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How to change the available options for the number of entries to be listed on the Recent changes page in MediaWiki

When you open the Recent changes page, at the top of it there are some filtering options with which you can select the entries to be listed on the page. With some of these options you can select the number of entries to be shown and the period during which they were made. By default, the most recent 50 changes for the last 7 days are shown. There are available options with which you can select a greater number and/or a longer period.

When it comes to the number of entries to be listed, the available options are 50, 100, 250 and 500. If you want to, you can change these numbers. You can also add more options or make them fewer. This is controlled with the variable $wgRCLinkLimits. By adding it on a new line at the end of the LocalSettings.php file of your MediaWiki you can change the options for the number of entries. For instance, if you add the following to LocalSettings.php:

$wgRCLinkLimits = array( 50, 150, 300, 500, 600 );

then on the Recent changes page users will be able to select to view a list of the most recent 50, 150, 300, 500 or 600 changes. Of course, the period during which the changes were made should also be taken into account; there are separate options for that.

Note that the link for the default number of entries will also be included even if it's not listed as a number by the variable. For anonymous users it's set to 50. Registered users can modify that default number from their user account preferences. So, for example, if a registered user has set the Recent changes page to display by default the most recent 120 changes and the link limits are set with the numbers in the above example, then when that user is logged in and opens the page the available options will be 50, 120, 150, 300, 500, 600.

You should also keep in mind that there's a maximum period for which edits are kept on the Recent changes list. Once they become older than the specified time they are purged from the respective table in the database. This period is specified with the variable $wgRCMaxAge. By default, it's set to around 90 days. For more information check the article on how to change the period for which changes are kept on the Recent changes list in MediaWiki.

The LocalSettings.php file that you have to edit to make such changes is located in the root MediaWiki folder on your MediaWiki hosting account. If, for instance, the application is installed directly in the public_html directory on the account, then the path to the file in relation to that directory will be public_html/LocalSettings.php. HostKnox customers can view and edit files directly on the account with the help of the File manager of the Pixie control panel. A different way of doing it is to download the file on your local computer, edit it with a text editor (e.g. Notepad ++), and upload it back overwriting the old file.

For general information on the Recent changes page check out the section on the Recent changes page in the tutorial on how to track and patrol edits in MediaWiki.

Here are some other articles related to the Recent changes page that you may find useful:

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