Extension:WikimediaMessages

MediaWiki extensions manual

WikimediaMessages Release status: stable
Implementation	User interface
Description	Adds Wikimedia specific messages and grammar, as well as Wikimedia specific overrides for license or legal related messages
Author(s)	Tim Starling Siebrand Mazeland James D. Forrrester Multichill
MediaWiki	1.25+
Database changes	No
License	GNU General Public License 2.0 or later
Download	Download extension Git [?]: Download Git master browse repository (GitHub) commit history repository contributors (GitHub) code review
Parameters $wgWikimediaMessagesLicensing $wgWikimediaMessagesAnonDonateLink $wgWikimediaStylesSkins
Hooks used BeforePageDisplay CampaignEventsGetPolicyMessageForRegistration CampaignEventsGetPolicyMessageForRegistrationForm DiscussionToolsTermsOfUseMessages EditPageCopyrightWarning FlowTermsOfUseMessages MessageCacheFetchOverrides ResourceLoaderRegisterModules SidebarBeforeOutput SkinAddFooterLinks SkinCopyrightFooterMessage SkinTemplateNavigation::Universal SpecialPageBeforeExecute TorBlockBlockedMsg UploadForm:initial
Quarterly downloads	20 (Ranked 117th)
Public wikis using	933 (Ranked 263rd)
Translate the WikimediaMessages extension if it is available at translatewiki.net
Issues	Open tasks · Report a bug

The WikimediaMessages adds Wikimedia specific messages and grammar, as well as Wikimedia specific overrides for license or legal related messages.

Installation

• Download and move the extracted WikimediaMessages 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/WikimediaMessages
• Add the following code at the bottom of your LocalSettings.php file:

  wfLoadExtension( 'WikimediaMessages' );
  

•  Done – Navigate to Special:Version on your wiki to verify that the extension is successfully installed.

Responsibilities

WikimediaMessages has several responsibilities which are documented here.

Cross-project message modification

The WikimediaMessages extension can be used to alter messages so they apply across sites. For example, to set the donate URL to point to "https://donate.wikimedia.org/" the sitesupport-url message can be modified by editing MediaWiki:sitesupport-url, however this will only apply to one wiki. The WikimediaMessages allows you to set the message for all wikis without needing to modify every site.

Contact page styles

The WikimediaMessages extension adds the ext.wikimediamessages.contactpage module which adds Wikimedia-specific customisation to Extension:ContactPage.

Site admin helper

Many templates and associated styles were defined over a decade ago, and in many cases for many projects lack maintainers. The ext.wikimediamessages.styles module allows shipping of global styles for common templates across Wikimedia to apply Recommendations_for_night_mode_compatibility_on_Wikimedia_wikis and Recommendations for mobile friendly articles on Wikimedia wikis. The expectation is that community members at their own pace should upstream styles from this module into their own templates.

Finding styles

The styles provided are listed in the modules/ext.wikimediamessage.styles folder. Each file name corresponds with a "key".

The styles are expressed using LESS which is not available on wiki but an administrator can adapt these styles locally.

Disabling styles

In some cases styles won't apply to a project. For example the navbox and hatnote styles are not applicable to a project which uses neither of these templates. To disable the styles in hatnote.less and navbox.less an interface administrator can modify MediaWiki:wikimedia-styles-exclude with the text hatnote|navbox.

When disabling styles we recommend understanding what the styles are doing and first upstreaming relevant styles first.

To disable all styles provided by Wikimedia (not recommended unless you know what you are doing) the message can be set to:

ambox|hatnote|infobox|navbox|theme-night-mainpage|theme-night|theme-night-portal

Applying styles only to specific skins

If you want the styles to not apply to a certain skin, you generate the raw stylesheet prior to disabling a package of styles and copy and paste relevant styles to one of the skin site CSS pages e.g. MediaWiki:Minerva.css, MediaWiki:Vector-2022.css etc..

You can generate the full list of styles by visiting /w/load.php?lang=en&modules=ext.wikimediamessages.styles&debug=1&only=styles on your wiki. For example on English Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/load.php?lang=en&modules=ext.wikimediamessages.styles&debug=1&only=styles.