Wikipedia. You'll learn wiki terminology, how to create user accounts and new pages, and find your way around the wiki. Special focus is placed on how wikis are used in software and web development projects and how their capabilities ideally suit a specific environment and audience. You'll quickly come to discover why wikis are a valuable addition for any organization that wants to increase productivity using web-based collaboration tools.