On 4/20/05, David Gerard <fun(a)thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
Mmm, yes. This is one of the things that I really,
really like about
FreeBSD: *every* startup setting is in /etc/defaults/rc.conf, and you never
touch that, but everything you've changed is in /etc/rc.conf. It saves a
tremendous amount of fiddling with obscure files in /etc. Would the
same approach be useful in MediaWiki?
Well, y'know, that's kind of how DefaultSettings.php and
LocalSettings.php work - all the options are there in Default*, and
you copy them to change in Local*.
Whether this could be done for the interface messages is kind of a
different question - as long as having them in the database seems
desirable, it would be wasteful to have to check the database, find
nothing there, and then fill in from a default, every time a message
needed retrieving. And having them in the database, editable in the
wiki-way, does seem like a Good Thing in general.
But really, it's just a matter of presentation; if there were a
"Special:CustomisedMessages" page which only showed what you'd
changed, it could indeed complement Special:Allmessages, which shows
the defaults, but also highlights how you've changed them.
--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]