Footer Links Problems

A Guide to Using MediaWiki in a Hosted Environment

An instructional website by the developer of mh370wiki.net - a MediaWiki site about Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

After upgrading the mh370wiki.net from MediaWiki version 1.39 to 1.43 the custom style used for the footer links (Privacy, About, Disclaimers) ceased to apply as intended.

Footer Links Before Upgrade

Footer Links After Upgrade

Analysis

MediaWiki 1.39 Footer Places

MediaWiki 1.43 Footer Places

Solution

The Footer Place for the link to site Disclaimers always used the plural form of the word, but version 1.39 and previous used a singular form in the ID.

The id="footer-places-disclaimer" was changed to id="footer-places-disclaimers" in MediaWiki version 1.43.

Consequently, the custom style in MediaWiki:Vector.css needed only minor alteration - use #footer-places-disclaimers - for the linked word Disclaimers to appear in the same style as Privacy and About.

Problem solved, as below:-

Final Note

This example may seem trivial, but it illustrates the point that things change between versions; if the interface has been customised don't assume all previous CSS classes and IDs remain the same; and it takes time to fix a multitude of minor issues.

Styles used to format webpages. MediaWiki users can store custom css in the page MediaWiki:Common.css.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

Cascading Style Sheets - definitions for style and layout of web pages. Enables separation of presentation and content.