Helpful instructions
From Prof. Elston's Wiki
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Editing and Formating the Mediawiki Pages
Wikis are easily editable web pages. But what are the other advantages?
- Tracked history of changes
- Allows "meta" discussion of content
- Did I mention super-easy editing?
Take a look at the Macaulay entry on Wikipedia.
Formatting & Editing
By selecting the EDIT tab can see the back-send of the wiki.
Wiki editing looks tough, doesn't it?
But fear not, the editing toolbar is here to help you. It features 11 (mostly) useful tools:
- Bold, looks like this '''Bold'''
- Italics, looks like this ''Italics''
- Internal Hyperlink, looks like this [[Link title]]
- External Hyperlink, looks like this [http://www.example.com link title]
- Header, looks like this == Header == (see below)
- Embedded file, looks like this [[Image:Example.jpg]] (see below)
- File link, looks like this [[Media:Example.ogg]] (see below)
- Equation, looks like this <math>Insert formula here</math>
- Ignore wiki formatting, looks like this <nowiki></nowiki>
- --Meredith.Theeman 13:46, 5 March 2009 (UTC)Your signature with timestamp
- Horizontal line, looks like this ----
Of course, you can always highlight the text and use the buttons above the editing window.
EDITING AND FORMATTING GUIDELINES can be found at: Wikipedia:How to edit pages - also I've detailed a few functions:
Headings
To add headings, surround the heading text with ==1st level Headingname== . Smaller headings use more equal signs such as ===2nd level headingname=== or ====3rd level heading==== .
Links
- EXTERNAL LINKS
To add a link to a site outside the wiki place the site address and name within brackets such as [http://www.nytimes.com New York Times] which will appear as follows: New York Times
- INTERNAL LINKS
To navigate to other places in the wiki that you have previously developed [[Pagename]] which will look like this: Lights go out
To make a new page create the link using [[newpagename]]: You can then double-click on the link A new one and begin to construct the page.
Embedding Media
It's easy to do embed web content on the wiki: you just need to tell the wiki that's what you're doing. So, find the embed code (on Google Maps, YouTube, whatever), and place it between HTML tags, like this: <html>long copied embed code</html>
Audio
As with images, you should first save your audio files to the wiki's media library with a file name you will remember.
From the toolbox select "special pages" and upload your file. Embed audio file by using [[Media:name of file.ogg|Sound]].
Video
By using html codes, you can easily add in embed codes from videos uploaded to youtube. Place html tags around the embed code <html>long embed code</html> .
Eleventh Avenue: Hell's Kitchen
Images
- Go to the toolbox and "upload file" link. Add an image to the wiki's media library. Give it a file name you'll remember.
- Go to the page that you want the image in. You can access the image by its saved name. Embed it by using [[Image:filename.jpg]].
- To resize your image use [[Image:filename.jpg|number px]]
- To animate your images...creating a rotating gallery check out free online photo animator [www.makeagifcom Make a Gif]
- To frame an image and add a caption use [[Image:filename.jpg|frame|caption text]]
Maps
To embed a map in your wiki. I suggest creating and saving customized maps using googlemaps. This application allows you to make your own makers, overlay boundaries, illustrate routes, etc...
Use the same <html>embed code</html>
Other Formatting Info
Creating Pages
But wait, how do I create a page? There are a number of ways. Let's say I wanted to create a page called "A New One." I could
- Use the search function on the left, search for ANewOne, and then select "create this page"
- I could also put in a URL that doesn't yet exist for ANewOne:
- Addendum: You can always create a page by creating an internal link, clicking on it, and editing:
- For example, A New One
Line Breaks
If you've played around with the site at all, I imagine you've become frustrated with line breaks. You want a new line, but not a space, and the wiki doesn't like that at all, so your text runs together like some Joycean stream-of-consciousness experiment. Fear Not!
Line breaks are easy. First, the wiki does understand a blank line between paragraphs. If you want a line
break, you need only end your line with the following text: <br>
Lists
As you may have noticed, I like bullet points.
- They're
- easy
- to
- do!
- to
- easy
How did I make that happen? Like this: *They're **easy ***to ****do!
George Clinton's lyrics become poetry via wiki formatting:
- Ain't
- no
- party
- Like
- a
- P-Funk
- party
- a
- 'cause
- a
- P-Funk
- party
- don't
- stop.
- a
For numbered lists, use the # instead of the *:
- Numbered
- lists
- are
- cool!
- are
- lists
Or...
- Numbered
- lists
- are
- cool!
Here is another good formatting resource.
A Note on Copyright
- Keep in mind that intellectual content does not operate according to a finders, keepers model. You've got cameras, FlipVideo cameras, and a ton of tools at your disposal. Create and upload your own content or find publicly available content via Flickr or WikiCommons.
- If you use scholarly content, give appropriate credit!
- Finally, the best way to figure out how to do something on a wiki page is this: find another wiki page that does it, click edit, and find out how they did it!
Thanks to Brooks Hefner for his collaboration on this section.
