Mailing List Archive: Fwd: table appearance in the mediawiki browser

Fwd: table appearance in the mediawiki browser

Nov 18, 2004, 8:22 AM

Post #1 of 3 (455 views)

[.Forwarding my response to the list, since I seem to have accidentally
replied to sender only.]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rowan Collins <rowan.collins@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 15:19:04 +0000
Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] table appearance in the mediawiki browser
To: "vanibhat@comcast.net" <vanibhat@comcast.net>

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 22:26:16 +0000, vanibhat@comcast.net
<vanibhat@comcast.net> wrote:
> I will put it in this way.. I have data in the with lots of column. So i
> created a table and added that data into the table. Now i want to access it
> with media wiki and edit it as and when chages required.How do i do this?

Well, from your original message I presume you mean a table within the
database, not just a table as in a grid with some rows and columns and
so on. In which case, as I say, I think you've misunderstood the
nature of MediaWiki, or at least its capabilities. [.If I'm wrong on
that, please ignore the rest of this message and we'll start again!]

If you are entirely new to the software, and want to know what it can
be used for, and how, I suggest you to take a look at the
documentation at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents As I
say, it is not a "browser" for arbitrary data, but rather a system for
collaboratively creating and editing, and of course viewing, a website
- particularly a "reference book" style one, such as wikipedia.org.

If you already know this much (in which case I apologise if the above
seems condescending) I can only think that you have stumbled across
some reference to or discussion of the "Wikidata" proposal. (As
described at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata) In which case, I
should clarify that so far this is *nothing more than a proposal*; as
far as I know, no actual code has actually been written, and it is
certainly not possible to do any database manipulation using the
current software.

The database is there only as a storage mechanism for the actual
content; there is no mechanism for the user to directly access
database structures through the software, or for content to be
generated from anything other than a page of special wiki-markup.
There might be in the future, but when that will be is, essentially,
anyone's guess. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I don't
think what you are trying to do is currently possible with MediaWiki.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]

Re: Fwd: table appearance in the mediawiki browser [ In reply to ]

vanibhat at comcast

Nov 18, 2004, 9:17 AM

Post #2 of 3 (455 views)

Permalink

Hello Rowan,

Thanks for the clarification. I do understand what Mediawiki is used for. Ok, Now lets forget about the tables in the database.
I actually created Columns in MoinMoin wiki for our environment in which my data is in the forms of rows and columns. Moinmoin wiki has the format where I can specify the cells. This was pretty simple.
In a similar way I am trying to implement in Mediawiki. But I donot see any options for creating the cells ( rows and columns). There are only few options for formatting like "Bold" "interlink" "Heading" etc....
I was thinking that I need to create the tables in Mysql and thanks for clearing me out that MediaWiki uses Mysql only to store the data and not to create...
Can you help me now how can i create columns; say for example....
Machine NameTypeOS

Hope its clear now. let me know if you need any info...
I appreciate your patience in making me understand this . Thank you.

Thanks,
Vani M
-------------- Original message --------------

> [.Forwarding my response to the list, since I seem to have accidentally
> replied to sender only.]
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Rowan Collins
> Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 15:19:04 +0000
> Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] table appearance in the mediawiki browser
> To: "vanibhat@comcast.net"
>
>
> On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 22:26:16 +0000, vanibhat@comcast.net
> wrote:
> > I will put it in this way.. I have data in the with lots of column. So i
> > created a table and added that data into the table. Now i want to access it
> > with media wiki and edit it as and when chages required.How do i do this?
>
> Well, from your original message I presume you mean a table within the
> database, not just a table as in a grid with some rows and columns and
> so on. In which case, as I say, I think you've misunderstood the
> nature of MediaWiki, or at least its capabilities. [.If I'm wrong on
> that, please ignore the rest of this message and we'll start again!]
>
> If you are entirely new to the software, and want to know what it can
> be used for, and how, I suggest you to take a look at the
> documentation at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents As I
> say, it is not a "browser" for arbitrary data, but rather a system for
> collaboratively creating and editing, and of course viewing, a website
> - particularly a "reference book" style one, such as wikipedia.org.
>
> If you already know this much (in which case I apologise if the above
> seems condescending) I can only think that you have stumbled across
> some reference to or discussion of the "Wikidata" proposal. (As
> described at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata) In which case, I
> should clarify that so far this is *nothing more than a proposal*; as
> far as I know, no actual code has actually been written, and it is
> certainly not possible to do any database manipulation using the
> current software.
>
> The database is there only as a storage mechanism for the actual
> content; there is no mechanism for the user to directly access
> database structures through the software, or for content to be
> generated from anything other than a page of special wiki-markup.
> There might be in the future, but when that will be is, essentially,
> anyone's guess. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I don't
> think what you are trying to do is currently possible with MediaWiki.
>
> --
> Rowan Collins BSc
> [IMSoP]
> _______________________________________________
> MediaWiki-l mailing list
> MediaWiki-l@Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

Re: Fwd: table appearance in the mediawiki browser [ In reply to ]

rowan.collins at gmail

Nov 18, 2004, 9:51 AM

Post #3 of 3 (459 views)

Permalink

Hi,
Apologies for what was probably an over-complex answer to your
question, given that it came down to something of a misunderstanding.

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 16:17:15 +0000, vanibhat@comcast.net
<vanibhat@comcast.net> wrote [among other things]:
> I actually created Columns in MoinMoin wiki for our environment in which my
> data is in the forms of rows and columns. Moinmoin wiki has the format where
> I can specify the cells. This was pretty simple.
> In a similar way I am trying to implement in Mediawiki. But I donot see any
> options for creating the cells ( rows and columns). There are only few
> options for formatting like "Bold" "interlink" "Heading" etc....
>
> I was thinking that I need to create the tables in Mysql and thanks for
> clearing me out that MediaWiki uses Mysql only to store the data and not to
> create...
> Can you help me now how can i create columns

If I am now understanding your intention correctly, you are just
trying to create an article in which the content is formatted as a
table. This you can indeed do with MediaWiki - indeed, there are two
ways:
1) you can use the HTML markup for tables (<table>, <tr>, <td>, etc)
if you are already familiar with that.
2) there is a [hopefully] simpler markup built in to the software,
which looks something like:
{|
! Header 1 !! Header 2
|-
| cell 1 || cell 2
|-
| cell 3 || cell 4
|}

Obviously, it's a lot more flexible than that.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Table *should* tell you everything
you need to know; hopefully [our documentation is rather patchy, I'm
afraid...]

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]