User:A.allison/Technical WikiLog

Asher Allison's Page Customise Your Page?		Change Image
Occupation	Veterinarian
Veterinary School	UK - Nottingham
Year of Graduation	2011
Email	-

About Me - Technical WikiLog - To Do - Wiki Development - Content - Extensions - Templates - Miscellaneous

Asher's diary of all technical (non-content) changes being made on WikiVet. Log of work on WikiVet carried out in 2010 here.

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December

30/12/2011

NetworkAuth

NetworkAuth re-enabled for RVC.

CC Licence

Upgraded all wikis (apart from fr) to latest licence (3.0).

29/12/2011

Commons Issue

Change made to NetworkAuth so that images taken from Commons display properly but no error message are generated when non-logged in users visit the site.

14/12/2011

EmbedPDF

Due to compatibility issues extension has been disabled.

14/12/2011

Unification

The ultimate goal to unify the code base, somewhat accelerated due to problem using a shared settings file but separate code bases for each wiki as not all extension could locate their files correctly. This will fix that problem.

• All of the language wikis and commons now use the same code source
• Localsettings.php files are now all encoded with UTF-8
• 1fr.php, 1es.php & 1en.php have been added to /maintenance to allow up date scripts to effectively function
• Even more settings migrated to SharedSettings.php
• French wiki is now 'WikiVet Français' and Spanish wiki is now 'WikiVet Español'

WhiteList

In preparation for the unification of the code base the extension now looks at the site url and selects the appropriate whitelist file.

12/12/2011

ConfirmEdit

Made local as files not properly referenced in shared folder

ConfirmEdit

Now disabled as a few users are saying it doesn't always work (vast majority of users this works for) which is probably due to a lack of math ability esp. as error cannot be re-created. Typo corrected in messages ('Pleae' to 'Please').

ConfirmAccount

Talk page creation disabled. Ability to update school list restored.

WhiteList

French Whitelist re-populated. Whitelist files are now UTF-8 encoded to allow for special characters.

10/12/2011

Maps

Reworked code on Template:WorldMap and created new markers to compliment it.

09/12/2011

Confirm Account

Extensions insatlled and final tweaks made to ensure notification system integrates into the wiki well.

WikiVet 1.18 VI

WikiVet English successfully upgraded.

07/12/2011

WikiVet 1.18 V

WikIVet Beta upgraded.

07/12/2011

Blocked user issues

Blocked user currently gets error message when trying to upload. This is a problem for commons as it is ugly for users. Need to assign users with confirmed emails to new group to decrease standard user permissions.

WikiVet 1.18 V

WikiVet Commons now upgraded to version 1.18. UploadWizard installed and all link from other wikis now point to this wizard. Old form can still be used but is no longer the default option. Extensions now added to central repository as well as shared settings.

ParserFunction

Extensions installed on both Spanish and French wikis to restore functionality lost in upgrade.

Google Analytics

New way of tracking being tested in Spanish wiki and tracking also installed in French wiki.

06/12/2011

WikiVet 1.18 IV

Both Spanish and French wikis upgraded to version 1.18 successfully. Localsetting for both standardised and cleaned up and both now have a full set of extensions and functionality.

WikiVet 1.18 III

ReplaceText

Extensions required some modifications to make it work in 1.18. On Alpha.

GoogleMaps

Old extension not compatible with 1.18 and reported fixes do not work in version 1.18./ Extension will be retired and replaced with 'Maps' a more competent extension that his actively being developed and is compatible.

03/12/2011

Front Page

Change made to css to hide title and breadcrumb trail from main apge to clean it up. Modification added so burecrats dont have an odd looking page as well. Changes documented here.

WikiVet 1.18 II

Continuation of testing on Alpha:

• No luck with Livetransaltion again
• Cannot find solution for Mobilefrontend. Will have to wait
• Collection version 1.5 just doesn't work. Installed version 1.4 and it works fine... strange.

02/12/2011

WikiVet 1.18 I

Alpha now upgraded to version 1.18. Test has started. Most extensions seem to be working as long as latest version uploaded.

• ConfirmAccount completely upgraded and now fully functioning.
• Tested live translate to see if Google translate could be retired. No luck, doesn't seem to work
• Installed article feedback. Works, just on every page!
• Upload Wizard finally works!
• MobileFrontend to a point works but make the wiki very slow... need to wait for a solution
• Flash and Mediaplayer will be retired, not sued and contain security vunreabilities

November

27/11/2011

ConfirmAccount

Now 2.62. Added text to better inform users that applications are processed individually and may take 24-48 hours to be reviewed.

Cite

Version for 1.15 didnt work on es and fr sites (1.16). Updated. Now working.

