Modifying the Sidebar

Involved Pages

The Sidebar ist generated with a special page in the MediaWiki namespace, that is MediaWiki:Sidebar. It is a bullet list with special items. Don't mix it up with common list styling!

The list-level controls if the item is written as a seperating heading or a link.

The list items are divided into two parts by a pipe "|". Both parts shall be the name of a page that belongs to the MediaWiki namespace as well. The first part is a placholder for the link, the second one is a placeholder for the title of the link shown in the sidebar.

For UserBase related changes we prefer following nomenclature:

** ub-name-url | ub-name

Replace name to your needs.

Now you have to edit MediaWiki:ub-name and MediaWiki:ub-name-url. These pages will contain only one line with the title of the link and the page the link shall point to.

Example:

• MediaWiki:Sidebar:

  ...
  ** ub-helpfiles-new-content-url | ub-helpfiles-new-content
  ...

• MediaWiki:ub-helpfiles-new-content:

  Add new pages

• MediaWiki:ub-helpfiles-new-content-url:

  Tasks and Tools

Where "Tasks and Tools" is the name of an existing page of the Main namespace.

Links to Anchors

If the link shall point to an anchor of a page you have to insert a redirect-page as a work around. Following the nomenclature this page should be called ub-name-redirect and shall only contain the #REDIRECT statement wich leads to the final destination page.

So let's improve the example from above:

• MediaWiki:Sidebar:

  ...
  ** ub-helpfiles-new-content-url | ub-helpfiles-new-content
  ...

• MediaWiki:ub-helpfiles-new-content:

  Add new pages

• MediaWiki:ub-helpfiles-new-content-url:

  ub-helpfiles-new_content-redirect

• ub-helpfiles-new-content-redirect:

  Tasks and Tools#Add_New_Pages

Translating Sidebar Items

The pages containing the link titles are listed in a special page that is MediaWiki:Userbase-messages. Just write them down without any list formatting or such.

In our example we have to insert the line

...
ub-helpfiles-new-content
...

Now the new items can be translated. Visit the Translate page. At the bottom of the list you will find the page "Userbase's custom interface messages". Finally choose your language and fetch the items to be translated.