UserManual:Wiki architecture concepts

The extension UserSideBar lets users create their personal sidebar navigationEach installed instance of a wiki is made up of different types of pages. Each page type serves a specific role in the wiki and, therefore, contains different elements which are described here.

Accessing the personal navigation

Wiki instance

Personal navigation

Every logged-in user has their own UserSidebar. It is located in the left navigation as the Personal navigation tab (clipboard icon).

Default content

A wiki instance has the following main characteristics:

• it has its own configuration
• it has its own data storage with
  • its own database (for pages, users, user<->groups, user settings, ...)
  • its own file repo (for uploaded files)
• it can be part of a wiki farm

Wiki pages

Initially, for users who haven't customized their personal sidebar, the navigation shows the following widgets:

• Pages visited (widget PAGESVISITED)
• My edits (widget YOUREDITS)
• Watchlist (widget WATCHLIST)

These widgets can be removed individually when a user customizes the sidebar.

Customizing the sidebarThe pages modell

Content page

Content pages are all editable wiki pages. They can be wiki pages that are created by all users with the goal to share information on the wiki. Category pages are created when a page was added to a category and a user subsequently saves the necessary category page. A file description page is created when a file is uploaded to the wiki.

Wiki page

To customize the content of this sidebar, click on Edit sidebar at the bottom of the sidebar after hovering over any menu item. This opens the page User:<username>/Sidebar.

The syntax used to define the sidebar corresponds to the main MediaWiki sidebar (MediaWiki:Sidebar). Entries starting with a single star ("*") are considered menu headings or sections while entries with two stars ("**") are considered menu items.

                
* My favourite pages
** [[Wiki_Page1|Label]]
** [External_Page2 Label]

            

The sidebar can contain multiple sections. Also, users can use widgets to display predefined lists of pages, as described above. Widgets should be inserted as sections (with one star), like:

                
* WATCHLIST
* My custom section
** [[Page1]]
...

            

Related info

Reference:BlueSpiceUserSidebar

Wiki pages are the actual "content pages" that users create when they add information to a wiki. They can be "blank" at the beginning or based on a page template that already contains some content with a predefined structure.

Charactersitics:

• content is added by users
• revisioned and has a version history
• has an associated "Talk" page
  

Special page

Each wiki contains a large number of special pages. These pages are built-in and not editable. All special pages are located in the pseudo-namespace "Special" and are listed on the page Special:SpecialPages: Merkmale:

• automatically created content
• overview pages or administrative tools

Types of special pages:

• Maintenance reports (e.g., broken redirects, uncategorized pages, wanted pages)
• Lists of pages (e.g., all pages, categories, forms, templates, high-use pages)
• User admin pages (e.g., active users list, blocked users, user rights)
• BlueSpice special pages (e.g., category manager, namespace manager, privacy admin)
• and many others

If you want to create your own special page, you can find the necessary information at Mediawiki.org.

Category page / file description page

To display all pages that share a category tag, a category page has to be created. Otherwise, users won't have a list of pages that are in a particular category.

When a file (e.g. image or PDF) is uploaded to the wiki, a corresponding description page is created. This page shows all necessary file information and provides access to important file management tools.

Charactersitics:

• hybrid page between special and wiki page
• editable/deletable like a wiki page
• automatically generated content like a special page

Related info

• mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Special_pages