Search

Restarted.

08/11/2011

Commons Spammming

Spamming due to vulnerability due to server acting as user with editing rights being spoofed. Affected pages fixed and problem closed.

October

25/10/2011

French wiki extensions

Installed and activated the following extensions on the French wiki:

• Cite
• Breadcrumbs
• EmbedPDF
• Syntax Highlight
• Widgets
• ParserFunctions
• WikiQuiz
• ImageMap
• Flash
• MediawikiPlayer
• CategoryTree

Restrict registrations

Stopped users being able to register for accounts for French and Spanish sites

23/10/2011

Search

Restarted

11/10/2011

French Wiki

Setup and can be found here: fr.wikivet.net

• Configured interwiki table
• Installed extension WhiteList

ImageMagick

Enabled on Spanish Wiki

Search

Restarted

WhiteList for Spanish

Installed and configured for Spanish wiki.

September

22/09/2011

Main page now has a Google+ '+1' to ensure we keep up with the excitement that it social networking...

19/09/2011

Front Page

Realigned the like and twitter buttons to make best use of screen real estate. Especially as page becoming so large.

16/09/2011

Search

Not working! No error message, presumed a sever restart.

16/09/2011

Search

Forgot to restart the search feature after server stopped!

06/09/2011

Server Down

Entire site off line, no explained reason, up and running in no time though.

July

20/07/2011

Dada Mailer

Now undone change made on the 11th as I have changed dada captcha to use 'reCaptcha' rather than its inbuilt system. This should correct all the problems currently being experienced and tests indicate it is working effectively.

20/07/2011

WikiCommons

Enabled in 'es' wiki as well now.

18/07/2011

Confirm Account

Updated central extension to mirror changes made in 'en' local. Central now the most up to date.

Search Daemon VI

Now running with no issues since the 13th. Problem assumed fixed.

13/07/2011

Search Daemon V

Continuing to stop. Problem in one of the files. Have now re-configured and re-built the entire index so will see if this corrects the problem. Deamon restarted @ 22:09.

Failed again by 22:58. Modified lsearchd file and restarted.

12/07/2011

ConfirmAccount

Registrations can no longer have a special character in their username. This will prevent the error message that was being generated when users did this.

WikiVet Commons

Upgraded to version 1.17 to resolve problem with vector skin and IE.

Search Daemon IV

• 11:15 Stopped again. Restarted.
• 08:02 Stopped again. Restarted with trace.

11/07/2011

Dada Mailer

Upgraded to version 4.51.

Removed all references to captcha as this was causing the site to not all users to administer their account of subscribe.

dada\DADA\Profile.pm @ line 753 changed to '0'

dada\Mail.cgi @ line 9204 changed to '0'

Search Daemon III

• 20:47 Started again. Restarted.
• 20:28 Stopped again.
• 18:51 Stopped again. So restarted.
• 15:57 Stopped again. So restarted.
• 10:30 Restarted as had stopped.

ConfirmAccount

Added message in both initial email and confirmatory message post submission to ask users to be patient while their request is reviewed.

10/07/2011

Search Daemon II

Restarted as had stopped.

09/07/2011

Search Daemon I

Restarted as had stopped.

Licence

Added 'No Derivatives' and 'Non-Commercial' to CC licence at bottom of all pages.

06/07/2011

ImageMagick III

ImageMagick now upgraded. All wikis pointed to new directory. Also re-enabled on English wiki.

$wgMaxShellMemory limit now raised on all wikis as on default value larger images (resolution) could not be resized, leaving either blank place holders or error messages. This seems to have fixed the problem, but the situation will be monitored in case database problems reoccur.

ImageMagick II

Disabled again as causing problems on database. Also noted that other wikis struggle to rend files over 2mb, although English wiki just crashes rather than showing error messages. Looking to upgrade ImageMagick and work from there.

05/07/2011

ImageMagick

Re-enabled on WikiVet (en) as server unable to scale/resize image of 2mb or over. Previously disabled as site slowed down on image upload due to database queries. Files no longer uploaded and different path for image magick specified so will see if this works.

June

23/06/2011

WikiVet Alpha

Now up and running. Will use as a test bed to ensure all aspects of the extensions currently running on WikiVet work under the new version.

FlashCard Extension

Now rewritten to remove javascript. Completely css drive. Compatible across browsers (Inc. IE6). Modified appearance and allow tables to adjust to screen of different resolutions (cf. fixed width previously). Changes can be seen here: [1].

21/06/2011

Random Pages

Explored a number of alternatives for random page generation within a category. No luck so far.

