OLPC:Wiki

This is a wiki page about this editable site. We are currently running MediaWiki 1.10.0. Please leave notes about your wiki experiences, and comments or suggestions about this wiki, here. For more on children using wikis, see wikis for children.

For more about wikis, see Ward Cunningham's lovely rundown of the principles he followed when developing the first wiki.

skins

The default skin has been changed to Shikiwiki. Common skins available are listed below:

Shikiwiki

This is a monobook clone developed by Christoph Derndofer, daja77, and Sj.

bugs and requests

A better-colored XO-icon for the user-login, along the top-right nav. The colors of the current one are a little bit off.
IE issues
- The current layout breaks on certain pages in IE. For instance, when inside a pop-up window... (noticed when testing the new contributors-program database; see user:aaronk for details). Bug reporting and IE testing are appreciated.
- The top tabs are transparent in IE; not intended.
The "translate" form dropdown is rounded in Safari, and looks out of place.
There is little in the way of hovertext, and a number of images lack alt tags.
Alignment of the namespace tab ('article', 'project' et al) is slightly imperfect; at some text-sizes it doesn't align with the body border.

Monobook

Monobook remains the default mediawiki skin, is close to shikiwiki, and the most robust of the other available skins.

Plugins and extensions

iframe

iframe : ability to 'embed' other web sites inside of wiki, sort of a 'portal' effect.
Examples: See MediaWiki.

ref

ref : add footnote references to dialog or research text.
Examples: See wikipedia.

youtube

Youtube : put a video-id between <youtube> tags
Google Video : put a video id between <gvideo>

inputbox

inputbox : prefill a target page with a template, to help people start a new type of page or otherwise give them an easy form within the wiki to fill out.
Examples: see starting a page and User talk:Sj for examples.

gitembed

OLPCgitembedurl

gitembed: You can now embed plaintext documents from git, such as readme files and man pages, config pages, specs, &c, using the <gitembed> extension.
Examples: see Talk:rainbow
Next up: adding a patch to the extension so that it knows how to find the revision # of the document it's transcluding. Sj talk

gspread

GSpreadEmbed

gspread: you can embed a google spreadsheet in a wiki page. Example: see OLPC talk:Wiki.

traclink

olpcTracLink

traclink : You can now embed a link to a trac ticket from the wiki, using <trac>NNNN</trac> or <trac>NNNN description</trac>.
Example : I can describe <trac>2129 adding BlockParty to images</trac> without elaborate linking to the original, and it finds the right page on dev.

ImageMap

ImageMap

Here is an example:

Image:Foo.jpg|200px|picture of a foo
poly 131 45 213 41 210 110 127 109 Display
poly 104 126 105 171 269 162 267 124 Keyboard
# Comment : rect takes two corners.
rect 15 95 94 176   learning learning
# Comment : circles are center + radius
circle 57 57 20   one laptop per child
desc bottom-left

<imagemap> Image:Foo.jpg|200px|picture of someone learning about C for the first time poly 131 45 213 41 210 110 127 109 Display poly 104 126 105 171 269 162 267 124 Keyboard

Comment : rect takes two corners.

rect 15 95 94 176 learning learning

Comment : circles are center + radius

circle 57 57 20 one laptop per child desc bottom-left </imagemap>

Suggestions and comments

Losing summaries

I find that when I edit pages and add links, the process of asking me an arithmetic question frequently discards the summary that I entered, so I have to scroll down and enter it again. I haven't been able to determine a pattern to when this happens.--Mokurai

Does it ask you an arithmetic question when you are logged in? It is only supposed to ask when the edits are anonymous (part of the Mediawiki anti-spam measures). --Walter 08:25, 22 October 2006 (EDT)

I get the arithmetic question when I add external links, even when I am logged in.--Mokurai 19:56, 4 November 2006 (EST)

I get that too even if i'm logged in --EdX 13:45, 16 March 2007 (EDT)

I get it too when logged in, but only if I add a link to the page. --Iain 07:54, 29 December 2007 (EST)

Better CAPTCHA

As everyone knows, a text based captcha is insecure. In the case of this wiki, it is also annoying. Thus the solution: reCAPTCHA. Not only does it have an audio alternative, but it also helps digitize books. ffm 12:50, 1 January 2008 (EST)

Searching for "FORTH"

The Wiki Search function does not find the word "forth" on any page or page title. The Go function correctly goes to the page entitled "FORTH". My problem is that I have to use Google to search for references to the FORTH programming language in order to make them into links, now that I have created a FORTH page.

forth site:wiki.laptop.org

--Mokurai 01:55, 22 October 2006 (EDT)

The wiki is currently using a mysql hack, rather than a real text search eingine. No stemming, etc. See #2162. Volunteer needed. In the meantime, the best bet is to use google, as linked from wiki's search results page. MitchellNCharity 21:39, 28 August 2007 (EDT)

Make wiki Search CasE INsensitive

We will all be better served if both Go and Search are not sensitive to case. Google works that way, so practically every participant here will be LESS surprised if case is ignored. How can this objective be pursued? Nitpicker 19:06, 9 December 2006 (EST)