Help:Editing

From CajunBot Wiki

Here are a few tips for when you create a new page or edit an existing page. Please try to follow the guidelines so that the pages are more consistent.

[edit] General Guidelines

[edit] Categories

When a page is created, it will likely belong to a category, such as Category:Hardware or Category:Software. You can assign a page to several categories, and you can also affect the sort order of the page in the category that it is listed in.

Put the category assignment at the top of the page (when you edit it) so that it will be easy to change. The current template will make the category show at the bottom of the page, regardless of where it is in the edited version.

Here is an example of assigning a document to the Category:Hardware category, and making the sort order based on the cajunbot key:

[[Category:Hardware|cajunbot]]

In general, the convention used is to always give a lower-case version of the page title as the sort key.

[edit] Linking to other helpful pages

It is easy to link to other wiki pages. There are two main places that you want to link to other helpful pages:

1. In the body of the text, so that as a person is reading the document, they may find more information without searching further.
2. At the end of the document in a See also section. You can easily generate a See also section from the content of the document using a simple script: wiki_links.sh.

The way to link to internal wiki documents is like this:

[[Common Linux Commands]]

which will display as Common Linux Commands.

If you want to link to the same page, but use different text, then:

[[Common Linux Commands|different]]

If you want to link to a specific section in a page, such as Common_commands#Killing_programs or Killing programs, then:

[[Common Linux Commands#Killing programs]]

If you want to make it easier to find a page, and then have that page redirect to the longer-named page, that is easy too. For example, linking to Common Linux Commands is harder to type than Common Commands. The page link will be red. Edit the page link and place the following text:

#REDIRECT [[Page to link to]]

If you want to link to an external URL, then you could do it like this:

[http://www.raginbot.com/wiki/index.php?title=Help:EditingGuidelines this]

[edit] Sections

Major sections should start with two ==.

For subsections, just add another =. For example, this section is as:

=== Sections ===

If possible, include a See also section at the end of the page which will contain links to other related and useful pages. Usually you can just scan through the document and find any other links you made and include them again at the bottom.

[edit] Editing help

[edit] Basic Editing

This page is useful for basic editing syntax: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing

• Italics and bolding
  • To italicize, wrap the text in ''.

For example:

''text''

Displays as text.

• Section headings
• Unordered lists and ordered lists
• Indentations for paragraphs
• Linking

To include text in a blue block, such as

this

Simply indent the text with a single space.

More detailed common examples are here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Wikitext_examples

[edit] Creating Tables

See the following document: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Table#Pipe_syntax_tutorial

To convert from spreadsheets such as Gnumeric, MS Excel or OpenOffice.org Calc, go http://excel2wiki.net/.

Here is a simple example:

{| border="1" 
|+ Specifications of machines on CajunBot
! Machine !! Process !! Characteristics
|-
| 192.168.0.2 || NTP || -
|-
| 192.168.0.3 || SICK computations || PCI slot for Quatech card
|}

will look like:

[edit] Navigability

See the following information about categories.

Try to keep things within the proper category, by including one or more categories at the top of the page (in the edit) so that they will automatically be grouped and linked to from a specific category. For example, if a page falls under "Software" and "Algorithms", you can include the following text at the top of the page and it will automatically be linked with the category:

[[Category:Software|my_page_title_in_lowercase]]
[[Category:Algorithms|my_page_title_in_lowercase]]

You can easily make subcategories by referencing it, then when you see that the page doesn't exist (red link), edit that subcategory page to be within the parent category. For example, if a page is in the category of "Algorithms", which itself is in the category of "Software", then do the following:

• Create the page as normal, for example: Bubble Sort
• At the top of this page include the text:

[[Category:Algorithms|bubble_sort]]

• Save the Bubble Sort page.
• At the bottom of the page, you'll see it is in the category of Algorithms but that the text is red because the page doesn't exist.
• Click the link and create a new page.
• Include the following text to make the "Algorithms" category a subcategory of Software:

[[Category:Software|algorithms]]

Note: When you initially create a page, you can have spaces, though they will automatically be converted to underscores.

Also, if possible try to keep a link to the parent page on a child page (if in a hierarchy) so that it is easy for the user to get back to where they were.

[edit] Including Source Code

This requires that the following extension be installed in the wiki: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi

To include source code, wrap the code in the <source> tag. For example, the following code:

<source lang="cpp">
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
   std::cout << "Hello, world!\n";
}
</source>

will display as:

#include <iostream>
 
int main()
{
   std::cout << "Hello, world!\n";
}

For other languages, just specify the language name. Most of the languages listed on the following page are supported:

• http://qbnz.com/highlighter/

[edit] Including / uploading images and other files

You can upload allowed files here: Upload (I suggest bookmarking the link). If you are attempting to upload a file type that is not allowed, contact the administrator to see if it can be included in the list of allowed file types.

