Wikipedia is the ultimate online encyclopedia, containing millions of entries on different aspects of human knowledge. Web application developers are able to access and search these entries through the Wikipedia API. This article introduces the Wikipedia API and demonstrates it in the context of a PHP application, explaining how to search and retrieve different elements of Wikipedia content with PHP.

He starts with a general introduction to the API including example feed results and URL request formats. From there he moves into the code - a mostly Zend Framework-driven example that uses the REST client. He shows how to make requests for categories, full-text search, grabbing raw page content and adding/editing the content of pages.

From their release notes:

This book takes users through customizing their MediaWiki skin. It is full of practical examples of MediaWiki skinning techniques, and provides a clear explanation of how MediaWiki skinning works and the necessary template and CSS customizations required to completely alter MediaWiki's appearance.

The book has appeal for both web developers and wiki administrators by helping them update the look and feel of their MediaWiki site. You can find more information on the book on its page on the Packt Publishing website.

MediaWiki is a great PHP-based Wiki application that is used to power many sites, including Wikipedia itself. One of MediaWiki strengths is how easy it is to extend with its plug-in architecture. The following is a list of 20 extensions that should make your life easier and save you a fair bit of time.

Plugins included in the list are things like:

• SimpleFeed
• Tasks
• CheckUser
• SyntaxHighlight GeSHi

Check out the full list for more great plugins.

His list consists of:

• Ultimate Tag Warrior
• WP-Leftycats
• GoogleMaps
• XFeed

Patterns For PHP is a new project to write and catalogue Design Pattern descriptions and tutorials for PHP programmers. The website is intended as an (advertisement free) online resource for Design Patterns with a focus on PHP implementations.

It is our intention to allow the public edit and contribute freely to its content under the GNU Free Documentation License. Contributions may include Design Pattern descriptions and tutorials, articles demonstrating their use in varying scenarios, contributions on Design Pattern and OOP principles (since these are always applicable), and whatever else a contributor believes would improve the resource.

He also talks about the admin team (himself and 'Ambush Commander') and regular contributors have already started to come in. They've already (in the two weeks they've been live) moved over to a MediaWiki environment and added information for the Singleton, Registry, Factory, Abstract Factory, Strategy, and Composite patterns.

They also want to remind everyone out there, no matter the skill level, that they can contribute their knowledge to the wiki and help the community built another great patterns resource.

As part of the migration, I grabbed a very lightweight theme and implemented my own changes to spruce it up and patch some small errors the original authors made. With some new colouring the result is a clean design with an open space feel and just a feather brush of colour.

I even got around to creating a simple logo to replace the text heading! This slew of changes makes all the difference to how the website is presented, and avoids the overly crowded "I'm an encylopedia!" feel of Wikipedia. Time to start moving to a proper domain...

The patterns site has also been populated with some info already - details on four patterns: Singleton, Registry, Factory, and Abstract Factory.