Seb35, I came across your extension a month ago. Ours is different in that it is also implementing the Memento protocol as used by the Internet Archive, Archive-It, and others.
I do however, appreciate your insight in trying to solve many of the same problems. I, too, was trying to address the retrieval of old versions of templates, which brought me to your extension. Your use of BeforeParserFetchTemplateAndtitle inspired parts of our Template solution. We're currently trying to figure out how to handle images. What did you mean by MediaWiki messages? Are you referring to the Messages API as part of I18N? Thanks again, --Shawn On Nov 1, 2013, at 9:50 PM, Seb35 <seb35wikipe...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi, > > No responses to your specific questions, but just to mention I worked some > years ago on an extension [1] aiming at retrieving the as-exact-as-possible > display of the page at a given past datetime, because the current > implementation of oldid is only "past wikitext with current context > (templates, images, etc.)". > > I mainly implemented the retrieval of old versions of templates, but a lot of > other smaller improvements could be done (MediaWiki messages, styles/JS, > images, etc.). With this approach, some details are irremediably lost (e.g. > number of articles at given timedate, some tricky delete-and-move actions, > etc.) and additional informations would have to be recorded to retrieve more > exactly the past versions. > > [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:BackwardsTimeTravel > > ~ Seb35 > > Le Fri, 01 Nov 2013 20:50:06 +0100, Shawn Jones <sj...@cs.odu.edu> a écrit: >> Hi, >> >> I'm currently working on the Memento Extension for Mediawiki, as announced >> earlier today by Herbert Van de Sompel. >> >> The goal of this extension is to work with the Memento framework, which >> attempts to display web pages as they appeared at a given date and time in >> the past. >> >> Our goal is for this to be a collaborative effort focusing on solving issues >> and providing functionality in "the Wikimedia Way" as much as possible. >> >> Without further ado, I have the following technical questions (I apologize >> in advance for the fire hose): >> >> 1. The Memento protocol has a resource called a TimeMap [1] that takes an >> article name and returns text formatted as application/link-format. This >> text contains a machine-readable list of all of the prior revisions >> (mementos) of this page. It is currently implemented as a SpecialPage which >> can be accessed like >> http://www.example.com/index.php/Special:TimeMap/Article_Name. Is this the >> best method, or is it more preferable for us to extend the Action class and >> add a new action to $wgActions in order to return a TimeMap from the regular >> page like >> http://www.example.com/index.php?title=Article_Name&action=gettimemap >> without using the SpecialPage? Is there another preferred way of solving >> this problem? >> >> 2. We currently make several database calls using the the select method of >> the Database Object. After some research, we realized that Mediawiki >> provides some functions that do what we need without making these database >> calls directly. One of these needs is to acquire the oldid and timestamp of >> the first revision of a page, which can be done using >> Title->getFirstRevision()->getId() and >> Title->getFirstRevision()->getTimestamp() methods. Is there a way to get >> the latest ID and latest timestamp? I see I can do Title->getLatestRevID() >> to get the latest revision ID; what is the best way to get the latest >> timestamp? >> >> 3. In order to create the correct headers for use with the Memento >> protocol, we have to generate URIs. To accomplish this, we use the >> $wgServer global variable (through a layer of abstraction); how do we >> correctly handle situations if it isn't set by the installation? Is there >> an alternative? Is there a better way to construct URIs? >> >> 4. We use exceptions to indicate when showErrorPage should be run; should >> the hooks that catch these exceptions and then run showErrorPage also return >> false? >> >> 5. Is there a way to get previous revisions of embedded content, like >> images? I tried using the ImageBeforeProduceHTML hook, but found that >> setting the $time parameter didn't return a previous revision of an image. >> Am I doing something wrong? Is there a better way? >> >> 6. Are there any additional coding standards we should be following besides >> those on the "Manual:Coding_conventions" and "Manual:Coding Conventions - >> Mediawiki" pages? >> >> 7. We have two styles for serving pages back to the user: >> * 302-style[2], which uses a 302 redirect to tell the user's browser >> to go fetch the old revision of the page (e.g. >> http://www.example.com/index.php?title=Article&oldid=12345) >> * 200-style[3], which actually modifies the page content in place so >> that it resembles the old revision of the page >> Which of these styles is preferable as a default? >> >> 8. Some sites don't wish to have their past Talk/Discussion pages >> accessible via Memento. We have the ability to exclude namespaces (Talk, >> Template, Category, etc.) via configurable option. By default it excludes >> nothing. What namespaces should be excluded by default? >> >> Thanks in advance for any advice, assistance, further discussion, and >> criticism on these and other topics. >> >> Shawn M. Jones >> Graduate Research Assistant >> Department of Computer Science >> Old Dominion University >> >> [1] http://www.mementoweb.org/guide/rfc/ID/#Pattern6 >> [2] http://www.mementoweb.org/guide/rfc/ID/#Pattern1.1 >> [3] http://www.mementoweb.org/guide/rfc/ID/#Pattern1.2 >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikitech-l mailing list >> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
