Hi, Just a quick reminder that we'll be holding IRC office hours in about 50 minutes. If you have questions about how to use Lua, or issues you'd like help with, join us in #wikimedia-office on Freenode.
More information about how to connect to IRC is available at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 7:38 PM, Guillaume Paumier <[email protected]> wrote: > Greetings, > > As you might have seen on the Wikimedia tech blog (article included below) > or the tech ambassadors list, a new functionality called "Lua" is being > enabled on all Wikimedia sites today. Lua is a scripting language that > enables Wikimedia editors to write faster and more powerful MediaWiki > templates. > > If you have questions about how to convert existing templates to Lua (or how > to create new ones), we'll be holding two support sessions on IRC next week: > one on Wednesday (for Oceania, Asia & America) and one on Friday (for > Europe, Africa & America); see m:IRC office hours for details. If you can't > make it, you can also get help at mw:Talk:Lua scripting. > > If you'd like to learn about this kind of events earlier in advance, > consider becoming a Tech ambassador by subscribing to the mailing list. > > > > ================================= > > New Lua templates bring faster, more flexible pages to your wiki > > Posted by Sumana Harihareswara on March 11th, 2013 > > Starting Wednesday, March 13th, you’ll be able to make wiki pages even more > useful, no matter what language you speak: we’re adding Lua as a templating > language. This will make it easier for you to create and change infoboxes, > tables, and other useful MediaWiki templates. We’ve already started to > deploy Scribunto (the MediaWiki extension that enables this); it’s on > several of the sites, including English Wikipedia, right now. > > You’ll find this useful for performing more complex tasks for which > templates are too complex or slow — common examples include numeric > computations, string manipulation and parsing, and decision trees. Even if > you don’t write templates, you’ll enjoy seeing pages load faster and with > more interesting ways to present information. > > Background > > MediaWiki developers introduced templates and parser functions years ago to > allow end-users of MediaWiki to replicate content easily and build tools > using basic logic. Along the way, we found that we were turning wikitext > into a limited programming language. Complex templates have caused > performance issues and bottlenecks, and it’s difficult for users to write > and understand templates. Therefore, the Lua scripting project aims to make > it possible for MediaWiki end-users to use a proper scripting language that > will be more powerful and efficient than ad-hoc, parser functions-based > logic. The example of Lua’s use in World of Warcraft is promising; even > novices with no programming experience have been able to make large changes > to their graphical experiences by quickly learning some Lua. > > Lua on your wiki > > As of March 13th, you’ll be able to use Lua on your home wiki (if it’s not > already enabled). Lua code can be embedded into wiki templates by employing > the {{#invoke:}} parser function provided by the Scribunto MediaWiki > extension. The Lua source code is stored in pages called modules (e.g., > Module:Bananas). These individual modules are then invoked on template > pages. The example: Template:Lua hello world uses the code > {{#invoke:Bananas|hello}} to print the text “Hello, world!”. So, if you > start seeing edits in the Module namespace, that’s what’s going on. > > Getting started > > Check out the basic “hello, world!” instructions, then look at Brad Jorsch’s > short presentation for a basic example of how to convert a wikitext template > into a Lua module. After that, try Tim Starling’s tutorial. > > To help you preview and test a converted template, try > Special:TemplateSandbox on your wiki. With it, you can preview a page using > sandboxed versions of templates and modules, allowing for easy testing > before you make the sandbox code live. > > Where to start? If you use pywikipedia, try parsercountfunction.py by > Bináris, which helps you find wikitext templates that currently parse slowly > and thus would be worth converting to Lua. Try fulfilling open requests for > conversion on English Wikipedia, possibly using Anomie’s Greasemonkey script > to help you see the performance gains. On English Wikipedia, some of the > templates have already been converted — feel free to reuse them on your > wiki. > > The Lua hub on mediawiki.org has more information; please add to it. And > enjoy your faster, more flexible templates! > > Sumana Harihareswara, Engineering Community Manager > > ================================= > > > -- > Guillaume Paumier > Technical Communications Manager — Wikimedia Foundation > https://donate.wikimedia.org -- Guillaume Paumier Technical Communications Manager — Wikimedia Foundation https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