• External script (toolserve based) - didn't work at all
• Extension Intersection/DynamicPageList - can't embed random links
• Extension: RandomInCategory - not random at all

Video Platform II

Further investigation into proxies, no joy with what we want despite coming close with phpmyproxy script, but cant get it to accept urls so not much use. May aave to look at cookies for authentication.

Virtual Hospital III

Tried to force compatibility onto IE6 but failed. Can't seem to get it to inherit all the requirements beyond the first 'div' class. All other browsers tested are fine though (FF4 Chrome12, IE8,IE9, android webkit). Slight modifications made so images are located in relative form (broke IE6 and probably IE7) but allows everything to be displayed correct using different skins in mediawiki (simple has problems). IE6 cant render anything outside vector skin (and doesn't do that particularly well). May have to accept IE6 (IE7?) users cant use this resource!

20/06/2011

Virtual Hospital II

Proper prototypes generated for main page to hospital ([2] and [3]). Basic level of compatibility testing done. IE6 stand out problem.

18/06/2011

Video Platform I

Initial research into proxy layer for external videos and .htaccess restrictions to protect content.

17/06/2011

Virtual Hospital I

Possibilities for interactivity explored and proof of concept delivered. Should be able to do everything from css. Some incompatibly expected with old version of IE (6/7), but less than 6% users use these browsers.

WYSIWYG

Frustratingly while in many ways the editor worked, it failed to keep images, instead replacing them with link. Positively pointless extension...

Tried to use FCKEditor but this hangs on iamge look up. Problem with both of these extensions seems to be the way they handle iamges. Theya re looking for iamges within the wiki, but now with WikiVet Commons images are no longer where they typically are.

WYSIFTW editor work in WikiVet Commons (1.17). Its not ideal but may provide a nice intermediate editor for those wanting to make simple text edits.

Image Directories

While it is possible for non-registered users to view images via direct links I have now stopped the image directories of the wiki to be viewed. Indeed viewing of all wiki directories is now prohibited.

16/06/2011

MediaCore

Starting to investigate this as a platform for video content organisation.

UploadWizard

Another attempt to make it work. Elements are improved but it just doesn't work properly or reliably. An extension currently being developed on other mediawiki platofrms so will revisit regularly.

15/06/2011

WYSIWYG Editor

Now works effectively with the front page ([4]), but did require poor mark-up to be removed and imagemap tags to be hidden inside a template (not a bad thing [5]). Naturally the page is still rather busy even with this editor, but then it always was and if a page this complex can be made to play ball with this extension there is hope for the rest of the wiki.

NetworkAuth Extension

Installed onto WikiVet commons to allow the server to authenticate itself with allow meta information to be shared amongst the wikis. PHP code was required to bypass the limitations of the extension. See Localsetting.php for workaround.

Ratings

Investigated a number of extensions involving the rating by users of pages. Not convinced any are particularly useful or what we want (if indeed we want them).

WikiVet Commons Images

Media meta information is now displayed on the images "page" within the language wikis. There was a problem where this would not be displayed and it only showed the 'login required screen'. After much deliberation it was realised this was because the server was not logged into the wikis and thus the request for information was being blocked and NetworkAuth was installed on the wiki to allow the server to identify itself.

14/06/2011

ConfirmAccount Extension

Update so doesnt conflict when running update.php.

Beta WikiVet

Now running mediawiki 1.17-rc1, hopefully the last release before 1.17.

10/06/2011

Analytics

Added Analytics tracking to both commons and beta sites.

09/06/2011

WikiVet Commons

Is now live and fully functioning. All other wikis point to it and now contain no images themselves i.e. all images across the WikiVet family are now found in WikiVet Commons. Upload are prohibited in both en & es WikiVets.

ConfirmAccount IV

Changes in text and how it is displayed have been applied. Users given more prompting on choosing occupation to continue and vets and vet students now prompted for year qualified or year qualifying rather than graduation year. Change made to email sent out asking for verification also made (added 24-48hours lag).

FlashCard extension

Localisation file added and extension prepared for different languages. Version: 1.10. Work under taken to add components for resourceloader (see beta.wikivet.net). Spanish translation completed and extension added to Spanish WikiVet.

WikiVet Beta

Testing area for all new extensions running on this server (rather than separate server). Currently runs mediawiki 1.17beta01 and is being used for extension requiring resourceloader as well as ensuring all other extensions are ready for version 1.17.

ConfirmAccount III

Some wording changes implemented and improvements made to extension to aid localisation. Waiting of further text suggestions before making live.

