MediaWiki Tips and Tricks

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A collection of 125 articles

Introduction to Semantic MediaWiki

What is Semantic MediaWiki? Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) is a powerful MediaWiki extension that lets you turn a regular wiki into a collaborative knowledge base. By adding simple #set and #ask markup, you can store structured data (properties and values) directly on wiki pages and query that data across the whole

Integrating REST API in MediaWiki: Building Dynamic Applications

Why the MediaWiki REST API matters (and why you might care) Picture this: you’re building a mobile app that lets people browse Wikipedia articles offline, or a dashboard that pulls the latest revision stats for a set of internal wiki pages. You could hack together a bunch of action=

Best Practices for Backing Up MediaWiki Installations

Why a MediaWiki Backup Is More Than Just “Copy‑Paste” Imagine you’ve spent months curating a niche wiki about vintage arcade cabinets. One night a power surge knocks the server offline and, when it boots, the latest articles have vanished. The feeling is a bit like watching a favorite

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