Moving on, I was ANNOYED by the fact that you have a small arrow “” that appears beside any image that references an external URL or any link that does the same. This is fine to let people know that links will take them to a different page…but what I was trying to do was to make a PDF Icon have the same link as the URL it was sitting beside:

So in the above image, if one clicked on the PDF icon or the “Application to Appliance: A Hands-on Guide (PDF)” the PDF would download.

Mediawiki doesn’t provide a fantastic way for you to do this. However, after some snooping around via google, I found a fairly easy way to make things happen.

How to Do This

First things first. Open up LocalSettings.php and make sure to set $wgAllowExternalImages = true; if it’s not done already.

Next get the full URL link to the thing you want downloaded…in my case, a PDF. Then, get the URL for the image you want to display/link. What I did was upload the icon to the wiki and then right click on the icon and ‘view image’. Now let’s put them together:

[http://example.com/wiki/uploads/yourdownload.pdf http://example.com/wiki/images/Pdficon_small.gif]

Just after this will go the actual internal link…because the above is only for the icon. So you’d place your double bracket link just after this single bracket one.

[[Media:yourdownload.pdf|Title of Your Download]]

Now that you have both of these completed, you must encapsulate them in a span class to remove the arrow formatting. Add the following before the single bracket above:

<span class=”plainlinks”>

Then close out the span at the end of the double bracket wiki markup above:

</span>

Putting It All Together

So, to summarize, you’d have the following:

<span class=”plainlinks”>[http://example.com/wiki/uploads/yourdownload.pdf http://example.com/wiki/images/Pdficon_small.gif][[Media:yourdownload.pdf|Title of Your Download]]</span>

Seems like a lot of stuff to get a simple image link right? Yes it is. But it works and I don’t have to install an extension to do it (I’m not fond of extensions). Remember also that you can call that span class plainlinks for other simple external links as well to remove the arrow Hope this helps someone in need…I know it helped me.

I would like to give special thanks to Distributedresearch.net which contains the meat and potatoes of this entry. What I’ve done in the example above is make it generic and give a practical example of how I used Andy’s original post.

Mediawiki: Remove External Arrow from Links originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on February 7, 2008.

If anyone has any feedback on the current theme, please let me know…I can change it pretty easily or hack it to pieces on a whim.

I’ve been somewhat busy having launched http://mypclinuxos.com as a PCLinuxOS projects site to assist the PCLinuxOS development team with various projects and to provide the community with a platform on which to develop their own projects. Therefore, I haven’t had a ton of time to blog as of late. I should be back to a normal schedule within the next month or so. If not, this blog might go dormant for a while until I am able to relenquish my administrative duties at mypclinuxos.com. I have a review of a server distro I started a few weeks ago, but I haven’t finished it yet. Hopefully, I will be able to get that review out in the next week or so. I won’t hold my breath, I’ve got a ton of stuff going on at the projects site that keeps me oh so busy. Thanks for reading and sticking with me through the lean parts of this blog. Cheers.

Devnet

What’s Up With the New Look? originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on May 3, 2006.

I look fondly back at this time and have spoken about it before…not because I don’t think something like this exists now…just that I think it is a rarity. There was a time when this “spirit of open source” was all about educating and furthering the program/app that you were working on. Now it seems that when a new user comes in to any channel on irc or forum, they are told off with a hearty RTFM (Read the ‘Friendly’ Manual).

Where did this Elitism come from? Where and when did Linux and open source become about the mentality “you must be this knowledgeable to ride?” It pains me to see people do this to new users…distancing themselves from potential advocates of open source…zealous ones at that. It’s a real testament to some of these new users STILL wanting to plug open source and Linux, despite being squashed by elitists in forums.

I’m sure that some of you are saying, “this kind of thing doesn’t exist in my application/project/distro’s community. We are all open to all users, be they new or experienced. Sounds nirvana to me. I challenge you to take a closer look at your community and if you find Elitism, squash it. Having personally been involved in quite a good share of communities of major Linux distros (let’s just say, some major Debian and RPM based ones) I can assure you that despite the claims of new user friendly, most had a fair share of elitists swimming in their help channels.

Elitism has no place in open source. Open source is about freedom of everyone to look at the source of a program…EVERYONE. There are no country clubs for open source…you do not need to pay to get in. There are no qualifications for people to use open source. Since there are no criteria…why are people holding new users and others with limited knowledge…to a standard as if there are criteria?

It’s ridiculous for current ‘expert’ users or developers to withhold information or help from new users simply because, “new users need to cut their teeth”. Why? Because not everyone learns the same way. In the past, the only people who used Linux and open source were those that learned by reading and pouring through documents. A more coder mentality existed among those flocking to open source banners then. Fast forward to today’s learner. You’ll see many differences. Among the largest one is the visual learner.

The visual learner learns by examples and seeing things happen with his/her own eyes. There have been vast advancement in this arena on the internet. Today, we have websites with embedded videos, flash tutorials, and audio blogs with step-by-step processes and how-tos. Despite all this technology, people still send new users to the same avenue to learn. RTFM or do a search. What if that isn’t good enough for the person you’re telling it to? What if that person can’t learn things in this capacity? What if they need to see things in action?

In closing, we must rethink our approach to answering questions on forums and in chat clients. I challenge each and every single one of you to think about your responses to new users or those limited in knowledge. Helping these people to attain knowledge in different capacities can make or break their will and create a friend of open source for life…or through not helping, a foe.

As always, Yet Another Linux Blog is open to users of all walks of experience. If you have a question, please ask away in the comments.

mv elitism /dev/null originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on May 31, 2005.