Spanish Wiki

• CategoryTree extension installed

Image Transfer

Tested (successfully) the transfer of all images from WikiVet (en) to WikiVet Commons. Then successfully used testwiki (test.wikivet.net), deleted it images and then cleared it image database (images + image links) and the rebuilt (rebuildImages.php) the index. This made the test wiki to stop looking internally for it images and now takes all images (including existing linked images) from commons.

WikiVet Commons

• Restricted access, editing for all users
• Blocked user account creation on this wiki (should be using Spanish/English wiki's
• Installed and configured TitleKey extension
• Completed server rewrite for url
• Installed parser functions
• Uploaded the relevant templates for the information template

Upload Limit

Has now been raised to 100Mb on the server but is being limited to 10Mb on the wikis.

08/06/2011

Upload Wizard

Doesnt work in Chrome 12 or IE 9 (vector broken in IE9) but does in Firefox 4. Modified upload helper image to reflect WikiVet Commons.

WikiVet Commons Logo

Logo has now been created as well as favicon. Can be seen here: File:WikiVet-Commons.png

Copyright

Added CC logo to bottom of the page on all wiki's. Updated page MediaWiki:Copyright for Commons and Spanish sites.

Image Repository

• Setup sub domain 'upload.wikivet.net'
• Installed mediawiki version 1.17beta1
  • Wiki = 'WikiVet Commons'
• Installed language selector extension for 'en' and 'es' support
• Installed upload wizard (but it is not yet working)
• Configured en.wikivet.net and es.wikivet.net to point to 'WikiVet Commons' for image sharing

Return to after login page

Corrected link that meant users were re-directed to main page rather than the page they were trying to view when prompted to log in. Standard log in link substituted for $1 parameter.

Commons Material

Users can now directly embed content from WikiCommons into WikiVet as if the content exists on WikiVet. Configured using this.

Mediacore videos

Allows a videos from mediacore to be embedded into a page.

Facebook Like button

Allows a facebook 'like' button to be embedded into a page.

Twitter Follow Button

Allows a twitter follow button to be embedded into a page.

Widget Extension

Installed widget extension to allow widgets to be sued on the Wiki. Hopefully an elegant and easy solution to allow social networking buttons to be included...

07/06/2011

ConfirmAccount II

Large portions of redundant code now removed. Some other minor changes made to the text that is displayed and how extension operates (removes redundant features). Changes made so that extension is ready for mediawiki 1.17. Database script updated.

ConfirmAccount I

Fully email checking is now in place during registrations. Users cannot register if their email address is already used by another account. Furthermore when accepting an account the system now checks to see if the email address is already in use in the newsletter database to prevent error messages being generated with duplicate addresses which leads to accounts failing to be properly registered.

Extension version: 2.60

06/06/2011

FlashCard Extension

Total width of flashcards reduced so they display effectively on 1024x768 resolutions.

Categories

Disabled "enhanced" category feature (commented 'importScript( 'MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js' );' out of page 'MediaWiki:UploadForm.js'.

Translation Extension

Pages can now be translated back to English.

April

04/04/2011

Usability Initiative

Re-enabled wikieditor as well as activating 'star' for watch page function. Enabled in Spanish WikiVet as well.

Template:Schoolimage

Fixed problem where displayed syntax appeared when not all three image slots are defined in Vetschool template. Also corrected issues where if only two images are defined the dispaly is off-centre.

Template:Vetschool

Now updated to include categories for graduates and link to other vet schools.

Upload Form

Due to modifications in the upload form introduced with the new version (1.16.2) previous hack to get the information template into the description box no longer works. Instead a JavaScript based version has been installed. May have (highly likely) a few teething problems, but once sorted will provide a great addition to the uploading process.

ImageMagick

Now disabled. Was causing database to lock and large amounts of memory usage on the server. Crashing the wiki for users uploading files and slowing the server down for all users. It no longer seems to be required as all images are rendering properly. A completely unforeseeable side effect and one that would have occurred at any point as soon as the mediawiki version was upgraded so also unavoidable.

Extension:ConfirmAccount

Corrected issue where extension was unable to located (and therefore write to) the schools list. Version now 2.55.

Database access

Assigned wikimaster rights to view new central database.

03/04/2011

Splash Page

Initial version of a splash page for wikivet.net as has been constructed. It will allow users to choose which language they want to access wikivet from and then remember their selection. This will allow users to navigate to wikivet.net but then automatically be pushed to the localised version of their choice. Currently designed mainly as a proof of concept and test for enabling cookies.

02/04/2011

Extension GoogleTranslate

Added several more langaues. Languages enabled are based on top 10 countries for visitor numbers to the site.

Extension ConfirmAccount

Localisation of the extension has now been started for Spanish. Problem with special characters not displaying corrected on Spanish WikIVet. Much work still needed.

