Help:Navigation bar
From WikiGlide
The navigation bar or side bar or sidebar is shown at the left hand side of each MediaWiki page by default. In versions 1.5 and newer, it can be modified using the MediaWiki:Sidebar page. Find this page by using search.
Contents |
Format of the sidebar page
The sidebar page is laid out similar to the following:
* navigation ** mainpage|mainpage ** mypage-url|My Page * test ** Special:Allpages|All Pages
Headings
The items on the outer level
- navigation
- tools
are the headings used on the sidebar. In this manner, the bar can be split into sections.
Items
The second level items
- mainpage|mainpage
- mypage-url|My Page
are the actual items that appear on the sidebar; see below for instructions on setting these up.
Specifying items on the sidebar
All items on the sidebar take a format which is split by a pipe (|) character.
Link target
The left-hand portion of the pipe corresponds to the target of the link, and refers to:
- a MediaWiki namespace page
OR
- a wiki page name
If a MediaWiki namespace page of the same name exists, then the contents of that page are used to determine where the link points. For instance, the default contents of MediaWiki:Mainpage are Main Page - this is the name of the page to be used.
To link to an external URL, simply create the namespace page containing the URL, e.g. the contents of Special:Mypage-url (from the example above) might be http://www.domain.com.
- With 1.5, you can create an external URL more simply: just insert the URL before the vertical bar, as in this example:
http://www.domain.com |Domain.com
Note:
- The required space after the URL.
- Currently, no support for going directly to a 'bookmark' (i.e. '#' indicator) of an article or page.
Display text
The right-hand portion of the pipe corresponds to the display form of the link, and is either:
- a MediaWiki namespace page name
OR
- plain text
If a MediaWiki namespace page of the same name exists, then the contents of that page are used to determine the text used for the link. For instance, the default contents of MediaWiki:Mainpage are Main Page - this is what is displayed.
You can also place the text here without using a namespace page; so if MediaWiki:My_Page doesn't exist, then the text My Page would be displayed, using the example above.
Other considerations
Allowing users to have individual sidebars
There is a discussion taking place surrounding a feature request which, if implemented, would provide a custom sidebar that users themselves can edit to their individual preferences. Discussion, and a current implementation using CSS and JavaScript can be found at Configurable Sidebar.
Allowing anyone to edit the sidebar
The MediaWiki namespace pages are protected, preventing ordinary users from editing the sidebar. To see a possible means to allow this, refer to discussion at the relevant FAQ page.
Navigation Bar versus Toolbox area.
- Mediawiki:Sidebar is a page to edit the Navigation bar above(in monobook skin) the search box. You need to be logged in and part of the sysop group to be able to edit this page.
- The toolbox is under the search bar is a dynamic element and cannot be easily customized. (It requires programming in PHP.) If you still want to do so, the best solution is to copy skins/MonoBook.php, creating a new skin. You can then make a custom skin to generate these links in your preferred fashion.
