Help:Navigation

Wiki navigation is the group of links found on top of all pages that provides links to the most important pages on your wiki. This group acts as the guide to the most important and interesting pages on your wiki.

This expanded version is currently available for testing via Wikia Labs. Visit the Wiki Features section of your wiki to enable it. You can follow the product release schedule here.

Step-by-Step

 * Wiki navigation is found at the top of every page of your wiki. It contains two areas the "On the wiki" menu and the local wiki navigation.
 * The "On the wiki" tab is default open, and links to important links on your wiki, including Wiki activity, Random Page, New Photos, and Chat (where its enabled). This tab is maintained by Wikia Staff.
 * Wiki_nav.png


 * The local wiki navigation menu (all other menu items besides the on the wiki tab) can be edited by admins on your wiki.
 * To edit this menu, click on the contribute button, then the "Edit Wiki Navigation" link.
 * Contribute_menu.png


 * You will be brought to yourwikiname.wikia.com/wiki/MediaWiki:Wiki-navigation where you can change the wiki navigation.
 * The Wiki Navigation allows for a total of 280 links which are grouped as:
 * 4 level 1 links equally a total width of 574px
 * 7 level 2 links equally a total width of 729px
 * 10 level 3 links with a dynamic width (and min-width set to 150px)
 * If your links go beyond the designated width - then they will not appear or may appear underneath other links. If you see this, you will need to shorten the words you are using to display all of the links.
 * To add a link, you need to use the wiki text to define the links and text appearance. The level pattern is as follows:
 * Wiki_nav_editing.png


 * Once you have added in the wiki text for your menu items, you will need to hit the Next button, which his located underneath the edit summary box
 * Next_button.png


 * The Next button will result in a preview of your wiki's navigation. It will also run a width validator tool which will inform you if your menu items are too wide. The warning will display like this:
 * Width_validator.png


 * If this appears, you will be asked to return back to edit mode to adjust your navigation width. Once you do that, click the next button again to preview the menu again. Now that its the proper width, the publish button will appear. Click publish and your new navigation will be live.
 * Wiki_nav_menu_levels.png

Autopopulating the menu
One way to make sure the navigation always shows the most popular content is to use a trick to autopopulate the fields with popular pages or the most linked category pages. This will autopopulate the menu items with the most popular pages.
 * To do this, use # symbols around the magic word you choose to use.
 * For the top content on your wiki use #visited# (which is pulled from Special:Mostvisitedpages)
 * For categories, you use #category-name# . So for example, #category-food# will result in the 7 dropdown links being automatically filled with the most popular articles in the category "food".

List of supported magic words

 * #category0# = gets pages from the biggest category on a wiki
 * #popular# = get most popular pages (taken from Mediawiki:Most popular articles message)
 * #visited# = gets articles with most visits
 * #newlychanged# = gets recently edited pages
 * #topusers# = gets list of most active users

Things to note

 * You can link to any page, and it is important to think about what are the most important places for visitors to see when they come to your wiki.
 * We recommend adding links to popular pages, and links to show where to find the wiki's community.
 * People like clicking on article names more than categories or portals. People tend to click on character names, episode guides, walkthroughs, hints/cheats/tips and galleries.

Next Pages

 * Learn how to edit your My Tools
 * Learn how to view the latest wiki activity
 * Learn how to edit the community corner