Scribunto: An Introduction/Setting up

This chapter helps you to get started with Scribunto. It covers installation of the Scribunto software, and where on your wiki you can program in Lua.

Installation

If you are using a wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation such as Wikipedia, Wikibooks or Wiktionary, Scribunto is already installed. Scribunto has been enabled on all Wikimedia wikis since March 2013.

For other wikis using the MediaWiki software, you can check whether Scribunto is installed by going to the wiki's version page. On most wikis this can be accessed by typing "Special:Version" into the search bar. For some wikis, you may need to type "Special:Version" directly into the URL. Once you reach the version page, you will see Scribunto listed under the "Installed extensions" heading if it is installed.

If Scribunto isn't installed, there are installation instructions available on the extension's home page.

Module namespace

When Scribunto was being designed, it was decided that embedding Lua code directly onto wiki pages was undesirable. As a consequence, all Lua code run with Scribunto is contained in the Module namespace. Pages in the Module namespace that contain Lua code are often called "Lua modules" or just "modules". All Lua modules begin with the text "Module:" or its equivalent in that wiki's language. Whatever the language, though, "Module:" will always work as a prefix to find the wiki's Module namespace.