Extension:WikimediaMessages
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
WikimediaMessagesfolder to yourextensions/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.
Note after changing a message you may need to rebuild the localization cache.
Defining new messages
You can define messages that are not defined in any other repository by modifying the associated language JSON files in i18n/wikimedia
Note if you want to override a message defined elsewhere, follow the guidelines for overrides.
Overriding existing messages
If a message exists in a repo and you want to override the message:
- Define these messages in the wikimediaoverrides folder. Make sure to append the message key of the message you want to override with "wikimedia-". For example: The message "foo" can be overridden using a key "wikimedia-foo"
- Update the hook onMessageCacheFetchOverrides in Hook.php so that the message for overriding is in the array of messages to override. Make sure to list the key of the message you are wanting to override (e.g. without the "wikimedia-" prefix)
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.
 | This extension is being used on one or more Wikimedia projects. This probably means that the extension is stable and works well enough to be used by such high-traffic websites. Look for this extension's name in Wikimedia's CommonSettings.php and InitialiseSettings.php configuration files to see where it's installed. A full list of the extensions installed on a particular wiki can be seen on the wiki's Special:Version page. |