Help:Navigation bar

The navigation bar or side bar or sidebar is shown at the left hand side of each MediaWiki page by default. In versions 1.5 and newer, it can be modified using the MediaWiki:Sidebar page.

Format of the sidebar page
The sidebar page is laid out similar to the following:

* navigation ** mainpage|mainpage ** mypage-url|My Page

* tools ** Special:Allpages|All Pages

Headings
The items on the outer level


 * navigation
 * tools

are the headings used on the sidebar. In this manner, the bar can be split into sections.

Items
The second level items


 * mainpage|mainpage
 * mypage-url|My Page

are the actual items that appear on the sidebar; see below for instructions on setting these up.

Specifying items on the sidebar
All items on the sidebar take a format which is split by a pipe (|) character.

Link target
The left-hand portion of the pipe corresponds to the target of the link, and refers to:


 * a MediaWiki namespace page

OR
 * a wiki page name

If a MediaWiki namespace page of the same name exists, then the contents of that page are used to determine where the link points. For instance, the default contents of MediaWiki:Mainpage are Main Page - this is the name of the page to be used.

To link to an external URL, simply create the namespace page containing the URL, e.g. the contents of Special:Mypage-url (from the example above) might be http://www.domain.com.


 * With 1.5, you can create an external URL more simply: just insert the URL before the vertical bar, as in this example:

http://www.domain.com |Domain.com

(note the space after the URL)

Display text
The right-hand portion of the pipe corresponds to the display form of the link, and is either:


 * a MediaWiki namespace page name

OR
 * plain text

If a MediaWiki namespace page of the same name exists, then the contents of that page are used to determine the text used for the link. For instance, the default contents of MediaWiki:Mainpage are Main Page - this is what is displayed.

You can also place the text here without using a namespace page; so if MediaWiki:My_Page doesn't exist, then the text My Page would be displayed, using the example about.

Allowing users to have individual sidebars
There is a discussion taking place surrounding a feature request which, if implemented, would provide a custom sidebar that users themselves can edit to their individual preferences. Discussion, and a current implementation using CSS and JavaScript can be found at Configurable Sidebar.

Allowing anyone to edit the sidebar
The MediaWiki namespace pages are protected, preventing ordinary users from editing the sidebar. To see a possible means to allow this, refer to discussion at the relevant FAQ page.