~Daniel Friesen (Dantman, Nadir-Seen-Fire) [http://daniel.friesen.name]
On 11-08-23 02:40 PM, Platonides wrote:
> Daniel Friesen wrote:
>> The current implementation of MediaWiki:Sidebar supports a completely
>> undocumented * {{msg}} syntax.
> My fault.
>
>> This feature didn't exist in 1.16, was introduced but was seemingly
>> completely broken in 1.17 and finally made to work in 1.18.
>>
>> However I have a number of issues with it:
>> Conceptually:
>> * The concept makes little sense, it uses the {{}} template syntax, but
>> actually takes a message from the MediaWiki namespace, and it of course
>> doesn't support any real transclusion syntax
> People was *hacking* the code to include arbitrary wikitext [1].
How about we re-educate them on how to use the hook we have to introduce
new wikitext blocks to the sidebar?
Or perhaps something outside of mw:sidebar that lets us say to embed
things like MediaWiki:Sidebar/foo's WikiText into the sidebar.
Though, if someone is already modifying core, then telling them to put a
hook into their LocalSettings.php isn't any worse since they already
need php access to do the hack in the first place.
> What kind of transclusion syntax would you want? Template parameters???
Just saying that it's using transclusion syntax, but it doesn't behave
like transclusion syntax. It doesn't come from Template: by default, in
fact you can't even tell it to come from anywhere but a message, and yes
of course, if you tried to use parameters it wouldn't work.
>> Implementation:
>> * The implementation is a mess, with successive {{msgname}} calls in the
>> same header replacing rather than appending to,
> Several "{{msgname}} calls" were never really expected. You are right in
> that appending would make more sense.
>
>> and using a mess of a
>> setup where these blocks are actually put into a separate array which is
>> array_merged into the real sidebar array at the end.
> I think there was some reason for doing it that way...
>
>> But mostly I have a problem with the fact that it's getting in my way.
>> I'm currently trying to fix up the limitation in our skin system that
>> only allows us to sanely have one type of navigation (the sidebar). With
>> the implementation of a new navigation message parser that can handle
>> varying formats of messages. However {{msgname}} is not something that
>> can see be cleanly implemented in it.
> I donn't understand what you are trying to do there, or why {{msgname}}
> is a problem...
I'm trying to expand support from our limited support for:
MediaWiki:Sidebar with the format:
* section
** link|text
To support additional navigation such as:
A single level header with the format:
* link|text
* link|text
A recursive navigation menu with the format:
* link|text
** link|text
*** link|text
**** link|text
*** link|text
And any other navigation that a skin wants to insert.
The fact that we ONLY support MediaWiki:Sidebar and if a skin designer
wants ANY other type of navigation they either have to hardcode it or
completely re-implement navigation parsing in their skin is a flawed
limitation in our skin system I'm trying to fix.
I implemented a NavigationMessageParser that can parse
MediaWiki:Sidebar's syntax and also the other variances like infinite
depth, levels that support links and levels that don't, etc... But right
now I can't see {{msgname}} being worked into that parser without a huge
hack.
> 1- http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Sidebar#Allow_wiki_markup_.28PHP.29
To be fair though. A comment in the commit, and also one of the replies
here have both brought up how flawed MediaWiki:Sidebar is from the start
and the whole idea of replacing it with a special page interface.
I do admit there that such a thing could handle wikitext blocks much
better than any MediaWiki:Sidebar syntax we could come up with or any hook.
--
~Daniel Friesen (Dantman, Nadir-Seen-Fire) [http://daniel.friesen.name]
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