rERIM/1140b7c4a433master
README
RANDOM IMAGE EXTENSION
Version 1.4 © 2006-2007 Rob Church
This is free software licenced under the GNU General Public Licence. Please see http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html for further details, including the full text and terms of the licence.
Overview
The Random Image extension adds a <randomimage> tag to the MediaWiki parser which allows for randomisation of multimedia content on a page.
When the tag is rendered, a random image is selected from those uploaded and inserted at the location of the tag. Users can select a custom size, float and provide a caption for the resulting image; captions can also be pulled from the image description page.
Requirements
This version of the RandomImage extension requires MediaWiki 1.10.0 or above.
Installation
To install the extension, place all extension files into a RandomImage directory within your MediaWiki extensions directory, then edit LocalSettings.php and add the following line
require_once( "{$IP}/extensions/RandomImage/RandomImage.php" );
Installation can be verified through the Special:Version page on the wiki.
Use
The tag can be used in two forms:
<randomimage />
Produces an image using an automatic caption (see below)
<randomimage></randomimage>
Produces an image with a preset caption (text inside the tags)
The tag also supports the following attributes:
size
Set the image width (default is the user's thumbnail width)
float
Float the image; valid values are 'left', 'center' and 'right'
choices
Confines image selection to a pipe-delimited list of images
For example:
<randomimage size="100" float="left" choices="Apple.jpg|Pear.jpg" />
Caption
If no caption is specified, one will be pulled, if possible, from the image description page.
If the description page contains text wrapped in <randomcaption> </randomcaption> tags, then this will be used as the caption. The tags are ignored during normal page views. Otherwise, the first paragraph of the page text will be used as the caption.
Selection
On wikis where non-images are uploaded (e.g. sound and video files, or documents, etc.), the extension might select a non-image file. There are few performance-efficient means of limiting those files selected.
If $wgRandomImageStrict is switched on, a more complex database query will be performed, with a greater performance cost, which will ensure only images with an "image" major MIME type are selected.
By default, this option has the same value as $wgMiserMode. You may wish to switch it off if all of the content on your wiki has an appropriate renderer.
Caching
By default, the output is cached in the regular parser cache. This can be advantageous on larger sites which need to use caching to reduce the effects of load, however, it means that content is not 100% dynamic.
To disable the parser cache on pages which use the <randomimage> tag, set $wgRandomImageNoCache = true; in LocalSettings.php (after the call to include the extension file). This will affect all users, and might incur additional overhead on pageviews.
Change log
August 20, 2007 Version 1.4 Support automatic caption retrieval from image description pages Limit database selections to files with "IMAGE" major MIME types Fix regression; "size" was ignored under most circumstances Force thumbnailing of images Fix issues with inconsistent thumbnail behaviour
August 15, 2007 Version 1.3 Major refactor; class split into own file Add option to confine image selection to user-defined choices
June 6, 2007 Version 1.2 Bug fix and minor code tweaks If no image is selected in the first pass, a further attempt is made
December 17, 2006 Version 1.1 Introduced $wgRandomImageNoCache to disable parser cache on pages using the tag; defaults to off
June 9, 2006 Version 1.0 Initial release
Feedback
All feedback, bug reports, etc. welcome via robchur {at} gmail {dot} com.