Help:Gadgets
Gadgets are bundles of JavaScript, CSS and system messages that load together to provide additional functionality on the wiki. Wiki users can optionally enable certain gadgets to enhance their viewing and editing experience.
All gadgets available on the wiki can be viewed at Special:Gadgets, together with their bundled JavaScript and CSS pages. They are divided into sections, and may load under certain conditions (if the user has required rights, only on certain namespaces, etc.)
Generally, gadgets can be enabled and disabled in user preferences. Gadgets marked as "default" are enabled for all users by default, whereas gadgets marked as "hidden" are not listed in user preferences.
Gadgets listed under the Editor tools section are optional gadgets intended to enhance editor experience.
This gadget lets wiki editors purge cache of a single page quickly. Sometimes, when editing a template or module, some pages may take a bit of time to display updated contents. An editor can speed this process up by purging the page.
After enabling this gadget in preferences, the editor can find the "Purge cache" button under the dropdown next to the "Edit" button. After clicking on it, the page's cache gets purged and the page refreshes.
The purge can be performed by using the access key p. If using the Fandom Keybinds gadget, purging can be done using the keybind n.
This gadget lets autoconfirmed users and above purge cache of a batch of pages. It is similar to the Purge cache gadget, but operates on multiple pages.
After enabling this gadget in preferences, the editor can find a "Batch purge" button in the sidebar. It opens a modal which shows a text area where page names to purge can be entered. The editor can use the "Add pages" button to add pages from one of the following sources:
- pages that link to a specific page,
- pages that transclude a specific page (such as a template),
- pages that include a specific file,
- pages that start with a specific prefix,
- members of a specific category, or
- all pages from a specific namespace.
If the editor is on a category page, on Special:WhatLinksHere, Special:PrefixIndex, or Special:AllPages, the gadget automatically fills out the text area with relevant pages.
After pressing the "Start" button, the gadget purges pages from the list in batches, and reports any errors in the red text area below.
This gadget is a direct port of MassNullEdit from Fandom Developers Wiki by OneTwoThreeFall, modified to perform a purge instead of a null edit.
This gadget previews differences between two pages when clicking on a diff link (in page history, recent changes, another diff page, or elsewhere) in a modal, without reloading the page. It allows navigation between previous and next difference pages using keyboard arrows, and equivalent functionality to regular diff pages.
This gadget is a direct port of QuickDiff from Fandom Developers Wiki by OneTwoThreeFall.
This gadget shows information about the page's first and last edit below the page's title. It appears in the following format:
Created on 9/26/2015, 7:21:35 AM by Wsgwsg talkcontribs
Last edited 6 days ago by Webi Wabo talkcontribs-31
Edit summary: Contractions are bad
Together with the Quick Diff gadget, this gadget allows quickly viewing previous edits made to the page by clicking on the diff link in the edit information.
This gadget allows autoconfirmed users to quickly undo edits. Hitting the "undo" button on any difference page, page history, or recent changes brings up a prompt asking for the undo summary. After confirming the prompt, the gadget undoes the edit. If the editor decides the edit needs revision instead of a simple undo, they can open the "undo" link in a new tab instead.
Edits done using this gadget are marked with the quickundo tag, shown as "done using QuickUndo" in edit history.
This gadget brings familiar keybinds from Fandom to this wiki, and some more. By hitting a single button on a keyboard, they can perform different actions quickly. This is similar to access keys that MediaWiki already provides, but instead of having to hit a combination of buttons (which sometimes may be intercepted by the browser or operating system and therefore unreliable) they use a single button. For example, instead of alt+e for editing, the editor may simply press e.
| Keybind | Action |
|---|---|
| Editor | |
| e | Edit current page |
| h | Show current page history |
| w | Check what links to the current page |
| t | Open the talk page of the current page |
| n | Purge current page (if the Purge cache gadget is enabled) |
| m | Rename (move) current page |
| Moderator | |
| p | Protect current page |
| d | Delete current page |
The gadget also binds to corresponding keys on a Cyrillic keyboard (х for history, д for deleting, etc.)
Gadgets listed under the Moderator tools section are optional gadgets only useful for wiki moderators and above, and allow performing certain moderation tasks faster.
This gadget lets moderators quickly delete a page. When a moderator clicks on a "delete" or "undelete" link, this gadget brings up the deletion modal where they can input a reason. Default deletion reasons are pulled from MediaWiki:Deletereason-dropdown and MediaWiki:Filedelete-reason-dropdown.
The gadget focuses the current document on the deletion reason, and with a few key presses of Tab and Enter the moderator can quickly navigate towards deletion using only their keyboard. If the Fandom Keybinds gadget is installed and the d keybind is used, this immediately brings up the deletion modal for the current page.
Deletions done using this gadget are marked with the quickdelete tag, shown as "done using QuickDelete" in the log.
