User:Gnu32/Wiki extensions

The extensions listed here are available from Special:Version.,

This is a directory of extensions installed in this wiki which provide extra functionality and tags that help make articles and templates more interactive. Please be advised that you should not aim to make use of ALL the extensions listed on this page. Using available extensions for the sake of it brings in feature creep and can screw up both the functionality of the page as well as the performance of the wiki. Keep your code simple, stupid!

Special:MultipleUpload - Batch uploads
Allows users to upload multiple images in one go. Please do not use this unless you are absolutely sure the images you are mass uploading to the wiki will be useful.

Special:CategoryTree - Category trees
Generates a tree branching from a category, for easier maintanence or navigation. There's not really much use for this other than organizing category restructures and cleanups. For example, to generate a tree of Category:Templates, try for:


 * Documentation

Input boxes
Allows the placement of text boxes and buttons on pages, which is very useful for making page generators that "preload" templates. For example, one can create a page wizard for making templates that automatically adds documentation code. Another example is a text box that can be put on top of talk pages to quickly add new topics. Using the following code:


 * Documentation

Parser functions
Powerful functions that allow you to use  conditionals in wikicode, which is extremely useful in templates. It also has powerful math and time functions. A basic example is using  to generate the time two hours from now: . To get the full power of this extension, you're better off reading the documentation. Note however that excessive use of this extension can made code extremely unreadable and slow down the wiki.


 * Documentation

Poem
Formats text in poem format. Why you would need that on this wiki, I have no idea. It's something to think about philisophically. Perhaps so, I will leave you with an example of this tag's usage.

There once was a tag called poem, Written by some guy called Smolen. A little bit dull, Better than /dev/null or an adventure in Hoenn.

There once was a tag called poem, Written by some guy called Smolen. A little bit dull, Better than /dev/null or an adventure in Hoenn.


 * Documentation

Reference tags
These are  tags that allow you to add references to pages. Please use these tags instead of dumping URLs in articles.


 * Documentation

String functions
An extension of parser functions, these allow you to mess with text, which can somewhat prove useful in templates (though I can't think of any useful examples at the moment).


 * Documentation

Variables
Extremely useful for templates, these assign data to a variable that is kept on that page or template. A really good use for this is transforming the data of a template's input variable so that transformation code neednt be repeated all over the template. For example, using  will result in  .


 * [Documentation http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:VariablesExtension]

Special:Interwiki
Allows the use of interwiki links, which is really handy if you want to link to a wikipedia article from a topic to explain its real-world usage or just shortcut to a google query. All interwiki links are simply shortcuts to a url, which saves time in not needing to write a full url. For example:


 * To direct a user to a troubleshooting query, try  for Minecraft black screen
 * To explain why Lava is the incorrect name for what it is in Minecraft, try  for Lava

Administrator stuff

 * Find a user's IP address
 * Merge users from other wikis
 * Mass delete pages

Extensions to never be used

 * EmbedVideo - That's just asking for trouble.