README

The Network extension allows visualizing connections between wiki pages via an interactive network graph.

It was created by Professional.Wiki and funded by KDZ - Centre for Public Administration Research.

• Platform requirements
• Installation
• Usage
  • Parameters
  • Layout CSS
  • Configuration
  • Examples
    • Options parameter
    • Using templates
• Limitations
• Contribution and support
• Development
• License
• Release notes

Platform requirements

• PHP 7.3 or later
• MediaWiki 1.31.x up to 1.35.x

See the release notes for more information on the different versions of Network.

Installation

The recommended way to install Network is using Composer with MediaWiki's built-in support for Composer.

On the commandline, go to your wikis root directory. Then run these two commands:

COMPOSER=composer.local.json composer require --no-update professional-wiki/network:~1.3
composer update professional-wiki/network --no-dev -o

Then enable the extension by adding the following to the bottom of your wikis LocalSettings.php file:

wfLoadExtension( 'Network' );

You can verify the extension was enabled successfully by opening your wikis Special:Version page in your browser.

Finally, please consider sponsoring the project.

Usage

Minimal example

{{#network:}}

Example with parameters

{{#network:Page1 | Page2 | Page3
 | class = col-lg-3 mt-0
 | exclude = Main Page ; Sitemap
}}

Parameters

Layout CSS

The network graphs are located in a div with class network-visualization. The default css for this class is

.network-visualization {
    width: 100%;
    height: 600px;
}

You can add extra CSS in MediaWiki:Common.css. You can also add extra classes to the div via the class parameter.

Configuration

The default value of all parameters can be changed by placing configuration in "LocalSettings.php". These configuration settings are available:

• $wgPageNetworkOptions – options passed directly to the graph visualization library
• $wgPageNetworkExcludeTalkPages - indicates if talk pages should be excluded
• $wgPageNetworkExcludedNamespaces - IDs of namespaces to exclude

Default values of these configuration settings can be found in "extension.json". Do not change "extension.json".

$wgPageNetworkOptions

Array of vis.js options. Can be (partially) overridden per network via the options parameter

Example:

$wgPageNetworkOptions = [
    'clickToUse' => true,
    'nodes' => [
        'borderWidth' => 1,
        'borderWidthSelected' => 2,
        'shape' => 'box',
    ],
];

Note: to change the width or height, use CSS, not the network options.

$wgPageNetworkExcludeTalkPages

Possible values: true, false

Default value: true (talk pages get excluded)

$wgPageNetworkExcludedNamespaces

List of IDs of namespaces of which all pages should be excluded.

Default value: [ 2, 4, 8, 12 ] (excluding User, Project, MediaWiki and Help)

Example: $wgPageNetworkExcludedNamespaces = [ NS_USER, NS_PROJECT ];

See also: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Namespace#Built-in_namespaces

Examples

Options parameter

Array of vis.js options

{{#network:Page1 | Page2 | Page3
 | options=
{
    "autoResize": true,
    "nodes": {
        "color": "lightblue",
        "shape": "box",
        "borderWidth": 3,
        "font": { "color": "red", "size": 17 }
    }
}
}}

Wrong: "font.color": "red", right: "font": { "color": "red" }, also right: "font": "14 px arial red"

Using templates

{{#network: {{NetworkPages}}
 | class = col-lg-3 mt-0
 | options= {{NetworkOptions}}
}}

Where NetworkPages contains Page1 | Page2 | Page3 and NetworkOptions contains { "nodes": { "shape": "box" } }

Performance / caching

This extension bypasses the MediaWiki page cache. This means that your network graphs will always be up to date, without needing to purge the page cache.

Limitations

• External links are not shown
• Node labels cannot be changed. They are always the full page name
• Styling or grouping per category or namespace is not supported

Pull requests to remove those limitations are welcome.

You can also contact Professional.Wiki for Professional MediaWiki development services.

Contribution and support

If you want to contribute work to the project please subscribe to the developers mailing list and have a look at the contribution guideline.

• File an issue
• Submit a pull request
• Ask a question on the mailing list

Professional MediaWiki support is available via Professional.Wiki.

Development

Tests, style checks and static analysis can be run via Make. You can execute these commands on the command line in the extensions/Network directory:

• make ci - run everything
• make cs - run style checks
• make test - run the tests

For more details see the Makefile.

The JavaScript tests can only be run by going to the Special:JavaScriptTest page.

License

GNU General Public License v2.0 or later (GPL-2.0-or-later).

Professional Support and Development

Professional.Wiki provides commercial MediaWiki development, managed wiki hosting and MediaWiki support.

Release notes

Version 1.3.0

Released on September 8, 2020.

• Added WAI compliance by adding an aria-label attribute to the network canvas

Version 1.2.1

Released on September 7, 2020.

• Added compatibility with MediaWiki 1.31

Version 1.2.0

Released on September 7, 2020.

• Upgraded viz-network from 7.6 to 8.3

Version 1.1.1

Released on September 7, 2020.

• Made code more robust against invalid titles

Version 1.1.0

Released on August 30, 2020.

• Added $wgPageNetworkExcludeTalkPages option
• Added $wgPageNetworkExcludedNamespaces option
• Improved node repulsion physics

Version 1.0.0

Released on August 11, 2020.

Initial release