MediaWiki:Common

The purpose of MediaWiki:Common.css and MediaWiki:Common.js is to augment the MediaWiki CSS and JS code in a way that takes effect for all users. Note that changes to skin-specific pages such as MediaWiki:Vector.css/MediaWiki:Vector.js (our original default skin) or MediaWiki:Vector-2022.css/MediaWiki:Vector-2022.js (our current default skin) override these general changes for anyone using that particular skin. Those in turn are overridden by users' local vector.css and vector.js pages.

Following are all the features of the CSS and JS pages in the order in which they occur.

Common.css

Common.css contains various small fixes borrowed from Wikipedia for shortcomings in MediaWiki's appearance or behavior. These are not documented below. There are also features added to the wiki through Common.js which require supporting CSS markup:

• Classes are set up for use by TOC (table of contents) mods such as Template:TOCnonum and Template:TOClimit.

Following that are some additions by us:

• Several link icon customizations:
  • A custom external link arrow replaces the default one (); the box element has been removed, making it visually less cluttered and easier to read.
  • External links which use HTTPS are modified to use the same arrow as HTTP links instead of the distracting and unnecessary padlock icon.
  • External links to other subdomains on Oni2.net get a sideways arrow.
  • External links that specifically go to movie files get a movie icon.
  • External links that specifically go to sound files get a sound icon.
  • Interwiki links get a green arrow to show that they point to a fellow wiki (by default MediaWiki shows no outbound arrow at all for interwiki links, ambushing the reader with a site change when they click it).
  • Links formatted as if they're external, but which point back to this wiki, get a looping arrow like this.

• Following this are many classes declared for the message boxes that can be generated by Template:Fmbox.

• A declared is for use with the unfinished hover table feature (see comments under Common.js below).

• After that, two classes are provided for use by Template:Hover in providing popup text/images behind page text.

• Classes are set up for use by Template:Tree list in creating a hierarchical text tree.

• Finally, support is added for references to use letters instead of numbers, which is utilized by Template:Reflist.

Common.js

Common.js contains various code for driving new features and behavioral changes to the wiki.

Borrowed from Wikipedia are the following:

• First we allow for a user to add an "&withJS=MediaWiki:__.js" to a URL in order to view that page with a custom JS file that normally does not load for you (untested, so this documentation may be incorrect).

• If the user is on the advanced search page, MediaWiki:Common.js/search.js is imported in order to modify the page. It adds a dropdown menu that lets you pick another search engine in place of the barely useable built-in one.

• The mw-collapsible class from MediaWiki core is extended to actually be collapsible, which allows Template:Divhide to work.

Following that are some additions by us:

• When someone visits the Main Page, the browser is told to focus on the go/search box so that the user can immediately start typing a search term or page name.

• Support for hover tables, a half-finished feature. A hover table can display a description of whichever cell is pointed to. The feature is demonstrated in its unfinished state here.

• Next is an even more unfinished feature called hover GIFs, which are GIFs that only animate when hovered over. This is accomplished by swapping between a still image and a GIF. However, this method does not work as currently coded because it merely changes the suffix of an image between .gif and .jpg; since images are stored in various unpredictable sub-directories on the server, the entire path for both images would need to be hardcoded in order to perform a successful swap. These paths could be supplied using an approach similar to the hover table class "hovertable_descrip" if one was determined to make this feature work.

• Next to last, there is code to allow tables to automatically sort themselves by a given column when the page is loaded. This is utilized in several places on the wiki. To make an autosort table, first the table must be declared with the class "wikitable". Next, as part of the same class declaration, you must also add in "sortable" to enable MediaWiki's built-in sortable column feature. Finally add the third class "autosort" to trigger this feature. By default, the table will be sorted by column 1, but you can specify another column by declaring a fourth class for the table called "by-column-x", where 'x' is a number from 1 to 9. See Oni 2 (Angel Studios)/Levels for a sample usage of this feature.

• Finally comes support for Template:LocaleDate, which allows MDY dates to dynamically re-format if the user's browser is in a locale that uses DMY dates.