MediaWiki

Extension:Collection

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MediaWiki extensions manual
Collection
Release status: unmaintained
Implementation Special page , MyWiki
Description Allows to organize personal selections of pages in a collection that can be edited, persisted and optionally retrieved as PDF, ODF or DocBook (XML)
Author(s)
Latest version 1.8.0
Compatibility policy Snapshots releases along with MediaWiki. Master is not backward compatible.
Database changes No
License GNU General Public License 2.0 or later
Download
Download extension
Git [?]:

README
Example wiki.openoffice.org
Parameters
  • $wgCollectionMaxSuggestions
  • $wgCollectionMWServeCert
  • $wgCollectionPortletFormats
  • $wgCollectionRendererSettings
  • $wgCollectionMWServeURL
  • $wgCollectionDisableSidebarLink
  • $wgCollectionMaxArticles
  • $wgCollectionSuggestCheapWeightThreshhold
  • $wgCollectionContentTypeToFilename
  • $wgCollectionShowRenderNotes
  • $wgCollectionMWServeCredentials
  • $wgCollectionDisableDownloadSection
  • $wgCollectionFormatToServeURL
  • $wgCollectionLicenseName
  • $wgCommunityCollectionNamespace
  • $wgCollectionCommandToServeURL
  • $wgCollectionSuggestThreshhold
  • $wgCollectionPortletForLoggedInUsersOnly
  • $wgCollectionArticleNamespaces
  • $wgCollectionPODPartners
  • $wgCollectionFormats
  • $wgCollectionLicenseURL
Added rights
  • collectionsaveasuserpage
  • collectionsaveascommunitypage
Hooks used
Quarterly downloads 74 (Ranked 63rd)
Public wikis using 1,243 (Ranked 219th)
Translate the Collection extension if it is available at translatewiki.net
Issues Open tasks · Report a bug

The Collection extension allows a user to organize personal selections of pages in a collection. Collections can be:

  • edited and structured using chapters
  • persisted, loaded and shared
  • ordered as a printed book at https://pediapress.com/

See the press release Wikis Go Printable for more information on the original project.

Documentation & Support

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The Collection extension uses the Proton service to do most of its heavy lifting. It used OCG before.

You can use the IRC channel #wikimedia-services connect to get in touch with developers.

Use the MediaWiki-extensions-Collection project in Phabricator in order to report bugs.

A detailed guide on how to prepare your wiki (templates, help pages, categories) if you setup the extension is available at meta.wikimedia.org.

Screencast

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There is a screencast demoing the basic functionality available at YouTube (in German) (2:45 minutes).

Creating cross-wiki article collections

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The OCG service supported this, but the Collection extension does not (yet — patches welcome!). You can use the low-level mw-ocg-bundler and mw-ocg-latexer tools to create cross-wiki collections, or use https://pediapress.com/collection/ for this purpose, see ticket 408.

Installation

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  • Download and move the extracted Collection folder to your extensions/ directory.
    Developers and code contributors should install the extension from Git instead, using:cd extensions/
    git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/extensions/Collection
  • Add the following code at the bottom of your LocalSettings.php file: 
    wfLoadExtension( 'Collection' );
  • Configure the extension as required
  •   Done – Navigate to Special:Version on your wiki to verify that the extension is successfully installed.

Please also read the included README for detailed configuration instructions of the extension. If you use MediaWiki 1.4.1 you have to use the following Command:

cd extensions/

git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/extensions/Collection --branch REL1_41

Local render server (OCG)

Installing a development instance contains the most up-to-date documentation.

Configuration

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Generating PDFs, OpenDocument- & DocBook-Exports

It's easy to enable PDF (ODF, DocBook) support with this extension. It is configured by default to use the server https://tools.pediapress.com/. Therefore (low traffic) sites that are accessible from the internet don't need to install their own PDF server. Steps:

  • Simply install and configure the Collection extension using the default value http://tools.pediapress.com/mw-serve/ for $wgCollectionMWServeURL (see README of the Collection extension for instructions) and make sure the MediaWiki API (api.php) is enabled on your MediaWiki installation.
  • Some users report that installing PDFtk is necessary.