When many pages need to be deleted at once, a moderator can instead use this gadget. Similarly to show Batch Purge provides a modal to enter pages to purge, this gadget provides a modal to enter a list of pages to delete in batch. The modal consts of four parts:
- Reason for deletion: the reason entered here is used for deletion of all listed pages.
- Add category contents: the moderator can enter a category name here, which adds all pages from that category into the list of pages. Useful when deleting pages from candidates for deletion.
- List of pages to delete: each page name on a separate line.
- Log: if any errors are encountered during deletion, they are logged in this field.
After entering the list of pages and the deletion reason, a moderator can initiate deletion using the "Start" button, or pause it using the "Pause" or "Close" button.
Deletions done using this gadget are marked with the batchdelete tag, shown as "done using BatchDelete" in the log.
This gadget allows an administrator to block or unblock a user without leaving the current page. This can be done by using any "block" link, from page history, recent changes, on-page edit information, or the user's contributions page. The following fields are available:
- Block reason: dropdown to pick one of predefined block reasons.
- Custom reason: block reason in addition to the one picked from the dropdown.
- Block duration: one of predefined block durations to pick from.
- Block details: additional block options (all checked by default), such as:
- Prevent account creation: prevents the user from creating an account on the current wiki while using the current account or IP address.
- Allow editing their own talk page: lets the user edit their own talk page, in case they need to appeal the block. Should generally be allowed, unless the user is known to abuse their talk page.
- Automatically block user's IP addresses for 1 day: what it says on the tin.
Similarly to Quick Delete, this gadget focuses the document on the block reason, allowing to block a user in a few Tab and Enter keystrokes.
Blocks done using this gadget are marked with the quickblock tag, shown as "done using QuickBlock" in the log.
Short for "Gee, Admin, Such Tools Efficiently Restore Balance, Leaving All Spamton's Troubling Edits Reverted," this gadget lets administrators clean up all page creations and edits done by a user, together with blocking them. It is the ultimate countervandalism tool intended for users who have performed nothing but vandalism on the wiki. It can be accessed from a user's contributions page, at the end of the list of user links.
The modal that opens when using the GASTERBLASTER links immediately focuses on the "Blast" button, allowing the administrator to immediately wipe the user's contributions by hitting the Enter button. However, in specific cases the administrator may want to modify options in the modal:
- Reason: reason to use when reverting, blocking and deleting. By default set to "Vandalism."
- Block duration: how long to block the user for, if the user is being blocked. By default set to 2 weeks.
- Details: lets skipping certain actions if some of the user's edits have been useful, or if the editor is not a bad faith editor. By default, all of these options are checked:
- Block the user
- Delete pages that the user created
- Roll back user's edits
- Allow talk page editing
Edits, deletions and blocks done using this gadget are marked with the gasterblaster tag, shown as "GASTER BLASTED" in the log.
Gadgets marked as Compulsory are gadgets enabled by default and rarely intended to be disabled. However, if an editor knows what they are doing, they can benefit from disabling a compulsory gadget. For example:
- If they are annoyed by the Discord widget in the wiki's sidebar, they may disable the Discord gadget.
- If they don't want to look at recent changes from the sidebar, they can disable the Recent Changes Module gadget.
- If they are testing custom navbox functionality, they can disable the Navbox gadget to prevent default scripts from affecting navboxes.
- If they want the wiki to look bad, they can disable the Common Styles gadget.
Gadgets marked as Fixes are default gadgets similar to ones marked as "compulsory," except they perform fixes of certain components.
Gadgets marked as Dependencies are hidden gadgets and do not appear in user preferences. They are meant to be loaded by other gadgets that use them as dependencies.
An administrator can develop a new gadget by creating the relevant scripts, stylesheets and system messages in the MediaWiki namespace, and listing them all in the gadget's manifest. A gadget consists of the following components:
- Manifest: a gadget manifest is a page that defines what a gadget contains and under which conditions the gadget loads. It is located under
MediaWiki:Gadgets/<name>.json. Example: MediaWiki:Gadgets/Discord.json. - Description: a gadget description is a system message that describes what the gadget is on Special:Preferences and Special:Gadgets. It can be found under
MediaWiki:Gadget-<name>. Example: MediaWiki:Gadget-Discord. - Scripts: a gadget may contain JavaScript scripts. Such scripts are located under
MediaWiki:Gadget-<name>.js, where the name does not have to correspond to a gadget name (but usually does, in case the gadget only includes a single script). - Stylesheets: a gadget may contain CSS stylesheets. Such stylesheets are located under
MediaWiki:Gadget-<name>.css, similarly to gadget scripts. - System messages: a gadget may load certain messages in its manifest to use from JavaScript, usually for purposes of localizing the gadget to other languages. They have to be under the MediaWiki namespace, but do not need to have a specific page name format, although the convention is to use
MediaWiki:Gadget-<name>-as a prefix.
For further information about developing gadgets, see the extension's documentation. The documentation still describes the outdated manifest format, but the same principles apply.