Lua templating

Lua is now available as a templating language on Wikia as we've backported the Scribunto extension to our version of MediaWiki. This helps us provide users with the ability to create more maintainable templates, and improve the performance of some of our slowest pages.

Lua is a dramatically different coding experience than basic wikitext templates, and resembles a more 'traditional' programming syntax (Lua being based on C) and thus offers two key advantages. First and foremost is that logical functionality – if, else, and while statements along with arrays and variable definition for instance - is built in to the Lua language, making the implementation of basic logic much easier in Lua than the hacky way MediaWiki adds it through extra add-ons and parser functions. Secondly, because Lua is streamlined for logical operations, it is much more technically efficient.

Enabling & Support

Lua is enabled by default on all Wikia wikis. The general standard Lua libraries along with the specialized Scribunto libraries and InfoboxBuilder are available.

In addition to the documentation linked below, we have a forum board set up here on DEV Wiki to ask questions and get help.

Examples

Got a cool example of how Lua is being used on your wikia? Willing to allow other users on Wikia to tweak your design to meet their wikia's needs? Add a link to the Lua module with a quick description of what the module does!

You could also check out the list of Lua Modules.

Navbox Implementations

These are some Lua implementations for Navboxes:

• American Horror Story Wiki: Template/Module/CSS - Port from Wikipedia. Uses deprecated HtmlBuilder. Uses old collapsible class.
  • Module dependencies: HtmlBuilder, Navbar, Arguments
• Final Fantasy Wiki: Template/Module/CSS - Lua version of the fallout wiki navbox. Uses old collapsible class.
  • Module dependencies: HF, Array, Dev:Arguments
• Professor Layton Wiki: Template/Module/CSS - Based on Wikipedia (same syntax), but redone from scratch.
  • Module dependencies: None (VDE links need Template:Vdelinks)
• Runescape Wiki: Template/Module/CSS - Based on an older version of Wikipedia's template.
  • Module dependencies: Tnavbar, Yesno

Documentation

• Converting wikitext templates
• InfoboxBuilder, an in-house Wikia tool for building infoboxes.
• Lua reference manual, a comprehensive documentation page of Lua code
• Scribunto libraries
• Standard Lua libraries

See also

• Lua templating/Basics
• Lua templating/FAQ
• Lua templating/Snippets
• What Lua scripting means for Wikimedia and open source
• History of magic words and templates and lua
• Lua on Wikipedia
• Tutorial on MediaWiki
• Lua modules on Wikipedia
• Lua-based templates on Wikipedia
• Scribunto extension page
• Tips and tricks