MediaWiki: A Beginner’s Tutorial By Stephen Letts and Bennett Henderson

Submitted to Professor Jim Catton - February 9, 2015

MediaWiki: A Beginner’s Tutorial

Table of Contents About this Tutorial 1

Why MediaWiki? 1.........................................................................................

User Requirements 1....................................................................................

Lesson 1 2

Topic 1: Installing MediaWiki 2 ........................................................

Topic 2: Downloading Bitnami 4 .....................................................

Lesson Summary 12.....................................................................................

Skill-Testing Questions 12.............................................................................

Lesson 2 13

Topic 1: Writing Content 13 ............................................................

Topic 2: Adding Images 16 ............................................................

Lesson Summary 20.....................................................................................

Skill-Testing Questions 20.............................................................................

MEDIAWIKI: A BRIEF TUTORIAL �II

About this Tutorial This beginner’s level tutorial provides two basic lessons for MediaWiki—the content management and authoring system used by Wikipedia. Lesson 1 takes up the installation and configuration of MediaWiki on Mac computers; Lesson 2 takes up a few of the basics on authoring wikis through the MediaWiki content creation system.

By the end of this tutorial, users should have a basic familiarity with MediaWiki and know the essentials of creating their own Wiki pages.

While MediaWiki is available equally to PC and MAC users and the installation procedures are similar, this tutorial takes aim specifically at MAC users with OS X 10.10.1 or later.

Why MediaWiki? Written within the PHP coding language, MediaWiki powers Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and thousands of other websites [1].

MediaWiki was originally designed for Wikipedia developers, allowing them to create pages where thousands of users can efficiently view and navigate the same web-content simultaneously. MediaWiki has also been deployed as an internal knowledge management system by private companies, as it is a powerful application with over 800 configuration settings and 2,000 extensions.

If you have ever been interested in authoring web-content within the oft-emulated, effective and internationally recognized style of Wikipedia, then MediaWiki is for you.

User Requirements In order to use MediaWiki, you will need:

• A Macintosh computer, running OS X Yosemite 10.10.1 or later

• A Broadband internet connection

• An updated version of Safari, Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox

• At least 2 gigabytes of hard drive space.

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Lesson 1 This lesson covers the installation and configuration of MediaWiki on MAC’s running OS X 10.10.1 or later. Why is an entire lesson devoted to installing the software? Two reasons: (1) there are many pathways to installing MediaWiki and not all of them are equally suitable to beginners; (2) when installing MediaWiki, you want to think about hosting content too.

With the approach given here—through Bitnami—you will have not just the MediaWiki Software but a ready-made hosting site for your Wiki pages. How great is that? This lesson is comprised of two topics:

• Topic 1: Installing MediaWiki

• Topic 2: Installing Bitnami

Topic 1: Installing MediaWiki

1. Open your internet browser and load the URL: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download

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2. At the top of the page, click Download MediaWiki 1.24.1. The download should begin automatically.

3. Once the download has completed, in the downloads folder, click the MediaWiki 1.24.1.tar file.

Note: Upon downloading the “MediaWiki 1.24.1.tar”, the Apple “Finder” should automatically open. In the folder, you will see that a MediaWiki folder has been created. This contains all the files necessary to use MediaWiki.

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Topic 2: Downloading Bitnami

1. Open your internet browser and load the URL: https://bitnami.com/stack/mediawiki

2. In the navigation bar, click the “Installers” section.

3. Scroll down the page to the OS X section. Click on the download button.

Note: It is Here that you would download the PC version if not using a MAC.

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4. A safety bar will open, prompting you to create a Bitnami account. While you may create an account to take advantage of certain Bitnami features and content, it is not required for MediaWiki. Click “no thanks, just take me to the download section” to bypass account creation. Observe that the file will likely require a few minutes to complete the download.

5. When the download is completed, the MediaWiki Application will open automatically since you have already installed the MediaWiki files.

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Note: If, for whatever reason, the application does not open, simply locate MediaWiki in your applications folder and open it manually.

6. Double-click on the MediaWiki image to begin the installation process.

7. Specify a preferred language in which to install the application.

8. When the set-up menu for the Bitnami MediaWiki application opens, click the next button.

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9. The menu will ask you to select the components. Ensure both the MediaWiki and PhpMyAdmin boxes are checked. Click the Next button.

10.Specify a folder in which the application will be installed. Within that folder, the application will automatically create a new folder. Click the Next button.

11.Create and register your Bitnami administration account by filling in the following details:

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a. First and last name.

b. Email address.

c. Personal Login.

d. Password

e. Password Confirmation

When finished, click Next.

12. A web-server port page will then appear. By default, the server port is set to 8080. Left unchanged, this port setting is unlikely to allow you to proceed with the installation. Change the port setting number to 8085, and click next. Observe that this completes the installation.

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13. A window should appear, asking that you name your Wiki; choose a name that will summarize your Wiki’s content and click Next.

14.You should receive a prompt, asking if you would like to learn about Bitnami’s cloud hosting services. Check the box only if you are interested and then click Next.

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14.A window will appear, claiming that the application is ready for installation. Click the Next Button to proceed.

15.The installation will begin and should require a few minutes. Click the Next button once the installation has finished.

Note: The MySQL Database could take a few minutes as well.

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16. A window will appear stating that the installation is complete. Ensure that the “Launch Bitnami Mediawiki Stack is highlighted”. Click the finish button.

17.Your browser will automatically open your Wikimedia URL using their “locahost” site. Check the box for Launch Bitnami MediaWiki Stack so that the program auto-launches when you click Finish. Once you have clicked finish, you should see the screen below:

18.Click Access Bitnami MediaWiki Stack.

