Help:MediaWiki extensions
Various extensions of MediaWiki are particularly useful in combination with Semantic MediaWiki:
ParserFunctions[edit]
Semantic templates are a method for further simplifying the use of semantic annotations. However, since omitted template parameters cannot be annotated, it is useful to have some support for conditionals within the wiki. This is supplied by the ParserFunctions extension.
Author: Tim Starling
First released: April 2006
Header Tabs[edit]
Another extension useful with semantic templates is Header Tabs, which allows for a tabbed interface to split up a page (or a form - see Semantic Forms) into more manageable sections.
Author: Sergey Chernyshev
First released: March 2008
Links:
- An example of tabs in action
- List of sites using Header Tabs
- Semantic Communities development mailing list, covering this extension and other technology
Widgets[edit]
Widgets is another very helpful extension in conjunction with semantic templates. It allows for the creation of custom HTML from passed-in variables, which can be used to display videos, audio, images, RSS feeds, maps, calendars and other external data, custom Javascript, and any other HTML for which the current set of wiki-text and string and parser functions is not suitable. And it is structured as a parser function, which means that it can take in template variables (some of this functionality is already available in other MediaWiki extensions, but many of them are tag extensions, which means that they can only take in hardcoded values). The Widgets homepage also contains a large set of ready-to-use widgets, which will work simply by being copied and pasted into one's wiki.
Author: Sergey Chernyshev
First released: February 2008
Links:
Replace Text[edit]
Replace Text provides a form for administrators to do a text search-and-replace for all (non-Talk) pages on their wiki, including both the text and the page name. This is useful when the names or values of properties get changed: if such a change requires corresponding changes to many existing wiki pages, this extension allows you to do that in one step.
Author: Yaron Koren
First released: April 2008
External Data[edit]
External Data allows wiki pages to get data from an external URL that contains data in XML, CSV or JSON format, and use it on the page. This allows, among other things, one Semantic MediaWiki-based site to use the semantic data from another, by using the CSV format of inline queries.
Author: Yaron Koren
First released: January 2009
Links:
