MamboWiki

Download MamboWiki here

You can download MamboWiki 0.9.6_TOP from our site. Known Issues

Visit our known issues page to find out how to resolve installation problems,

Wish list

If there is a feature you think is missing, why not add it to the Wishlist page?

As with any beta offering it is likely to contain issues and lack a feature that you need so use the component cautiously and please report the issues you encounter or features you think ought to be added.

Note that this is a component to install and bridge to the well regarded MediaWiki_BLANK. Therefore these notes cover only the installation and use of the component.

Why Wiki?

For visitors who are not familiar with a wiki, you are in one. We are using this page to provide some information about the component and to give you an idea of what it looks like in use. This page is protected. Go to test this page to try editing your own page.

Wiki?s are a great way to present and edit some types of content. If you want team members to collaborate on information or in the creation of a document, if you want to allow your clients a place to help keep useful hints and tips up-to-date then a Wiki is for you. You can do some of these things in Mambo ? but not as well or as easily.

If you find an error in these notes, or find out something that other users of the component might find useful, why not edit this page and add your comments?

But remember, if you make a test edit to see how the Wiki works everyone can see it so please delete it afterwards.

Installing the component

Download the component zip from Mamboforge_BLANK file and use the Mambo component install options. If the component installs successfully a ?Success? message will be displayed.
When the component is installed, select the MamboWiki -> Setup option from the Components menu. This will install the MediaWiki tables into the Mambo database and configure MediaWiki to work with Mambo. Note that the component assumes the database user specified in the Mambo configuration.php has rights to create tables in the Mambo database.

Please remember that the size of the component zip file is bigger than that of many components. As a result it may take a while to upload the zip when you install it. If you get an error, please look at Known issues , visit the MamboWiki support page or the MamboWiki Forum_BLANK. If there isn't a solution yet, please feel free to post a message in the forum / wiki or contact us.

Configuring the component

Select the Configuration function from the MamboWiki menu option. This provides the administrator with access to the ?Special? pages.
By default, the component displays the ?Powered by MediaWiki? logo at the foot of each Wiki page. You may want to disable this default option. To do this, access the MamboWiki admin page by clicking on the MamboWiki menu option itself (not one of the sub-menu options). When you do you will see options to setup or configure MamboWiki. In addition you will see an option to show or hide the ?Powered by?? image.

Using the component

When the component is installed and set up, you can then create menu options to provide access to any Wiki page. Create a menu option and select the menu type to be ?Component?. Select ?MamboWiki? from the list of available components. Don?t forget to give the menu a name and then press the ?Apply? button. Select from the drop-down list the type of page you want to be displayed and decide if this page is to be visible to any visitor or just those signed in to Mambo. Select ?Other? from the drop-down list and provide the name of the page if you are unsure.
While installing, the component adds a new Menu called ?Wiki Options?. This menu is attached to menu location ?Wiki? and menus in this location are displayed by the component at the foot of the wiki page. The Wiki Options menu is used by the component to display a standard of options such as Recent Changes, Help, Disclaimer and so on. You can add your own menu options, and delete or edit the existing ones. However to see the Wiki Options menu when a Wiki page is shown, it needs to be attached to a relevant menu. You can attach the Wiki Options menu to any or all menus but it only makes sense to attach it to Wiki menu options.

Licence

Like Mambo and MediaWiki, this component is released under a GNU/GPL licence.

Some Q & A

How can I restrict Wiki access to registered Mambo users only?

When you create a menu option that uses the MamboWiki component, one of the parameters allows you to determine whether access will be allowed for any visitor or just registered users that are signed in. Of course you could make the menu visible only to registered users that are signed in. The purpose of adding the parameter to the component is to allow you to advertise to all users the fact that a Wiki is available while at the same ensuring the user is signed in.

How do I add users to MediaWiki?

You don't. Mambo user become WIki users as soon as they contribute to the Wiki while logged in to Mambo.

How can I block a user?

Wiki pages are open by design and therefore open to having abusive content added. If a user is spamming your Wiki pages you can block them in one of two ways:

Setup the Wiki so that only Mambo registered users have access. You can then block a user by revoking their registration in Mambo. However if that is a bit drastic, you can block a user from just the Wiki.
An administrator is able to block a user from the Wiki. In the backend select MamboWiki->Configure. From the list of options presented select Block User (at the bottom of the list) and enter the name of the person to block and how long the block should be effective. Leave the expiry time box empty if the block is to be indefinite (you'll see what I mean when you get there).

This tip again assumes that you are only allowing registered users access to Wiki pages.

Why use an IFRAME?

When MediaWiki processes a page for presentation it really commandeers the request and response objects. As a result, if MediaWiki is ?included? in a component table, as component content usually is, the process of both Mambo and MediaWiki is ruined. By keeping the two separate, both get the opportunity to run without affecting the other.

It would be good to understand MediaWiki processing model better to see if it is possible to make it co-operate with Mambo more directly in a future release. I think the code causing the problem is in includes/outputpage.php.

What Languages are supported?

As of 0.9.3 a german translation is provided to complement the original English text. Since 0.9.4 a dutch and french translation is included (thanks to Jack and Jeroen). To the best of our knowledge all text used by the component is in the file language/english.php. There are only 20 or so terms so translating should not be a challenge. If you can spare the 15 or 20 minutes needed to translate the MamboWiki text to your language, we'd be grateful for your time.

MediaWiki supports a large number of languages and, if possible, the installer will configure MediaWiki to use the language being used by Mambo.

Can I show Wiki content in Mambo?

Wiki content is distinct from regular Mambo content but you can include Wiki content in any Mambo content page. To do this, while editing your text, press the <>HTML button to see the HTML. Then enter the HTML:

<IFRAME frameborder="" height="500" width="100%" 

scrollbars="auto" src="/components/com_mambowiki/index.php?title=My_page"/>

You will need to adjust the src="..." value so that it reflect the location of mambo in your site. You will also need to adjust the height and width values to suit your template and layout requirements.

Does MamboWiki support searching?

Although the underlying Wiki tool supports searching, Mambo does not search Wiki test by default. To include wiki pages in your Mambo searches, use Paul Harvey's search bot at Mamboforge_BLANK.

Or, to give your users access to the underlying Wiki search function:

create a menu option (we suggest you add it to the WikiOptions menu)
Select the "Other" page type
Enter the page name Special:Search&search=<Enter your search term>
Save

When this menu option is used, the Wiki search page will be presented and the user can enter their search term(s).

NOTE: The search term used in the menu option cannot be empty (it can but nothing useful will happen). We will try to correct this in a future release but in the meantime use a search terms like the one suggested above.

How can I change the way the Wiki content is presented?

The way Wiki content is present is controlled by a MediaWiki skin called MamboWiki. To change this skin you can edit the file called components/com_mambowiki/skins/MamboWiki.php and its associated CSS files in the MamboWiki sub-folder. For more information about creating and editing MediaWiki skins, see the MediaWiki web site.

What Platforms have been tested?

This version of the MediaWiki component has been tested using the following configurations:

Windows XP, PHP 4.3/5.0, IIS 5.0
Windows 2003 PHP 4.3, IIS 6.0
RedHat Linux 8.0, PHP 4.3, Apache

Do I have to use the Mambo database to hold the MediaWiki tables?

No though there is no mechanism provided by the component to allow you to select another database. To use a different database you should complete the installation of the MamboWiki component and use the setup option to install the MediaWiki tables and create the LoalSettings.php file. Then edit file components/com_mambowiki/LocalSettings.php and change the user and database details to match those of your alternative database.

This database MUST already contain MediaWiki tables.

How can I prevent anonymous users editing pages?

Since 0.9.5 it is configurable through Components | MamboWiki | Administration at the Mambo/Joomla backend.

MamboWiki versions prior 0.9.4 allow an anonymous user to edit any Wiki page. If you want to restrict editing to just those users who are signed in, edit the file components/com_mambowiki/LocalSettings.php and add the following line:

$wgWhitelistEdit = true;

Can I use the component to integrate my existing MediaWiki?

In principle yes, though this is not a tested scenario and will require you to make manual changes to the MamboWiki component. To make your existing MediaWiki available for presentation within Mambo take the following steps:

Install the MamboWiki component but do not use the setup option (you can but it will be a redundant step and put unneeded tables into your Mambo database).
Either:
1. Copy the MamboWiki skin (the MamboWiki.php file and corresponding folder from the Skins folder) to the equivalent location in your existing MediaWiki installation; or
2. Create a minimal skin like the one used by MamboWiki
  This is important to remove toolbars and other controls that will replaced by Mambo options
If you want Mambo users to be authenticated automatically and added to the Wiki database automatically then:
1. Copy the MamboLogin.php file from components/com_mambowiki into the root folder of your MediaWiki installation; and
2. Edit the LocalSettings.php file in your MediaWiki root folder and after:
```
require_once( "includes/DefaultSettings.php" );
```
  add the following two lines:
```
require_once($IP."/MamboLogin.php");
$wgAuth = new MamboLogin();
```
Edit components/com_mambowiki/mambowiki.html.php and change the iframe src reference to point to the index.php of your MediaWiki installation.
In your MediaWiki installation edit skins/common/wikibits.js and comment out or remove the line:
```
if( window.top != window ) window.top.location = window.location;
```

How do I upgrade from one version to another?

Since version 0.9.4 upgrade and uninstall is handled through Components | MamboWiki | Administration at the Mambo/Joomla backend. By default uninstalling the component will delete the whole component AND all your wiki pages and data. So if you want to upgrade please adjust the setting.

Prior MamboWiki version 0.9.4 the simple way to upgrade is to uninstall and re-install BUT BACKUP YOUR DATABASE BEFORE YOU DO! If you or your users have uploaded images or other documents you need to make a copy of the components/com_mambowiki/images directory before you uninstall.

Prior to version 0.9.4 none of the Wiki tables or menu data is removed. This is a problem if you want to completely uninstall. However its great if you want to upgrade because it means you don't lose any data.

When you have re-installed, delete the file:

components/com_mambowiki/LocalSettings.php

and re-run the MamboWiki setup. This will make any changes to the MediaWiki tables that are needed.

Finally copy the contents of the files and directories in the copied images directory saved earlier. DO NOT replace any files in the new images folder.

What MediaWiki files have been changed?

To provide a reasonably seemless integration of Mambo and MediaWiki, the following files have been added or changed. In all cases, see the files themselves for more detail.

MamboWiki.php
MamboWiki.php and a corresponding MamaboWiki sub-folder added to the MediaWiki skins folder. This file and sub-folder defines the skin used to present Wiki content in Mambo.
languages/Languages.php
This files has been modified to add a reference the new MediaWiki skin in the $wgSkinNamesEn array.
includes/OutputPage.php
MediaWiki will normally include a <!DOCTYPE> tag at the start of it's HTML output to add xhtml support. This has been removed.
includes/SpecialUserLogin
- Normally MediaWiki expects third party authentication details to be presented as POST fields. However this implementation requires that the user credentials are passed as query parameters (GET). So the check requiring post fields has been removed
- Change the function successfulLogin() to redirect the user to mReturnto after login authentication rather than show "success" page.
includes/SpecialPage
Because Mambo is the user manager and user authentication tool, the special UserLogin and UserLogout pages have been made inaccessible (except to a Mambi admin).
includes/SpecialPreferences
The password fields have been removed to prevent users from imagining they need to modify a password in MediaWiki.
includes/Skin.php
MediaWiki does not support external links that open in a new window. This file implements a hack to makeExternalLink() devised by Mark Lilly_BLANK to enable this functionality. If the text portion of a link definition contains "_BLANK" (case sensitve) then the link will open in a new page. Example:
```
[http://www.lyquidity.com Lyquidity_BLANK]
```
If the text portion of a link definition contains "_TOP" (case sensitve) then the link will open in the main window. This could be used to link to Mambo content_TOP. Example:
```
[http://www.lyquidity.com Lyquidity_TOP]
```
config/installer.php
This file has been replaced with the heavily modified mambo_installer.php file. The new file does not prompt the user to enter any details, instead it takes corresponding details from Mambo configuration.
MamboLogin.php
This file has been added as an extension file for MediaWiki. It is there to authenticate Mambo user credentials and allow Mambo users access to WIki content.

In addition, the following 5 files were modified to fix an apparent bug that caused a MediaWiki rendering error:

Utf8Test
UtfNormal
UtfNormalBench
UtfNormalGenerate
UtfNormalTest

Each of these files is included by other files and the path used when referencing the include files was inconsistent. As a result, require_once() calls from different .php files would access the same file but appear to PHP to different and cause variable redefinition errors. The paths therefore had to be amended to make the appear ro be in a consistent location. See these files for further details.

References

To see how you can use the MediaWiki functionality to edit this page see the User Guide_BLANK.

Author

Bill Seddon
Lyquidity Solutions Limited
[1]

Lyquidity solutions represents Rivet Software in Europe. Rivet Software is the author of Dragon Tag, an application that provides accounting and finance professionals an easy way to turn existing Microsoft Office-based documents containing financial information into XBRL compliant documents for submission to regulators or to exchange information between entities.