How to customize MediaWiki

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Screen shots of the interface with custonizable varables labelled
- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:MediaWiki_screenshots

Titles[]

Example of text the page title, Mediawiki:Pagetitle, in this example, '$1 - Wikihowto: a howto site anyone can edit'

Mediawiki:Pagetitle: The text for the title bar

Mediawiki:Search

Article tabs[]

Example of text for the edit tab, Mediawiki:Edit, in this example, 'edit this page'

MediaWiki:Edit: Text for the edit tab
default is edit

Menus, lists[]

Mediawiki:Sidebar: The links and sections on the side bar (i.e. on Wikihowto main, navigation, and page list sections.
MediaWiki:Licenses: List of available licenses for images/files appearing in a drop-down list on file upload page.

MediaWiki:NavLinks: The links at the top, "Home, Forum, Random Page, Create a new article" (for Wikia's quartz skin)

Upload page[]

MediaWiki SpecialUpload interface labelled — Configs for the upload pages

MediaWiki:License: the text before the license list. Default="License:"
MediaWiki:Licenses: List of available licenses for images/files appearing in a drop-down list on file upload page.
MediaWiki:Uploadtext: Text appearing on the upload page, including warnings about images without copyright information, etc.

Page name variables[]

MediaWiki:Mainpage: The page for the mainpage variable
Default is Main Page
MediaWiki:helppage: The page for the helppage variable
Default is Help:Contents
MediaWiki:disambiguationspage
Default is Template:disambig
MediaWiki:disclaimerpage
Default is Project:General disclaimer
MediaWiki:edithelppage
Default is Help:Editing
MediaWiki:faqpage
Default is Project:FAQ
MediaWiki:aboutpage
Default is Project:About
MediaWiki:bugreportspage
Default is Project:Bug reports
MediaWiki:copyrightpage
Default is Project:Copyrights
MediaWiki:privacypage
Default is Project:Privacy policy
MediaWiki:policy-url
Default is Project:Policy
MediaWiki:portal-url
Default is Project:Community Portal
MediaWiki:currentevents-url
Default is Current events
MediaWiki:sitesupport-url

Text added to specific pages[]

MediaWiki:Revertpage: Text added to the edit summary when using the rollback tool.

MediaWiki:Edittools: Provides list of special characters appearing below edit box and save/preview buttons

MediaWiki:Sharedupload: Appears on the page of any image or file used in wikibooks but actually located on commons. Most wikis use a template linking to the commons page.

MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning2: The copyright warning that appears below the edit window.

MediaWiki:Newarticletext

Example of text for creating a new article, MediaWiki:Newarticletext

MediaWiki:Recentchangestext: The text located at the top of Special:Recentchanges

Footer[]

You can also customize the individual built-in items by modifying certain pages or parameters:

Template:MW version-inline lastmod - edit MediaWiki:Lastmodifiedat. If $wgMaxCredits is enabled then edit MediaWiki:Lastmodifiedatby. You may also want to edit MediaWiki:othercontribs that shows other contributors. (6518)
Template:MW version-inline lastmod - edit MediaWiki:Lastmodified. If $wgMaxCredits is enabled, then edit MediaWiki:Lastmodifiedby. You may also want to edit MediaWiki:othercontribs that shows other contributors. (6518)
viewcount - edit MediaWiki:Viewcount
numberofwatchingusers - edit MediaWiki:Number of watching users pageview. This only appears if you also add $wgPageShowWatchingUsers = true; to LocalSettings.php.
credits - If $wgMaxCredits is not zero it will display page editors
copyright - edit MediaWiki:Copyright. The parameter $1 on that page is replaced with a link to the details of copyright for your wiki. In LocalSettings.php $wgRightsText for the link text and set either $wgRightsPage or $wgRightsUrl with the location of a wiki page or external URL.
privacy - this is a link only. Edit MediaWiki:Privacy for the link text and MediaWiki:Privacypage for the wiki page to which to link.
about - this is a link only. Edit MediaWiki:Aboutsite for the link text and MediaWiki:Aboutpage for the wiki page to which to link.
disclaimer - this is a link only. Edit MediaWiki:Disclaimers for the link text and MediaWiki:Disclaimerpage for the wiki page to which to link.
tagline - not currently used in the footer

To remove the privacy, about and/or disclaimer links entirely, replace the link text with a single dash ("-").

MediaWiki:Privacy: text used for the privacy links
- MediaWiki:Privacypage: link to privacy page
MediaWiki:Aboutsite: text used for the about links
- MediaWiki:Aboutpage link to about page
MediaWiki:Disclaimers: text used for the disclamers links
- MediaWiki:Disclaimerpage: link to disclaimer page

Add links[]

As of 1.17 you can modify the list of links in the footer using the Template:Hook to modify the footerlinks arrays and setting new template keys for the values.

For example, putting this in your LocalSettings.php will add a new "Terms of Service" link after the disclaimer link.

$wgHooks['SkinTemplateOutputPageBeforeExec'][] = 'lfTOSLink';
function lfTOSLink( $sk, &$tpl ) {
	$tpl->set( 'termsofservice', $sk->footerLink( 'termsofservice', 'termsofservicepage' ) );
	$tpl->data['footerlinks']['places'][] = 'termsofservice';
	return true;
}

From there you can put "Terms of Service" in the page Template:Blue on your wiki, for the link's text and in Template:Blue define the title of the page that you want the Terms of Service link to point to. Note, if you do not create these pages on your wiki, then nothing will appear in the footer.

Remember it may take a while to update due to MediaWiki caches.

Reference: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Footer

Remove footer icons[]

You can hide the Powered by MediaWiki image by adding the following to your wiki's MediaWiki:Common.css:

#f-poweredbyico { display: none; }

The Vector skin equivalent is:

#footer-icon-poweredby { display: none; }

In MW 1.17 with Vector Skin:

#footer-icon-poweredbyico { display: none; }

In MW 1.18 with Vector Skin:

#footer-poweredbyico { display: none; }

If you want to remove it completely in 1.17 you can use Template:Wg to remove it using this in your Template:Manual:

unset( $wgFooterIcons['poweredby'] );

In 1.16 and below you will have to use a hook to remove it:

$wgHooks['SkinTemplateOutputPageBeforeExec'][] = 'lfRemovePoweredBy';
function lfRemovePoweredBy( $sk, &$tpl ) {
	unset( $this->data['poweredbyico'] );
	return true;
}

If you wish to change the icon images, urls, alt text, or add new icons please see Template:Wg' documentation.

Text added to all pages[]

Example of a site notice, MediaWiki:Sitenotice

MediaWiki:Sitenotice: Text that appears at the top of every page on the site, just below the tabs
MediaWiki:Tagline: The text appearing just below a page title (on wikibooks, this currently reads "From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection").
- MediaWiki:Tagline/en: when language specific