- From: Gordon P. Hemsley <gphemsley@gmail.com>
- Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2012 16:29:23 -0400
- To: whatwg List <whatwg@whatwg.org>
For those who missed the announcement on IRC and Twitter last week: The WHATWG Wiki has been upgraded to MediaWiki 1.19.2: http://wiki.whatwg.org/ This update brings with it a lot of the changes you're probably already used to from Wikipedia, including the new Vector theme. Over the many years since the WHATWG Wiki was first set up, a lot of cruft has accumulated in its configuration files. I have attempted to remove a lot of that, in order to allow the modern default values to come through. I don't if this will have much effect on the everyday use of the wiki, but I thought I'd let you know. In addition to the primary software update, I have also installed a number of extensions, and these will have an effect on your use of the wiki. There are three extensions that I want to bring your attention to specifically. The first one is ParserFunctions, which allows you to use some logical functions in pages to (for example) create conditional output. This is most useful, IMO, in templates, so you can condition the display of the template based on the presence, absence, or value of template parameters. See [[Template:Obsolete]] for an example: http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/Template:Obsolete The second extension I want to bring your attention to is SyntaxHighlight. This allows you to use the <syntaxhighlight> element in a wiki page to automatically highlight whatever source code you include. Given who we are, I've set it up to assume the language you are highlighting is 'html5', but you can also specify another language using the 'lang' attribute. (Note: This is not the same 'lang' attribute that you would normally find in HTML. It's looking for a programming language, not a BCP47 language tag.) And the third, and potentially the most useful, extension is Gadgets. This extension allows any administrator to install JavaScript and CSS gadgets directly onto the wiki, for use by all. I've installed a subset of the gadgets installed on Wikipedia which I think are the most useful. I've also turned many of them on by default; you can see full list of available gadgets (and edit your personal gadget availability) by going to My preferences > Gadgets. To see the full list of installed extensions, go to [[Special:Version]]: http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/Special:Version If you know of any useful extensions or gadgets that you think are missing from the WHATWG Wiki, let me know and I'll be happy to install them. And, as I am now the caretaker of the wiki (taking over, I believe, from AryehGregor), let me know about any other wiki issues you might have. By the way, I think the wiki is a particularly useful place to store information that might otherwise get lost in the shuffle of IRC logs and e-mail archives, so if you have any such tidbits, head over to the wiki and write them down! If you don't yet have a wiki account, you'll have to ask someone for help, as we've had some issues with spam accounts. But don't worry, it's very simple to get help, as I've set it up so that any autoconfirmed user can register an account. All they need is your e-mail address and your desired username. If you just let out a cry on IRC, someone should be able to help you, or you can contact one of the permanent autoconfirmed users listed here: http://wiki.whatwg.org/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&group=autoconfirmed Happy wikiing! Gordon P.S. If you think you should be a permanent autoconfirmed member (and you're not), ping me on IRC or drop me a line off-list and I'll see what I can do. ;) -- Gordon P. Hemsley me@gphemsley.org http://gphemsley.org/ • http://gphemsley.org/blog/
Received on Sunday, 28 October 2012 20:30:15 UTC