Improved Main Page

Improved Main Page (IMP) layout is a customizable template system commonly used on wikis hosted by wiki.gg (a MediaWiki hosting service) for creating modern, grid-based homepages. It's designed to make the main page more visually appealing and organized, often with sections like welcome messages, featured content, news, and navigation boxes arranged in a responsive CSS grid.

This setup is popular for gaming, community, or fan wikis and relies on:

Template:Main page: The core template that structures the layout.
Module:Main page: A Lua module that handles the dynamic arrangement of content boxes.
Custom CSS in MediaWiki:Common.css for styling (specifically the "Main page layout" section).

See https://defaultloadout.wiki.gg/wiki/Category:Main_page_templates for all template.

Dependencies

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:VariablesLua
https://github.com/wiki-gg-oss/mediawiki-extensions-ParserPower - https://river.me/blog/argmap/
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Variables - https://river.me/blog/variables-and-parsoid/
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Description2
- Ranking in Google
- Not be needed for non-public wikis

How to Create or Implement an IMP Main Page

To set up an IMP Main Page on your MediaWiki installation

1. Set the Main Page Location:

Search for MediaWiki:Mainpage in your wiki's search bar.
Edit it to point to your desired page title (e.g., replace the default "Main Page" with "Home" or whatever your main page is called).
This system message controls where users land when clicking the logo or "Main page" sidebar link.
Optionally, customize the displayed title with MediaWiki:Mainpage-title (for guests) or MediaWiki:Mainpage-title-loggedin (for logged-in users).

2. Install Required Templates and Modules:

Create or import Template:Main page (see documentation below).
Create Module:Main page to manage box layouts (this is a Lua script for dynamic grids).
Each `Template:Main page box is not intended to be used directly, please use Template:Main page box/start and Template:Main page box/end.` pulls content from subpages (e.g., "WikiName/welcome"). If a keyword (like "news") doesn't exist, previewing will prompt you to create it.

3. Add CSS Styling:

Edit MediaWiki:Common.css and add styles under a "Main page layout" section.
- https://defaultloadout.wiki.gg/wiki/MediaWiki:Gadgets/imp/variablesEditMe.css - On top
- https://defaultloadout.wiki.gg/wiki/MediaWiki:Gadgets/imp/mainReadonly.css - Below

Add Gadget CSS
- MediaWiki:Gadgets/imp/mainReadonly.css
- https://defaultloadout.wiki.gg/wiki/MediaWiki:Gadgets/imp/mainReadonly.css#L-12
- https://defaultloadout.wiki.gg/wiki/MediaWiki:Gadgets/imp
- MediaWiki:Gadgets/mpEditLinks? with JS/CSS for quick-edit links on main page boxes (code examples available in wiki.gg docs).

5. Test and Preview:

Preview your main page edits to check for warnings (e.g., missing boxes).
If a box is omitted intentionally, ignore the warning.

Columns

The default CSS for a desktop is 2fr, 1fr, 2fr.

This gives you a

External links

Main page creation

https://defaultloadout.wiki.gg/
- https://defaultloadout.wiki.gg/wiki/Default_Loadout_Wiki/welcome?action=edit