Pair Networks Blog Web Hosting Easy Wiki Creation with PairSIM

Easy Wiki Creation with PairSIM

Easy Wiki Creation with PairSIM post thumbnail image

What You’ll Need: 

  1. A Pair Hosting Account

One-Click Wiki Creation with PairSIM

Wikis are a great way to gather knowledge and information in one place. Whether internal or external, you can harness the power of a wiki to gather information on a topic (or range of topics). One of wikis greatest strengths is that others can easily contribute, so you can crowdsource the knowledge for a subject. 

So wikis are great tools. But how do you set one up? Well, we have good news for you. Wiki installation is easy, especially with tools like our very own PairSIM. 

What is PairSIM?

PairSIM is one of our premium web hosting add ons. It gives you the ability to install popular software with just one click!

While PairSIM offers a range of popular software, one of the most notable is the popular wiki software, MediaWiki. MediaWiki is a tool developed for and is currently still in use by Wikipedia, one of the most popular wikis on the internet. It’s designed for easy use and quick contributions, making it ideal for a wiki setup. And MediaWiki installation is easier than ever with our one-click installer, PairSIM.

Creating Your Wiki with PairSIM

The wiki creation process with PairSIM is simple. All you have to do is: 

1.Open your Pair Hosting Account and click the PairSIM tab
2.In the drop-down, click Software Installation Manager

pairsim image

Note: If you haven’t yet enabled the PairSIM service, you will need to do that before continuing

3. Click MediaWiki

mediawiki image

4. Enter all your site details, like site name, preferred domain, etc.

form image

5. Click Install, then sit back and relax while PairSIM takes care of the rest.

Note: When the installation is complete, you’ll be taken to a page with a username, password, and link to log in to your wiki admin account. Be sure to take note of these, since they will only be displayed once. 

Setting Up Your Wiki

Once PairSIM takes care of the installation, you’re ready to start editing your new wiki. We’ll take you through the basics, from page management to adding your own logo. 

Your first step to editing your wiki is to log in. Use the username, password, and login link given to you at the end of PairSIM installation. Once you are logged in, you can begin using the tutorials below. 

Adding Pages

Adding pages is one of the fundamental tasks of creating a wiki. To add a new page: 

1.Enter your desired page name in the wiki search bar

search bar image

2.The search results will say that the page is not found. Click on the red page name to create the page.

new page image

3.Enter your page details, then click Save Changes (you can also preview to see changes before making them live)

save page image

Removing Pages

Removing pages isn’t hard, either. All you have to do is make sure you’re logged in, then navigate to the page you want to delete. Once there, click the More button at the top of the page, and click the Delete button.

delete button image

Note: If you try to delete a page without being logged in, it will tell you that you don’t have the proper permissions. 

When you have clicked the Delete option, you will be taken to a page that asks you the reason for deletion. This is just to help you keep track of your wiki changes. 

After you’ve entered your deletion reason, click the Delete page button.

delete page image

Add Your Logo

Adding your very own wiki logo is also part of the set up process. Afterall, your wiki should be under your brand umbrella. 

So, to add your own logo is a bit more involved. However, if you follow these steps carefully, you can add your own logo image with little issue. 

To get started, first make sure you have these two things: 

  • A logo image that is less than or equal to 160 x 160 px
  • Access to your hosting account

You’ll need to go into your hosting account to make this change. Don’t worry – you won’t have to get into any crazy backend. We just need to access one of the MediaWiki files and change a single line. Pretty easy, right? 

With our hosting accounts, you get an intuitive file interface, so everything is very simple. So here are the steps: 

1. Log in to your hosting account
2. Go to your MediaWiki files. You can find them by going to Files, then clicking Web. They are normally listed underneath the name of the domain you chose. 

file image

3.Upload your logo (easily upload single files by clicking the Upload button)

upload image

4.In your MediaWiki files, find the LocalSettings.php file

local settings file image

5.Click on it, then click the edit button in the top navbar

edit image

6.Find the

$wgLogo = “/resources/assets/wiki.png”

text image

7.Replace the

/resources/assets/wiki.png
with the file path to your new logo

changed text image

8.Save your file

Once your file is saved, return to the wiki and see if the image is displaying correctly. If not, double check your file path to ensure it’s correct. 

Set Up Editing Permissions

The beautiful thing about a wiki is that it gathers collective knowledge from everyone. Anyone can come in and edit, share their thoughts and expertise. However, this can be a problem if there are pages that you don’t want people to have 100% editing rights. Luckily, MediaWiki has a way to protect these pages. 

To set up editing permissions, you need to log in to your MediaWiki admin account and go to the page you want to edit permissions for. Click the More button in the top right bar. In the drop-down, click Protect

This will take you to a page where you can change the “Page Protection.” In the Edit section, you’ll find three different options for who can edit your page: “all users,” “autoconfirmed users,” and “administrators.” 

There are also other options here, if you want to go in-depth, like setting permissions to expire after a certain amount of time. 

When you’ve set your permissions, select a reason for this choice (again, to help you keep track of pages and changes), then click Confirm. This will put the new permissions in place. 

Taking Care of Your PairSIM MediaWiki

And that’s it! Those are the basics to getting your wiki up and running. But you may be asking yourself, “How do I keep up with my wiki?”

Well, we have good news. If you use PairSIM to install MediaWiki, it will automatically take care of updates as long as it’s enabled. That means you can focus on the important things, like populating your wiki with information and keeping tabs on changes. You never have to worry about manually updating your software. This keeps your wiki secure and running smoothly. 

Need help with a more in-depth hosting and MediaWiki question? Contact our 24/7 365 support team. Our knowledgeable staff are willing to tackle any hosting question, no matter how involved. 

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