Simple wiki editing examples
Editing
The point of a Wiki is that all users can edit and update information and create new pages altogether. On all pages of the Wiki (including this one), you will see an "edit" link at the very top. If you click on it, you will see the source code for that particular page (this one will seem very complicated at first -- don't worry about it). To return to the real page, click on the "article" link, also at the top of each page.
The rest of this page will contain the basic rules of editing and creating Wiki pages. One easy way to get started is simply to copy the source code from one page, and paste it into another page before editing the text in it. The formatting will remain identical to the first page, but you can edit the contents if you only change the text paragraphs.
For further information on editing a Wiki, go to this page.
- To edit an existing page, just click the "edit" link at the top. Do your work, and then don't forget to save the page!
- To create a new page, you should first make a link to the new page in an existing page (like the Wiki's main page, or from any other page). The link will appear in red, indicating that the linked page doesn't exist yet. If you click on any red link, you will be taken directly to the new page's "edit" section, so you can create the page. It's perfectly reasonable to create links to nonexisting pages in your text without immediately creating the pages they point to. Other people can then see the red links and create the pages themselves if they know what belongs there.
Formatting a Page
Breaking up your page into different sections will make it much easier to read. If you create enough different sections, a table of contents like the one at the top of this page will be created automatically. This is very easy to do:
Breaking the page into sections | |
Typing this on the "edit" page: | Results in this on the final published page: |
== New section == |
New section Subsection Text written in subsection Sub-subsection Sub-sub-subsection |
Lists
Lists make your page much more organized as well. They are extremely simple to create:
Basic Bulleted List: | |
Typing this on the "edit" page: | Results in this on the final published page: |
*first bullet *second bullet |
|
Basic Numbered List: | |
Typing this on the "edit" page: | Results in this on the final published page: |
#first item
#second item |
|
Bulleted List with sub-sections: | |
Typing this on the "edit" page: | Results in this on the final published page: |
*first item
*second item |
|
Numbered List with sub-sections: | |
Typing this on the "edit" page: | Results in this on the final published page: |
#first item
#second item |
|
Mixed List with sub-sections: | |
Typing this on the "edit" page: | Results in this on the final published page: |
#first item
#second item |
|
Lists like these can be customized with any number of subsections and sublists, using the same logic as above. You can put a bulleted list within a numbered list within a bulleted list, etc. |
Links
Linking to other pages will allow people to follow referenced information more easily. You can link to existing pages, and also to nonexisting pages. A link to a nonexisting page will appear in red, indicating that the page needs to be created.
There are two types of links: internal links pointing to other pages of the Wiki, and external links pointing to other websites. Here's how they work:
Internal Link (to a page on the Wiki): | |
Typing this on the "edit" page: | Results in this on the final published page: |
[[Silver Lab]] [[Silver Lab | Link to main Silver Lab page]] |
(the second link goes to the same page, but can say whatever you want it to say rather than just the page title) |
External Link (to another website): | |
Typing this on the "edit" page: | Results in this on the final published page: |
http://www.harvard.edu (just enter the page address, it will turn into a link automatically) |
|
[http://www.harvard.edu] (or you can enter an address in brackets to make a short link) |
[1] |
[http://www.harvard.edu Go to Harvard's website!] (or you can give the link a different text) |
Go to Harvard's website!
(the link goes to the same page, but can say whatever you want it to say rather than just the page address) |
Other Formatting
You can make any text bold or italicized. Just highlight it (on the edit page) and click the Bold or I talics button at the top of the editing box.
In the editing box you can also find other useful formatting tools, including the tool to insert a picture. To insert a picture, you first need to upload it to the Wiki server. You can do this by clicking the "upload file" link, which is on the left of any Wiki page (near the top). Once you've uploaded the file and given it a name, just click the "Embedded image" button at the top of the editing box of any page, and enter the new file's name.
You can also easily insert a horizontal dividing line like the one below:
Just click the "horizontal dividing line" button at the top of the editing box.
To insert comments in the wiki source code that will be unseen when the page renders, use this format: <!--Comment-->
For further information on editing a Wiki, go to this page.