Requests for comment/Custom inter-namespace tabs

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T15228

This is a request for comment about adding custom inter-namespace tabs (bugzilla:13228).

Request for comment (RFC)

Custom inter-namespace tabs
Component	General
Creation date	17 November 2012
Author(s)	MZMcBride, Wizardist
Document status	accepted See Phabricator.

Background

Certain wikis currently have an additional namespace tied to the classic (and traditional) article–talk combination. For example, on the English Wikinews, there's a third tab for "Opinions" which leads to a corresponding page in the Comments namespace.

The current implementation has issues, namely:

• it's in JavaScript (n:MediaWiki:Comments.js) which means that
  • it's available only to JavaScript-enabled browsers;
  • it's doing an extra AJAX request for tab color; and
  • it's a pain in the ass to localize and customize per project.

Use-cases

• "Opinions" tab for the Comments namespace on the English Wikinews
• "Citations" tab for the Citations: namespace alongside the ns:0 and Talk namespaces on English Wiktionary
• "Source" (fonte) tab for the Index namespace alongside the main namespace page on Italian Wikisource (example: s:it:Voci di campanili links s:it:Indice:Albini - Voci di campanili.djvu)

Considerations

• Put code in a MediaWiki extension or in core???
• Localizable tab name
• Configurable in LocalSettings.php with an array or something?
• Tab has to account for page existence

Plan

The considerations above need to be resolved. Once they have been, this should no more than an hour's worth of coding time, I think. It'll be much more time trying to get the code reviewed and deployed than it will be the write the damn feature.

There's code at User:Svippong/AdditionalTabs and at <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/extensions/CommentPages.git;a=summary>, also #37569. Given changes to MediaWiki, however, it may make sense to start from scratch. Again, it depends how this is going to be implemented (extension or in core).

Implementations

JavaScript

Code base: n:MediaWiki:Comments.js.

Pros:

• no need to mess with server-side

Cons:

• available only to JavaScript-enabled browsers
• inconfigurable
• excessive API requests
• inconsistent localization

Status:    Deployed at production

Core

Patch-set: I14351aa5.

Pros:

• localizable

Cons:

• configuration in MediaWiki namespace
• hackish implementation & redundant core feature
• doesn't cover JavaScript implementation

Status:    Abandoned in Gerrit

Extension

See documentation: Extension:NamespaceRelations.

Features:

• localizable
• multiple custom tabs per Subject
• allows to decide whether to show tab on Main Page (if attached to Main namespace)
• additional query params attached for red-link tabs
• tab sorting (e.g. Opinions|Article|Talk)
• allows to hide Talk tab

Status:    Waiting for code review