Mediawiki 1.16.2

WikiVet (English) now upgraded to the latest version of mediawiki (1.16.2). A security release with no new features. Spanish version was installed as this version.

Clean Up

Server clean up started. Rearrangement of files, folders and localsettings.php to remove old files and make things easier to navigate.

Centralisation V

WikiVet made read-only and database migrated into new centralised system. Spanish and English wikis pointed to central database. Dada Mail pointed at new database. Favicon and logo centralsied for all wikis. Some extensions migrated into central location for ease of updating, but unsure if this is really the best way forward. Tested system and there doesn't seem to be any issues. All in all quite uneventful.

Centralisation IV

Testing ConfirmAccount extension with new structure complete, no issues noted. Dada Mail testing complete.

Centralisation III

Support for multiple languages has now been enabled in the newsletter subscription form. Significant changes were made to the mailing list in order to accommodate required results.

Centralisation II

Successfully implemented a central extension folder so that multiple wikis can run off the same extensions enable rapid deployment of extension upgrades in the future. Unsure if this will work for all extensions and if there is likely to be any performance problems with this setup but may provide useful for extension that are constantly being updated.

Centralisation I

Initial preparatory steps are being taken to support a multi-language WikiVet, namely a Spanish version. Database table sharing has been successfully tested on test sites and steps taken to preserve registration structure have also been successful.

Spanish WikiVet

Core mediawiki installation set up and now sits under the es.wikivet.net domain. Short url's also enabled. Will be tested along side test mediawiki installation to try out interwiki links and database sharing.

March

28/03/2011

Extension: Confirm Account

Update to instigated changes suggested in meeting on 15-03-2011. Veterianry Surgeon changed to veterinarian, updates changed to newsletter and option to express interest in being author/reviewer removed.

25/03/2011

Google Translate Extension

Now installed with Dutch, French, German & Spanish languages available.

FCKEditor Take III

Disabled.

Medicore

Started investigation's to installing on server.

February

19/02/2011

TwitterFBLike

Started to look at another facebook extensions TwitterFBLike, here.

ConfirmAccount

Users can no longer use a single character for their name. If the character is trailed by a "." it will also be rejected.

16/02/2011

ConfirmAccount

Blocked users can now request account. Specifically implemented for the new IP access feature.

09/02/2011

IP address

Changed settings so User RVC cannot do anything apart for viewing pages.

ConfirmAccount

Due to problems with users having duplicate email address a fix has been implemented to stop users registering if their email address is already on the system.

05/02/2011

Poll Extensions

Biref look at a number of extension to try polling on the wiki. None particularly good on first analysis. Tired Poll2, Vote and SecurePoll.

• Extension:CommunityVoice, Extension:Poll and Extension:QPoll were all of no use.

January

31/01/2011

NetworkAuth

Extension installed to allow institutional access via IP ranges. Now testing out for RVC IP addresses.

29/01/2011

FCKeditor Take II

This extension has now been installed again to give WikiVet a WYSIWYG editor. The flaw where it was removing captions to images has now been resolved (details here). This extension only works with wikitext. Pages that contain HTML will corrupt when this extension is used.

26/01/2011

Rich Text Editor

FCKeditor disabled as it has too many bugs. Several other editors looked into and tested but none provide the stability, compatibility or usability that we require. Further work needs to be done to find a good working alternative. This may require considerably more time...

23/01/2011

FCKeditor

This extension has now been installed to give WikiVet a WYSIWYG editor. It should hopefully reduce the learning curve required to edit the wiki.

12/01/2011

Copyright

Site content copyright details should now appear across the wiki pages. Changes made to enforce this are listed here.

12/01/2011

Collection Extension

Now installed and configured. User can now create PDF's and books by using the link in the sidebar under 'Print/Export'. Extension modified to alert users to unreliable nature of creating books (our server may not be quick enough?) as well as removing the option to buy the book (this may be re-instigated). Change in code documented here.

11/01/2011

ConfirmAccount Extension

Users are now added to the database for the mailer automatically. Extension no longer adds users to a category based on their year of graduation.

10/01/2011

Collection Extension

Now under investigation. Should deliver the ability to produce books and PDF's from the sites pages. Clearance and further testing required of this extension before it is made live.

Dada Mailer

Upgraded to the latest version 4.3.1 and have integrated the database directly into the wiki's database to enable better integration with existing extensions, namely confirm account, and to stream line the back end of WikiVet.

07/01/2011

ConfirmAccount

Preliminary work has been carried out in an attempt to automatically add new users to the newsletter mailing list. Re-organisation of the the database will be required.