Extension:Random In Category

MediaWiki extensions manual

Random In Category Release status: stable
Implementation	Special page
Description	Direct the user to a random page in a specified category
Author(s)	Victor Vasiliev (VasilievVVtalk)
Latest version	2.0 (2011-01-31)
MediaWiki	1.16+
Database changes	No
License	GPLv2 or later
Download	Download snapshot (Git master) Git [?]: repo summary browse file tree commit history
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The Random In Category extension allows you to direct the user to a random page in a specified category.

Usage

Very similarly to Special:Random, you can specify a category name as a parameter to the page. Thus, "Special:RandomInCategory/Foo" or "Special:RandomPageInCategory/Foo" (MW ≥ MW 1.22) will get you a page from the "Foo" category.

Comparison to Core

MediaWiki version:

≥ 1.22

In MediaWiki 1.22, a Special:RandomInCategory feature was added to core. The core version gives much more biased results than this extension (However, it has much less performance overhead). Versions of this extension for MediaWiki 1.22 and greater change the name that this extension provides from "Special:RandomInCategory" to Special:RandomPageInCategory to prevent conflict with the core feature.

Download

The extension can be retrieved directly from Git ^[?]:

• Browse code
• Some extensions have tags for stable releases.
  • Browse tags
  • Select the tag
  • Click "snapshot"
• Each branch is associated with a past MediaWiki release. There is also a "master" branch containing the latest alpha version (might require an alpha version of MediaWiki).
  • Browse branches
  • Select a branch name
  • Click "Continue"

Extract the snapshot and place it in the extensions/RandomInCategory/ directory of your MediaWiki installation.

If you are familiar with git and have shell access to your server, you can also obtain the extension as follows:

cd extensions/
git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/p/mediawiki/extensions/RandomInCategory.git

Installation

• Download and extract the tarball in your extensions/ folder. It should generate a new folder called RandomInCategory directly inside your extensions/ folder.
• Add the following code at the bottom of your LocalSettings.php:

require_once "$IP/extensions/RandomInCategory/RandomInCategory.php";

• Done! Navigate to "Special:Version" on your wiki to verify that the extension is successfully installed.