Global notifications/how-to

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FAQ (How-to)

How to translate the messages?[edit]

To translate the English messages sustainably into your language, use a page different from User:WikimediaNotifier/notifications! The page "User:WikimediaNotifier/notifications" gets synchronized with the central version on Meta every time the notifier loops over the wikis, so any changes to that page will be overwritten, see why! But the page uses templates you can change permanently, like your local User:WikimediaNotifier/translation for example:

Just replace "User:WikimediaNotifier/notifications" by your local translation page name! (example)
With your local User:WikimediaNotifier/translate page you can add or remove a machine translation link on top, by the way.

How to keep those English anchors (URL#hash) working?[edit]

To keep English URL anchors working despite having the headings translated too, add additional anchors! (example)

To create anchors, use: <span id="anchor" name="anchor">...</span> (either within, or above == ... ==)
A short form is <span id="anchor" name="anchor"></span> [span/div/br] (not sure if supported well by all browsers, namely IE)
Consider creating a template: {{anchor|unique hash name}}
Note: If the [local translation] link is not at all desired for each section, you can also remove that #{{{topic}}} in your local User:WikimediaNotifier/template, but note that topic list links will still have English hash suffixes in it.


How to change appearance of the message boxes?[edit]

You can change the appearance of the message boxes at User:WikimediaNotifier/template, locally.


How to get a list of topics only?[edit]

With {{User:WikimediaNotifier/notifications|onlyTOC=1}} you can include just the table of contents (rubric links).


Could messages be posted directly on village pumps?[edit]

Yes, that would be possible by appending messages automatically, but the community would have to support this disputable behaviour (note that some wikis do prepend new village pump topics, but below some stuff like introductions; thus an automatic process - not respecting that - could enrage).


Should User:WikimediaNotifier be flagged as bot?[edit]

No, you should not give User:WikimediaNotifier a bot flag, as the community wouldn't notice updates anymore then!


Is there a list of manually translated pages?[edit]

There will be a list of interwiki links that can be copied and pasted...


Why not using replace.py?[edit]

The reason for this is that there can be new/changed information for messages like changed links, corrections or position changes etc. If a local page would have been changed by others (due to some reason) removing some reference, the notifier could fail. Furthermore, just pre- or appending messages would be too inflexible concerning mentioned changes.


What does that config.js do?[edit]

With your local User:WikimediaNotifier/config.js you can regulate what additional messages for other wikis are to be included. See w:als:User:WikimediaNotifier/config.js for what is possible.


Who can be contacted?[edit]

You may contact User:Melancholie for any issue.