Extensions Notes
From UCSB English Department Knowledge Base
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CAPTCHA
- installed ConfirmEdit extension
- seems to be working fine; configured to request confirmation when creating new accounts and adding URLs to pages
- SysOps exempted from this requirement; can possibly exempt Bureaucrats as well
- Have not installed FancyCAPTCHA extension to make custom images;
- it is a bit involved - I'll work on it later
- installed ConfirmEdit extension
InputBox
- Installed InputBox extension
- put a "create article" box on the main page
New User Groups
- Still looking for a way to create an additional usergroup that can read but not edit
- this was done w/o the use of extension by adding a new array of permissions to the LocalSettings.php file
--Kknight 17:18, 1 August 2007 (PDT)
NamespacePermissions
Extension to restrict access to Instructors Only and Student Only resources: I tried several different extensions that involved using categories to restrict access, but could not get any of them to work properly.
The current solution in place restricts access based upon namespaces. The namespace of a page is a way of categorizing it. By default, all articles are entered into the "Main" namespace, which does not require any action from us to complete. "Category" would be an example of a separate namespace. As you'll recall, to create categories we create articles with "Category:" as a prefix to the article title. "Special" is an example of another namespace utilized by mediawiki. This creates all of the pages we seen on the "Special Pages" link in the left hand sidebar.
I've created two new namespaces:
Instructor - intended for resources to be read / edited by Bureaucrats and Sysops only. Student - intended for resources to be read by specific students only. This will function similarly to the password protected directory that we have used in the past that required the username and password for the "scribe" account.
I've used the extension "NamespacePermissions" to restrict access based upon the above. The implication for this is that once given access to the Student namespace, users will have access to *all* pages in that namespace until access is revoked. Of course, this would have been the same if we had gone with a category-based restriction system. And it was the same with the old password protected directory system, although it was less explicit with that system.
If we are ever really pressed, we can create custom namespaces for someone who insists upon having something that is readable by their class only. We should try to avoid this, however, as increasing the number of namespaces makes managing the site cumbersome. If ever asked to do this, I suggest we use the instructor's last name as the namespace name.
To create a restricted page: Create an article with the restricted namespace as a prefix. As an example, a new quiz viewable by instructors only might be called "Instructor:Quiz"
Edit and use categories as you would normally.
To give users access to restricted pages: Each time that we create a custom namespace, the extension creates four new user groups, two for "read only" access (for the main page and the talk page) and two for read/write access (for the main page and the talk page. Thus, to give permissions you will go to the Special:user rights management page and type in the name of the user you wish to modify. Then add the appropriate user groups to their profile.
For example, when I created the "Instructor" namespace, the following user groups were implemented: nsInstructorRW - allows any user in this group to read and edit articles in the Instructor namespace nsInstructorRO - allows any user in this group to read articles in the instructor namespace; editing is not allowed. nsInstructor_talkRW - allows any user in this group to read and edit the talk page for articles in the Instructor namespace. nsInstructor_talkRO - allows any user in this group to read the talk page for articles in the instructor namespace; editing is not allowed.
The same four user groups were created for the Student namespace.
In the "Testing" category on the left sidebar (under "Planning"), I've created an article in each of the new namespaces. You'll see that you can both view and edit each. This is because I've added you to the nsInstructorRW, nsInstructor_talkRW, nsStudentRW, and nsStudent_talkRW groups.
If you'd like to see what happens to accounts w/o permissions, you can log into the test accounts I've created: Testeditor, password chaucer, can view but not edit student pages; cannot view or edit Instructor pages Testuser, password chaucer, cannot view or edit any of the restricted namespaces --Kknight 12:52, 2 September 2007 (PDT)