You can include it in a document with the syntax of [[File:filename.jpg]]. So after you upload it, just copy the text and place it within the [[...]].

If you want to upload a non-image file and have an alias to it, you can do it this way:

[[:File:File.txt|Alias.txt]]

becomes Alias.txt

[[File:filename.jpg]]:

Also, you can view the list of uploaded files here: Special:ListFiles

The syntax is the same for images as well as other files.

If you want to make an image as a thumbnail, you can do it like this:

[[File:filename.jpg|thumb]]

You can additionally specify it to be at the left, right, or center of the page:

[[File:filename.jpg|thumb|left]]

or

[[File:filename.jpg|thumb|right]]

or

[[File:filename.jpg|thumb|center]]

Also you can include comment text at the bottom:

[[File:filename.jpg|thumb|right|Comment text]]

Comment text

Lastly, if you want the text flow to continue after the image instead of along side it - which is useful if you have a lot of images or want to keep sections separated, then include the following text right after the image:

<br clear="all" />

For example:

Comment text

The following also may be useful: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Images_and_other_uploaded_files

[edit] Including / uploading protected files

See Help:ProtectedFiles.

[edit] References

With the Cite extension, it is possible to make references in documents. Suppose I want to reference the URL to the Cite extension, like this ^[1].

<ref>http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Cite</ref>

You can produce a reference list, such as

1. ↑ http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Cite

like this:

<references/>

You can reuse references by naming them. In the first use, do something like:

<ref name="cite_extension">http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Cite</ref>

Then on the rest of the uses of the reference, just do this:

<ref name="cite_extension"/>

See the Cite Usage for more help.

[edit] Templates

The following templates are used in this wiki.

[edit] Warning

The warning template looks like this.

Warning: This is a warning.

See Template:Warning for more information.

[edit] Note

The note template looks like this.

Note: This is a note.

See Template:Note for more information.

[edit] Extensions

[edit] YouTube

You can include youtube videos like this:

<mediaplayer>http://www.yourdomain.com/mediafile.flv</mediaplayer>

or

<mediaplayer MWPlayerConfig="720p">http://www.yourdomain.com/mediafile.flv</mediaplayer>

For youtube videos, just have the link to the youtube video, such as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75GQ29urU1U

[edit] SlideShare

Presentations can be embedded into pages. The SlideShare widget has been included, see http://www.mediawikiwidgets.org/Widget:SlideShare.

[edit] Sort

The Sort extension has been installed. You can sort a list of elements using the <sort> tag. For example, the list

<sort>
x
y
z
w
a
f
p
</sort>

becomes:

• a
• f
• p
• w
• x
• y
• z

See the sort usage for more information.

[edit] ImageMap

The ImageMap extension allows embedding links into an image, so that a particular component or person in an image can be linked to. An example is below, where you can hover over a component or click on it and be taken directly to the corresponding page:

RaginBot rear.

The code for the above image is:

<imagemap>
Image:Raginbot_inside_back.jpg|thumb|left|500px|RaginBot rear.
poly 3096 744 3500 747 3501 903 3144 900 [[LabJack]]
poly 732 327 801 267 945 279 870 342 [[Torc E-stop]]
poly 813 348 1125 363 993 720 600 579 [[Comtrol|Comtrol box]]
poly 993 954 1539 975 1404 1950 876 1905 816 1440 [[Battery backup]]
poly 450 465 570 350 775 360 606 540 [[C-Nav reciever]]
rect 1707 969 2616 1206 [[Ebox]]
rect 1743 492 2700 948 [[Vision computer]]
rect 1800 3 2082 204 [[EMC console]]
rect 1731 1203 2595 1460 [[Shore power box]]
rect 450 702 882 969 [[WiFi radios]]
desc bottom-left
</imagemap>

For more information on usage, please see the documentation on the extension's page: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ImageMap.

[edit] Maintenance

See the Special Pages section. You can find orphaned pages, and wanted pages (those pages that do not yet exist, but are linked to).

To make the wiki more complete, we want to try to cut down the list of wanted pages and also those pages that do not yet have complete information.

• Wanted pages
• Pages that have incomplete information can be found by searching for Add me.

[edit] See also

See the following page for help: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Editor