Mediawiki upgrade to 1.20 - New Features

For the Summer of 2013 we've taken a major jump from Mediawiki 1.15 to 1.20. Below is an overview of the changes you'll find.

New Mediawiki Features

• Easier wiki editing with the new graphical WikiEditor
• See the built-in help for wiki syntax at the top of the editing frame as well

New Mediawiki-Bootstrap Skin

====Sidebar content has been consolidated into top navbar====

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• Toolbox - includes Upload File, Special pages
• Blue Page button - this is now where you go to edit, view history or any page related activities
• Account button - login, set your preferences
• Removing sidebars allows for readers to focus page content

====Skin is now responsive====

and looks great on a variety of devices, phones, tablets, large screens...

===Recommended Browser===

This new version of mediawiki will work under all modern browsers, however, if you plan to be an active editor we recommend using Chrome as the preferred browser to avoid a few minor bugs in the skin.

More advanced options for customizing your site

Custom navigation can be added as drop-downs in the top navbar

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• To customize your navbar go to the MediaWiki:bootstrap-navbar page in your site
• For an example of how to customize your topbar navigation see the Help Wiki's navbar at MediaWiki:bootstrap-navbar
• "Toolbox" and "SEARCH" are special words that will add key functionality to your navbar

Mediawiki-Bootstrap skin is based on the Twitter Bootstrap 2 project

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• Most styles in Twitter Bootstrap 2 are also available for use in Mediawiki-Bootstrap
• Multi-column layouts

Example page layouts:

• Tutorial - single column
• Tutorial with sidebar - 2 column

New Extensions

We've add a few new extensions to Mediawiki that expand what a wiki can do...

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• FancyBoxThumbs extension displays thumb nailed images in a Mac-style "lightbox" that floats overtop of web page. This can create a more user friendly environment, where the user doesn't leave the page every time they click a thumbnail.
• Collapsible Elements - allow you to show/hide additional content on your page using text or buttons
• DynamicArticleList - used on the front page of the Evaluation Help guide to display popular and newly updated content
• User Merge and Delete

See also: listing of all installed extensions

Default Settings in New Wikis

• Taxobox templates have been included in the SkelDB. All new sites are ready to go with taxobox and will recognize taxobox syntax.
• New Mediawiki-Bootstrap is set to be the default skin

Mediawiki Release Notes since our last version 1.15

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• 1.20
  • New diff view for greater accessibility (less dependent upon colors)
• 1.19
• 1.18
  • Collapsible Elements added to core
  • Renameuser — A special page which allows authorized users to rename user accounts.
  • Vector — Enhancements to the Vector skin.
  • WikiEditor — An improved and customizable editing toolbar developed along the Vector skin.
  • Better gender support for languages that need it
• 1.17
  • Category sorting has been drastically improved. Sorting is now case insensitive.
• 1.16