MediaWiki Tips and Tricks

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How to Create a Custom CSS Theme in MediaWiki

How to Create a Custom CSS Theme in MediaWiki MediaWiki separates the skin (the PHP/HTML structure) from the theme (a bundle of CSS that decorates a skin). If you want a unique look for your wiki without touching core files, the recommended path is to create a custom CSS

How to Upgrade Your MediaWiki to 1.45

Upgrading to 1.45 follows the same disciplined process used for any major MediaWiki upgrade, but there are a few version‑specific details you should be aware of

Mastering the Cargo Extension for Structured Data in MediaWiki

Why Structured Data Matters in a Wiki Ever opened a wiki page and thought, “This could be a spreadsheet, but I’m stuck with plain text”? Yeah, I’ve been there. MediaWiki, at first glance, feels like a giant notebook – you scribble, you link, you hope the reader gets the

How to Use MediaWiki’s API to Build a Custom Search Widget for Your Website

Introduction MediaWiki powers Wikipedia and thousands of other wikis. Its Action API is a clean, REST‑like interface that lets external sites query a wiki for titles, snippets, images and more. In this guide we walk through the steps needed to turn that API into a lightweight, client‑side search

Automating Bulk Edits in MediaWiki Using the REST API

Automating Bulk Edits in MediaWiki Using the REST API When you need to apply the same change to dozens or thousands of pages – for example adding a template, fixing a recurring typo, or inserting a tracking tag – doing it manually is impractical. MediaWiki provides a modern REST API that can

Managing MediaWiki Pages with Git

Why version‑control a wiki? MediaWiki stores its content in a database, which makes bulk edits, history inspection and offline work cumbersome. By mirroring a wiki with git‑remote‑mediawiki you get a full Git repository of every page, can edit with any editor, and push changes back to the

Exploring the Latest Features in MediaWiki 1.41

What’s new in MediaWiki 1.41? Fresh out of the forge, MediaWiki 1.41 lands with a handful of tweaks that feel less like a wholesale overhaul and more like a series of thoughtful polish‑ups. If you’ve been tinkering with a wiki for years, you’ll notice

How to Configure MediaWiki to Use Redis for Caching

How to Configure MediaWiki to Use Redis for Caching Redis is an open‑source, in‑memory key‑value store that MediaWiki can use as a fast, persistent cache. Replacing the default database‑backed cache with Redis can dramatically reduce page‑render time, lower database load, and improve job‑queue performance.

Using the MediaWiki API to Automate Bulk Edits

Why automate bulk edits? Large wikis often need repetitive changes – adding a template, fixing a typo across hundreds of pages, or updating category membership after a policy shift. Doing this manually is error‑prone and time‑consuming. The MediaWiki Action API gives programmatic access to read and write operations, allowing

Mastering MediaWiki: Advanced Extension Development Techniques

Why “just another hook” isn’t enough When you first dip your toes into MediaWiki extension land, the official guide feels like a friendly handbook – “add a hook, return true, you’re done”. In reality, the real magic happens when you start juggling several hooks, services, and caching layers at