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README for the Gadgets extension
Copyright © 2007 Daniel Kinzler
Licenses: GNU General Public Licence (GPL)
          GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL)
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The Gadgets extension provides a way for users to pick JavaScript or CSS
based "gadgets" that other wiki users provide.

<http://mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Gadgets>

The Gadgets extension was originally written by Daniel Kinzler in 2007
and is released under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL).
The internationalization files may contain contributions by several people;
they should be mentioned in each file individually.

== Prerequisites ==
This version of Gadgets requires MediaWiki 1.17 or later. To get a version
compatible with earlier MediaWiki release, visit
    http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:ExtensionDistributor/Gadgets

== Installing ==
Copy the Gadgets directory into the extensions folder of your
MediaWiki installation. Then add the following lines to your
LocalSettings.php file (near the end):

  require_once( "$IP/extensions/Gadgets/Gadgets.php" );

== Usage ==
The list of available gadgets is defined on MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition.
Gadgets defined there show up in the "Gadgets" section of
Special:Preferences, so users can pick the gadgets they would like to use.
An overview of the gadgets defined by MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition is also
shown on Special:Gadgets, along with links to the respective system
messages, for easy editing.

Each line in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition that start with one or more "*"
(asterisk) characters defines a gadget; it must have the following form:

  * mygadget|mygadget.js|mygadget.css
 
or

  * mygadget[ResourceLoader]|mygadget.js|mygadget.css

That is, each line consists of fields separated by a "|" (pipe) character.
The first field ("mygadget" in the example) is the gadgets internal name,
and references a system message (MediaWiki:Gadget-mygadget in the example)
that contains a short description of the gadget, using wiki syntax.
Note that the internal name must start with an ASCII letter, must not be
longer than 25 bytes, and must contain only ASCII letters and numbers,
hyphens ("-"), underscores ("_"), colons (":"), and periods (".")
(spaces are also allowed but converted to underscores ("_"), like for
page titles).

If the gadget name is followed by [ResourceLoader], its JavaScript will
be loaded concatenated, minified and gzipped by ResourceLoader, thus 
improving load times. However, older gadgets may be incompatible with
ResourceLoader, so all JS is by default loaded the old way, using separate
<script> tags.

The remaining fields on the line refer to the JavaScript or CSS code that
makes up the gadget, contained in system messages
(MediaWiki:Gadget-mygadget.js and MediaWiki:Gadget-mygadget.css in the
example); the names of those messages must end with ".js" or ".css",
respectively. A gadget can use any number of code messages, specifically,
common code can be put into a code message used by several gadgets, in
addition to their own specific code, e.g:

  * frobinator|commonStuff.js|frob.js|frob.css|pretty.css
  * l33t|commonStuff.js|tools.js|l33t.js

Gadget definitions can contain whitespace between its elements, e.g.
the following definitions are equivalent:

  *mygadget[ResourceLoader]|mygadget.js|mygadget.css

and

  * mygadget [ ResourceLoader ] | mygadget.js | mygadget.css

The list of gadgets in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition can be broken into
sections using lines that start and end with two or more "=" (equals)
characters, enclosing the name of a system message that defines the
section's name - for example:

  == editing-gadgets ==

This would define a new section, with the title defined on the page
MediaWiki:Gadget-section-editing-gadgets


== Caveats ==

* Gadgets do not apply to Special:Preferences, Special:UserLogin and 
  Special:ResetPass so users can always disable any broken gadgets they
  may have enabled, and malicious gadgets will be unable to steal passwords.
* Uses BeforePageDisplay hook, thus only works with MonoBook based skins;
  specifically, does not work with CologneBlue.
* Gadget code is included after user code - that means that user JS has no
  access to things defined in gadgets, and user CSS is overwritten by CSS
  from gadgets. (pending a better way to insert things into the HTML head)