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1 A Quickie Wiki Guide to Editing Content

[edit] A Quickie Wiki Guide to Editing Content

[edit] Overview

Although a Wiki is intended to be quick, the spectre of a blank page or one with contributed text that awaits editing or embellishment may leave you scratching your head about how to actually change a page of content. Although HTML markup tags can be used within a wiki to format text, a wiki does have its own very simple formatting and markup methods. The wiki way of formatting actually presents text that is human readable in its raw form, unlike some complicated HTML pages when viewed as source code or through a text editor.

Like any word processor, the basic steps are to create a page, edit a page, preview your results, and save a page. For this wiki, most of the pages have already been created and are ready for further content contributions and editing, although content contributors are free to create new sub-pages as appropriate. In all cases, the wiki tracks all changes, who made the changes, and facilitates roll back to previous saved versions.

Since a wiki is primarily a collaborative writing environment, be prepared to have your favorite turn-of-phrase re-worded or your bullet points reorganized. The wiki provides a Discussion page associated with each page of content in order for contributors to ask questions and discuss changes and corrections (to their liking or disliking). On each wiki page look for the tab at the top of the page labeled "discussion." (The other tabs at the top of the page are "help," "edit," and "history.")

[edit] On-line Wiki Documentation

A comprehensive book containing the specific documentation on using a wiki is planned for the future. Meanwhile, on-line documentation exists in two forms. The links below navigate to their respective Tables of Content:

The most relevant topics for wiki users and contributors include the sections for Reading, Editing, and Advanced Editing.

[edit] PDF Wiki Documentation

Numerous sections of the on-line Wiki Documentation have been collapsed into a handful of PDF documents for easier viewing and printing. These PDFs include navigational bookmarks to simplify your way-finding through the documentation. The hyperlinks below access individual PDFs related to a Wiki Reference Card (highly recommended), Formatting Cheatsheet (highly recommended), About Wikis, Introduction to Wikis, Instructions for Wiki Readers, and Instructions for Wiki Content Contributors and Editors.

[edit] The Real Short Course on Using a Wiki

For most of us, we want to just get started reading and editing a wiki article. For that reason, the really relevant, "gotta know" tips and instructions are listed below (if any of these links break, it is because modifications are always being undertaken with the on-line Wiki documentation pages managed at the world-wide level). Some of the brief descriptions and summaries are copied from the Public Domain Wiki User Manual.

Wiki Reference Card: The MediaWiki reference card (PDF) is a one page summary of important editing commands, intended to be printed out and used next to the computer.

Wiki Text Formatting Cheatsheet: A simple one page sheet (PDF) of very basic wiki text formatting markup.

Basic Text Formatting in a Wiki Article: A PRIORITY MUST-READ!! This links to a well organized table showing how to use some of the basic wiki syntax or markups to format text. Included are Text Formatting, HTML Tags, Sectioning and Lists (ordered & unordered), Making Internal & External Links (including movies and audio files), Adding Images, Adding Formulas, and Bypassing wiki markups.

FAQs on Editing Articles: These questions and answers have been culled from some of the talk pages of the various editing-related Help pages in the world-wide wiki documentation.

An Editing Toolbar!!: Don't want to type the wiki syntax for formatting text? There is toolbar available for Java compatible web browsers that is displayed when activated in your wiki preferences (once logged in). This link provides a nifty table summarizing text formatting functions available in the Edit Toolbar.

Creating Sections & Headings and Automatic Table of Contents for a Page: A wiki page's content can be sectioned by using special wiki markup to create "headers" at various levels and sub-levels. Also, for each page with three or more headings, a Table of Contents (TOC) is automatically generated from the section headings.

Navigation: Clicking the Wiki Logo in the upper left or on the phrase Main Page brings you to the start page of the wiki.

Page Tabs: The page tabs are displayed at the top of the article to the right of the site logo. These tabs allow you to perform actions that are related to the current artcle. The available actions include: viewing, editing, and discussing the current article.

Personal User Links: The user links are displayed at the top far right of the article. These tabs allow the logged-in user to view and edit their user page and wiki preferences. Additionally, the user links allow the user to quickly access their contributions to the wiki and logout. For anonymous users the user links is replaced by a link to the wiki login page.; When editing a wiki, it is always advisable to Log in before beginning your wordsmithing. It is far too easy to enter the wiki, but forget to log in, thus missing some of your page and personal tabs.

Tracking Page Changes: Along the left margin of each wiki page is a section of options called Toolbox. In the Toolbox you will find a link labeled Special pages. From the Special Pages table of contents you can select Recent changes. Recent Changes displays all edits, file uploads, page moves, deletions and other actions done for a wiki page.

Editing New Pages: If the page you wish to edit does not exist yet, see Starting a new page.

Editing Existing Pages: Click the edit page tab. Make changes to the text in the edit box. If you're making normal changes to the text like fixing spelling mistakes or grammar, inserting new sentences, etc, then you don't have to worry too much about formatting. When you do need to use some type of formatting, you do it using wiki syntax, see Formatting for some of the common types of formatting used. Optionally, enter a short note in the Summary box describing your changes. Optionally preview your changes with the Preview button. Click the Save page button. Every article has its own discussion-page, where you can ask questions, make suggestion or discuss about corrections. Click the discussion page tab to reach it.

Starting a New Page: There are several ways to start a new page or article. A new page is automatically created if you create a link to a page (with a name) that you anticipate using. This is very different than HTML editing where the page must exist before you can link to it. The wiki allows you link to a new page "on the fly." If no one has actually added content or edited the new page, the link appears in the text color red. Once created, the link changes from red to blue, indicating the article now exists.

Links in Wiki Articles: There are four sorts of links in MediaWiki: internal links to other pages in the wiki, external links to websites, InterWiki links to other wikis and interlanguage links to other language versions of the same wiki. A summary table is included. The first letter of a target page is automatically capitalized and spaces are represented as underscores in the link syntax.

Adding Images to a Wiki Article: Expanded discussion and examples are provided. If you use the wiki syntax Image:Filename, the image is embedded directly in the wiki page (the actual image must be uploaded to the Image Directory within the wiki system before it becomes available).

Adding Videos & Sounds to a Wiki Article: If you use the wiki syntax Media:Filename, a video or sound file is directly linked (the actual video or sound file--of a non-standard architecture--must be uploaded to the Media Directory within the wiki system before it becomes available). To demonstrate and access Windows Media, Real, QuickTime, MPEG-4 or Flash Video files, it is highly recommended to locate these assets within standard HTML pages and websites elsewhere, then simply link to them using an external http:// link within a wiki article.

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