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 (tested up to PHP 8.1)
• MediaWiki 1.31.x or later (tested up to 1.38.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:~2.0
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

There is also an includable special page, Special:Network, that can be used to construct graphs interactively. The special page presents a form that can be filled in with the same parameters listed above and submitted to render a graph. The special page can also be included in other pages for the same results as the parser function with the following modifications: the pages must be provided in a single pages parameter, and all values for the pages and exclude parameters must be separated by newlines. For example,

{{Special:Network
 |pages=Page1
 Page2
 Page3
 | class = col-lg-3 mt-0
 | exclude = Main Page
 Sitemap
}}

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.

Node Icons

By default, nodes are represented by OOUI icons. This is specified in the node or group options as (excerpted from the full options):

"nodes": {
    "shape": "image"
},
"groups": {
    "bluelink": {
        "image": "resources/lib/ooui/themes/wikimediaui/images/icons/article-rtl-progressive.svg"
    },
    "redlink": {
        "image": "resources/lib/ooui/themes/wikimediaui/images/icons/articleNotFound-ltr.svg"
    },
    "externallink": {
        "image": "resources/lib/ooui/themes/wikimediaui/images/icons/linkExternal-ltr-progressive.svg"
    }
}

If version 5.1 or later of the Title Icon extension is installed and a page rendered in the graph has at least one title icon defined, one of those title icons will be used for that node's icon. If there are multiple title icons defined for the page, one will be selected in the order in which they were parsed on the page.

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
• $wgPageNetworkEnableDisplayTitle - indicates if display title should be used for node labels by default
• $wgPageNetworkLabelMaxLength - default maximum length for node labels

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',
    ],
];

Predefined style groups exist to represent links to existing pages (group "bluelink"), links to missing pages (group "redlink"), and links to external web pages (group "externallink"). Styling of those groups can be overridden site-wide using $wgPageNetworkOptions or per graph using the options parameter described above.

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)

Examples:

Exclude the User and Project namespaces: $wgPageNetworkExcludedNamespaces = [ NS_USER, NS_PROJECT ];

Keep the default exclusions and also exclude the Talk namespace: $wgPageNetworkExcludedNamespaces[] = NS_TALK;

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

$wgPageNetworkEnableDisplayTitle

By default, should the display title rather than the page title be displayed as a node's label? This can be overridden on a per-graph basis using the enableDisplayTitle parameter to #network.

Possible values: true, false

Default value: true (use display title for node labels)

$wgPageNetworkLabelMaxLength

The default text length of a node's label. If the node label must be truncated, an ellipsis (…) will appended. A value of 0 indicates that the text length is not limited. This can be overridden on a per-graph basis using the labelMaxLength parameter to #network.

Possible values: 0 or a positive integer value

Default value: 20

$wgRegisterInternalExternals By default, MediaWiki does not consider links using external link syntax that point to pages in the wiki to be internal links. To make them show up as internal links on the network graph, you need to set $wgRegisterInternalExternals to true in "LocalSettings.php". If pages already exist in your wiki when that setting is changed, you will need to run the refreshLinks.php MediaWiki maintenance script for the change to be recognized.

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

• 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 2.0.1

Released on December 9th, 2023.

• Fixed handling of redirects (thanks @thomas-topway-it)

Version 2.0.0

Released on July 11th, 2021.

• Added optional support for using display title for nodes' labels. (thanks @cicalese)
• Added configurable maximum length for node labels. (thanks @cicalese)
• Added tooltips to nodes. (thanks @cicalese)
• Made styling of nodes representing links to existing pages and links to missing pages configurable by adding vis.js groups named "bluelink" and "redlink". (thanks @cicalese)
• Added support for OOUI icons. (thanks @cicalese)
• Added support for external links. (thanks @cicalese)

Version 1.4.0

Released on January 9, 2021.

• Upgraded viz-network from 8.3.2 to 8.5.5

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