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