Forum:Wiki Updates

We have added four new gadgets to make your troping experience easier.

1. Purge Tab - A page cache purging option has been added, useful for refreshing a page. (look in the drop down list next to the search bar on the default skin for "Purge"). This is enabled by default for all users
2. Scratchpad - A "scratchpad" option that will show up in the Tools sidebar menu on every page that will allow you to do experiment edits without actually saving anything, though it includes an option to save your edits to an actual page.
3. Enhanced Watchlist - Adds AJAX functionality to watchlist editing so you can more easily organize your watchlist.
4. Floating Vector Header - makes the user links, search bar, and top tabs of the header bar float, allowing easy access to editing buttons and other user options. (Disable Rounded Corners, has display issues with that gadget)

We already provide instructions on how to use our IRC channel via this page, but now, it is even easier to access for those who don't have IRC clients or who simply don't want to have to click between the client and web browser to use chat.

On the sidebar is option called "ATT WebChat". This will bring up an in browser webpage where you can access our channel after filling in a simple captcha (your username doubles as you IRC name).

This was implemented to make social interaction between our users even easier, and we hope you all enjoy it.

Further information can be found here:

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:WebChat

Hi everyone,

I decided after the recent events over the last few days, I'd give you all an update myself on behalf of Orain as opposed to letting someone else do it :)

As you may know, we moved Orain to a different datacenter (from Seattle or London) and the migration process didn't go all too smooth. All The Tropes has mainly been the trouble for us in these process yet also the greatest resource we had to ensure everything goes smoothly. The end result from all the downtime and database locks is that All The Tropes is now running on our first separated master database. This means all the data is being stored on a completely separate server to every other wiki and hopefully will increase the speed of the wiki as all resources are directly focused here. Any issues and suggestions can be directed to myself and I will try my best to respond. Thanks, On behalf of Orain.

Thanks John! ^_^

Disambiguator: Adds a magic word that added an internal tag for disambiguation pages, viewable on a special page. Add so we can see exactly how many Disambiguation pages we are (more accurate than just having a category).

Custom Data: Dependency for the next extension.

Related Pages: An extension used on WikiVoyage. Powerless on it's own, when a template that hooks into it called {{related|tropename}} is added (more than one can be added to a page), it will add related pages to a section on the sidebar on a per page basis. This is meant to mimic the "Related pages" feature on TV Tropes.

Online Status: A new option has been added to user preferences that will allow a user to set their "online status as online/offline and have the appropriate message display as a subtitle under your user name on your user page. Meant for those who leave their computers on all the time or stay logged in most of the time but want to let other know when they are/aren't available.

Well also soon be establishing interwiki links between ourselves and our newly established dutch counterpart, so any page that has a different language version will show up as an interwiki link on the sidebar in it's own Languages section (like on Wikipedia).

(see this page for a demonstration of our new Related Pages functionality.

I thought our version of "Related Pages" was the "What links here" in the Tools sidebar. The "What links here" is missing the how many people got here counter, and it doesn't give a flat out number, but you can figure the second one out with math.

That's because MediaWiki doesn't have that feature (how many people got here) by default.

We'd need a site traffic measuring extension for that info.

Also, "what links here" is just a list of all pages with links to that page. Related Pages are a list of actual tropes related to the trope page in question, not just every page with a link to the trope page.

I recently added a new gadget to the user preferences (defaults to ON by default, but can be disabled) that changes the look of most MediaWiki stock skins like Vector and Monobook to have rounded off corners and a smoother design. It does not affect custom skins like Monaco or Foreground.

I added it just to see if it would work well, please report any problems, suggestions, or complaints to the Tech Wishlist forum.

Update: A better breakdown of the new features is below:

We now have several new features and extensions, here's the breakdown:

• TocTree - You can now have greater control over the TOC (Table of contents) on pages, with options to expand and/or float the table in your user preferences. The float tables are somewhat buggy, so it's recommended they not be used, but now you can toggle whether the TOC can be folded or expanded accordion style like you would with page sections.

• RefreshSpecial - Admins (or anyone else granted the "refreshspecial" right) can now refresh the status of all special pages to update cache information. This should be used sparingly, due to the high processor load of the extension, but this should make maintenance tasks much easier to accomplish.

• Category Search - The MultiCategorySearch extension has been added to ATT, and a new link has been added to the Troper Tools on the sidebar. This will allow searching for pages by Category (up to 5 can be selected, with up to 3 excluded). Warning, this is case sensitive, so you must type in exact Category names.

• CategoryTagSorter Categories are now automatically sorted in alphabetical order, though this can be disabled in user preferences for those who prefer the stock MediaWiki Category listing.

• Trope Workshop has been enhanced with two expandable lists that will show the pages and discussion pages in that namespace, from last updated first. It's not exactly as well featured as TV Tropes's YKTTW yet, but it should be an improvement.

• The Trope/Work templates have been condensed for conciseness, with small "question marks" added next to each icon link to act as backups to the icons links and if they are red, to show the icon leads to a redlink, since the tooltips do not display that info properly with just the icons. These will be seeing more refinement over time, and if need be, they will be reverted to their original state before the change.

• A new gadget has been added (default enabled) that will smooth the appearance of most stock MediaWiki skins with rounded corners. This is an aesthetic change, and can be disabled by disabling the 'Rounded Corners" gadget in user preferences.

"defaults to ON by default"

This phrase brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.

LOL, point noted.

Since MW 1.23's release, the watchlist of everyone who edits auto-adds all pages you edit (as far as can be discerned based on reports I've gotten) and will spam emails to your email address about changes if that was enabled.

To fix this (which seems to be a default setting that will hopefully be changed in a bugfix update of the MediaWiki software, do this:

1. Go to your user Preferences to the Watchlist tab.
2. Find "Add pages and files I edit to my watchlist" and uncheck it.
3. Edit any other settings to your liking.
4. Rejoice, no more auto-added watchlist spam!

If need be, I'll file a bug report to the MediaWiki developers to patch out this behavoir in the next bugfix release, but until then, this should fix this annoying issue.

Let me know if there are still issues in the Tech Wishlist and Bug Reports Board.

Welcome to our new and improved forums!

Unlike the old version, this is based on LiquidsThreads (already used on talk pages), so it has a nicer layout. We also have several nice features you'll like.

• Avatars/signatures: You can edit your signature on every post if you want, but if you don't want to have to do that every time, you can just insert something like this (my sig) on the Signature link in your user preferences (treat as wikitext needs to be checked):

Geth N7 - [[File:Legion p 7020.png|70px|The Consensus welcomes interaction|link=User talk:GethN7]]

• Post quoting: Well, sort of. We don't have a quote button, but you can click the "More" link on a post, find the wiki text link, then post it with curly brackets to "transclude" it to your post. You probably want to preface it with something like "Author posted:", then separate it from your post with a {{hardline}} , but in this manner you can quote other posters.
  • Another method is to use our quote template, stick the message you want to quote in the curly brackets, add a "|", put the author's name, then close the brackets. This will achieve the same effect.
• All wikitext and templates work the same here as they do on the wiki.

We'll update you all on any new features, but for now, we hope you enjoy our new forums! :)