[whatwg] [wiki] The WHATWG Wiki has been upgraded

[Gordon P. Hemsley]

For those who missed the announcement on IRC and Twitter last week:

The WHATWG Wiki has been upgraded to MediaWiki 1.19.2:

http://wiki.whatwg.org/

This update brings with it a lot of the changes you're probably
already used to from Wikipedia, including the new Vector theme.

Over the many years since the WHATWG Wiki was first set up, a lot of
cruft has accumulated in its configuration files. I have attempted to
remove a lot of that, in order to allow the modern default values to
come through. I don't if this will have much effect on the everyday
use of the wiki, but I thought I'd let you know.

In addition to the primary software update, I have also installed a
number of extensions, and these will have an effect on your use of the
wiki.

There are three extensions that I want to bring your attention to specifically.

The first one is ParserFunctions, which allows you to use some logical
functions in pages to (for example) create conditional output. This is
most useful, IMO, in templates, so you can condition the display of
the template based on the presence, absence, or value of template
parameters. See [[Template:Obsolete]] for an example:

http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/Template:Obsolete

The second extension I want to bring your attention to is
SyntaxHighlight. This allows you to use the <syntaxhighlight> element
in a wiki page to automatically highlight whatever source code you
include. Given who we are, I've set it up to assume the language you
are highlighting is 'html5', but you can also specify another language
using the 'lang' attribute. (Note: This is not the same 'lang'
attribute that you would normally find in HTML. It's looking for a
programming language, not a BCP47 language tag.)

And the third, and potentially the most useful, extension is Gadgets.
This extension allows any administrator to install JavaScript and CSS
gadgets directly onto the wiki, for use by all. I've installed a
subset of the gadgets installed on Wikipedia which I think are the
most useful. I've also turned many of them on by default; you can see
full list of available gadgets (and edit your personal gadget
availability) by going to My preferences > Gadgets.

To see the full list of installed extensions, go to [[Special:Version]]:

http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/Special:Version

If you know of any useful extensions or gadgets that you think are
missing from the WHATWG Wiki, let me know and I'll be happy to install
them. And, as I am now the caretaker of the wiki (taking over, I
believe, from AryehGregor), let me know about any other wiki issues
you might have.

By the way, I think the wiki is a particularly useful place to store
information that might otherwise get lost in the shuffle of IRC logs
and e-mail archives, so if you have any such tidbits, head over to the
wiki and write them down!

If you don't yet have a wiki account, you'll have to ask someone for
help, as we've had some issues with spam accounts. But don't worry,
it's very simple to get help, as I've set it up so that any
autoconfirmed user can register an account. All they need is your
e-mail address and your desired username. If you just let out a cry on
IRC, someone should be able to help you, or you can contact one of the
permanent autoconfirmed users listed here:

http://wiki.whatwg.org/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&group=autoconfirmed

Happy wikiing!

Gordon

P.S. If you think you should be a permanent autoconfirmed member (and
you're not), ping me on IRC or drop me a line off-list and I'll see
what I can do. ;)

-- 
Gordon P. Hemsley
me at gphemsley.org
http://gphemsley.org/ • http://gphemsley.org/blog/