The wiki can often seem like a scary thing to start editing, but this is in fact NOT the case! It is easy to start editing and contribute. The best way to start is to look at the formatting which is employed on various pages. You can see the code of a page by logging in and selecting "Raw Text" from the drop down menu at the bottom of the page.

The basics

  • Paragraphs should be separated by a blank line.
  • To make a list, use a white space at the beginning of a line, followed by either an asterisk (for bullet points), a number, letter etc.

  • To make a heading, use = Title = for a level one heading, == Title == for a level 2 heading, and so on.

  • Placing '' around words or phrases will make them italics, and ''' will make them bold.

  • To quote a block of code, wrap paragraphs in {{{ }}}.

An example page might look like this: 

= Title of Page =
== Subtitle ==
This page is going to explain how to write a guide on the wiki. The following things are important:
 * Read the docteam Styleguide
 * Make sure you are not reproducing material already on the wiki
 * Ask the Documentation Team to check the guide afterwards and tag it appropriately

The following paragraph is a lettered list:
 a. this is the ''first'' item
 a. this is the ''second'' item
 a. this is the ''third'' item

{{{
this is a block of code
} }} (the space should not be in your version)

It is that easy!

For more help about this wiki, see the page HelpContents

Advanced Features

As you edit the wiki you will learn how to use the power of the wiki software to do even more clever things! Here are some examples:

  • To see almost all the wiki's formatting in action, have a look at the SyntaxReference page.

  • Inserting Icons - see IconsPage

  • Inserting a table of contents such as what you see at the top of this page: 
    • ||<tablestyle="float:right; font-size: 0.9em; width:40%; background:#F1F1ED; margin: 0 0 1em 1em;" style="padding:0.5em;"><<TableOfContents>>||

  • To insert a simple table of contents, without the box around it, just use: <<TableOfContents>>

HelpForUsers > HelpOnEditing

Page Editing

Names of pages may either LookLikeThis (that is called a WikiName) or [[Like this]] (a so-called free link). If you write a word that LookLikeThis, it will be automatically turned into a link. More details about this you find on HelpForBeginners.

The following pages describe the elements (wiki markup) you can use to get special formatting effects:

To experiment with wiki markup, go to the WikiSandBox and then click on "EditText" at the bottom of the page. Use your browser's "open a new window with this link" feature on the word "WikiSandBox", so you can keep the help pages open side-by-side to the editing window.

Automatic Backup of Drafts

Every time you are in the editor and use the "Preview", "Spell Check", "Cancel" or "Save Changes" buttons, moin saves a draft copy of your work internally. Use preview often!

If you hit "cancel" accidentally, your machine crashes, or the browser window was accidentally closed, then the automatic backup of your draft may be easily recovered.

To recover that draft, you simply edit that page again. If there is a draft, an alert message will be in the message box and a "load draft" button will be present. Clicking the "load draft" will load your saved draft into the editor box replacing the current revision already loaded. You can continue editing the loaded draft, but this time try to save it at the end. Smile :)

Info (!) Don't use the "preview", "spell check", "save changes" or "cancel" buttons on that page before "load draft" or you will overwrite your old draft with a new one.

If you successfully save a page, the internal draft copy of it is not needed any more and will be deleted.

Go back to WikiGuide

WikiGuide/Formatting (last edited 2011-08-11 03:58:04 by gordintoronto)