No installation of Python, ReportLab, mwlib etc. required! Note however, that in order to use this service, your wiki must be accessible from the internet and must be either accessible for non-logged-in users or login credentials must be configured (see README for instructions).

Have a look at the Solar system, example article from the English language Wikipedia, rendered as PDF using this technology.

Advanced and optional configuration

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Most wikis will never need to know about what follows. Check the main PHP file to see all the global variables you can configure and their meaning. Some of them are useful to tweak the export in many cases.

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Since version 1.6 the extension offers the variable $wgCollectionPODPartners that is used to define available providers of the print-on-demand service.

By default it uses PediaPress service: 

$wgCollectionPODPartners = [
    'pediapress' => [
        'name' => 'PediaPress',
        'url' => 'http://pediapress.com/',
        'posturl' => 'http://pediapress.com/api/collections/',
        'infopagetitle' => 'coll-order_info_article'
    ],
];

It is an array of elements, every of them will be listed as a possible print-on-demand provider. The parameters are:

name
short name of the provider
url
URL to point for more information if there is no information page
posturl
URL of the actual printing web service
infopagetitle
MediaWiki system message name (as visible in the MediaWiki: namespace) that contains page title of the page that will be used to shortly describe the provider. The default (for PediaPress) is MediaWiki:Coll-order info article, which defaults to PediaPress order information. If this page exists, it is used to display information about PediaPress book printing service.

It is also possible to disable print on demand altogether by setting: 

$wgCollectionPODPartners = false;

Please see task T35536 for more information about this feature.

You can also configure which file formats are available: 

$wgCollectionFormats = [
    'rl' => 'PDF', # enabled by default
    'odf' => 'ODT',
    'docbook' => 'DocBook XML',
    'xhtml' => 'XHTML 1.0 Transitional',
    'epub' => 'e-book (EPUB)',
    'zim' => 'Kiwix (OpenZIM)',
];

See README for more configuration options.

User rights for saving books

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To allow users to save books in both their user space and the community space, add the following lines to your LocalSettings.php: 

$wgGroupPermissions['user']['collectionsaveascommunitypage'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user']['collectionsaveasuserpage'] = true;
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If you want to add the links at another place, e.g. in the menu "Personal Tools", you can do that by adding them into the according portlet. For example, in the Vector skin you can do that by adding to the file skins/Vector.php so that it looks like this: 

	<h3><?php $this->msg( 'personaltools' ) ?></h3>
	<ul<?php $this->html( 'userlangattributes' ) ?>>
<?php
		$personalTools = $this->getPersonalTools();

		/* Links to create a PDF file/a book start */
		if ( class_exists('CollectionHooks') ) {
			$collectionURLs = CollectionHooks::getPortlet($this->getSkin());

			if ( $collectionURLs !== false ) {
				/* Put the links of the Collection extension below the last item. */
				$personalTools += $collectionURLs;
			}
		}
		/* Links to create a PDF file/a book end */

		foreach ( $personalTools as $key => $item ) {
			echo $this->makeListItem( $key, $item );
		}

You can still modify the order of the links in the portlet by modifying $personalTools directly before the foreach loop is executed.

The above implementation has the drawback, that the two newly inserted links do not show their tooltip. A solution for that is still outstanding and would be greatly appreciated.

Setting book prefix

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To change the default prefix for book name edit the message MediaWiki:Coll-community book prefix.

Cache

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Recent versions store rendered "books" in a cache. Collections which have been previously exported by users should be available for download almost immediately, rather than after several minutes of rendering; the cached version can be updated by following a link offered in the download page.

Printed Books with PediaPress

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Printed Wikipedia books as offered by PediaPress

PediaPress is a service that offers printed books based from wiki content. This service is seamlessly integrated in this extension (can be disabled).

See also

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  • PDF export — summary of all PDF export extensions
  • Bookshelf — Combines wiki pages to create books and also to export them as PDF
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