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Lesson Summary You’ve successfully installed and configured MediaWiki and Bitnami. If you had to repeat the process, setting up MediaWiki and Bitnami for a friend or a small business would be a breeze, right? If the details are a bit fuzzy, you may want to answer the skills testing questions that follow below. Practice makes perfect!

Skill-Testing Questions Answer these skill testing questions to jog your memory and hone your skills:

1. MediaWiki can be downloaded from the Wikipedia website. ( T / F )

• False: To get MediaWiki, you must go to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download

2. Bitnami is the only hosting solution for MediaWiki. (T / F)

• False: There are plenty of hosting solutions but only a handful of free ones. SiteGround, for instance, is another hosting solution for MediaWiki

3. Setting your port to 8085 is optional. ( T / F)

• True: The port setting of 8085, as opposed to 8080, is optional and may work in some situations. However, 8085 is more likely to work for home computers operating on standard networks.

4. If an installation prompt does not work—or you wish to view MediaWiki file folder—you can access your MediaWiki installation files within your documents folder. ( T / F)

• False: MediaWiki’s file folder can be found in the applications folder. It can also be booted from that folder, unless you have purposefully installed it elsewhere.

5. During installation, you must install both MediaWiki and PhpMyAdmin. ( T / F)

• True: You will need both of these programs to create Wiki content.

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Lesson 2 With MediaWiki and Bitnami installed and configured, you are ready to start creating pages and adding content to them. Lesson 2 will show you how it’s done. First up, we’ll be looking at writing content and using heading levels to create hierarchies. Second we’ll be looking at adding images to your Wikis. As such, like lesson 1, lesson 2 is comprised of two topics:

• Topic 1: Writing Content

• Topic 2: Adding images

Topic 1: Writing Content

1. To begin writing content, click the edit tool on the navigation bar.

2. To insert a heading, click on the Level 2 Heading box—you should see two equal signs on either side of your heading—this is how MediaWiki signifies that the content between the equal signs is to become a heading. Now, follow the steps below:

a. Insert a heading title between the dashes—it can be anything you like, but should read as a title.

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Edit

b. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click save page. This will return you to the main page. As you can see, the heading has been created in the style and formatting of a Wikipedia Page.

3. To add written content, click on the edit tool again on the navigation bar.

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Level 2 Heading box

Your Heading

4. Write a line or two that is related to your topic heading. Again, this can be anything you like. When finished, scroll to the bottom of the webpage and click Save Page again. Observe your new content on the page.

Nice work—you now know how to write Wiki content!

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Your content text

Topic 2: Adding Images

1. With the main page open, move your cursor over the Tools sidebar and click the upload file link.

2. To upload the file, click the Choose File box located in the Source File section.

3. Select a picture you wish to include on your main MediaWiki page. This should be an image file located somewhere on your hardware. MediaWiki supports the following image files: .jpg, .jpeg, .png, and .gif, so ensure your image is a .jpg, .jpeg, .png, and .gif.

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4. When you are satisfied with your selected image, click the Upload file icon.

Tip: While MediaWiki will automatically create a “destination file” name, you are better off changing the file name so that it is easily recognizable down the line. Recognizable file names are particularly valuable when pages contain many pictures. Note that you can also include a brief image summary to help identify images by title.

5. Scroll down the bottom of the page to the Upload options section.

a. Ensure that the Watch this file box is checked.

b. Ensure that the Ignore any warnings box is unchecked.

c. Click Upload File. The image will now be added to your “Uploaded Files” section. As you can see, there is an information box with the date, a thumbnail of the image, its dimensions, the user, and the summary of the image if you chose to write one.

d. If you wish to delete the image, click on the delete button in the box.

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6. To add the image to your actual page, return to the main page and, within the text editing screen, enter or copy and paste the following code line and make sure it is written exactly as it appears here: [[file:]]

7. After the colon, insert the name of your image. Again, be precise. Also, ensure that the extension type is included (.jpg or .png, for instance.) So, if your image name was AC.jpg, as it is in the above sample image, your code-line should read: [[file:AC.jpg]]

8. Additional lines can be used before the end of square brackets to adjust the image. For instance, [[File:AC.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Algonquin College Logo]] would use a 200 pixel-wide rendition of the image in a box in the right margin with “Algonquin College Logo" as its description. Give image adjustments a try with your image by entering the code line:

[[File:AC.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Algonquin College Logo]]

Replace AC.jpg with the title and extension of your own image and then click save page. Once you’ve saved the page, with your image in place of the AC logo, the screen should look something like the one below:

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Your Image

Lesson Summary Congratulations, you’ve successfully completed Lesson 2. You now know how to create headers, add Wiki content and embed images within your very own Wiki content. Why, you could draft a Wiki page today if you felt like it. Not bad, right?

Skill-Testing Questions To make sure your skills are up to snuff—and that you remember everything you’ve learned—give these skill testing multiple-choice questions a try.

1. Looking at the content editing screen, you see the following line:

== In the beginning ==

You know by the equal signs that the text represents:

a. Text that will show up as italicized on the page

b. Text that will appear within a box on the page.

c. Text that will appear as an L2 heading. Correct

2. You have uploaded a file, titled: Space1.jpg. You wish to insert it into your Wiki. From the content editing screen, you should type:

a. [[file:Space1.jpg]] Correct

b. [[file-Space1.jpg]]

c. [(file.Space1.jpg)]

3. You’ve inserted your Space1.jpg image but it is too big and poorly positioned. To shrink the image to 300 pixels and align it to the left of your screen, you should type the following from the content editing screen:

a. [[file.Space1.jpg|Diminish300px|left]]

b. [[file:Space1.jpg|300px|left]] Correct

c. [[file.Space1.jpg|300pixels|leftalign]]

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