Formatting
From Community Diaries: Columbia, SC
This is a page on how to create some basic formatting types. You can have mediawiki ignore any formatting by surrounding the text with the tags (without the double quote marks): <"nowiki"> <"/nowiki">. If you click on the edit tab at the top of this page, you can see how these "nowiki" tags are used through the page.
Contents |
Basic Formatting
Lists
Bulleted lists can be made using a corresponding number of asterisks (*) to indicate the level of the list item.
- One
- Two
- Three
- etc
- Three
- etc
- Two
Headings
- =Level One Heading=
- ==Level Two Heading==
- ===Level Three Heading===
Bold and Italics
- Italicized text - ''Italicized text''
- Bold text - '''Bold text'''
- Italicized & Bold text - '''''Italicized & Bold text'''''
Creating Links and Pages
Here is a brief guide to creating links and pages in this wiki.
Links and Creating New Pages
This is a wiki. "A wiki ... is a website that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove, and otherwise edit and change available content...."
MediaWiki, the name of this wiki software application, is probably the most familiar wiki due to being originally written for the popular Wikipedia, an online, free content encyclopedia. Familiarity with Wikipedia can make it easier to transition to creating and editing pages.
Creating a page
A simple way to create a page is to search for it. Yes, that's right. Search for something that isn't there -- most people can relate to this. But, in the world of wiki, searching for something nonexistent, but something you want to wiki about, creates a new page. Just type your desired page title in the search box at the left of the page. Click Search. Find the phrase "You searched for text you typed" near the top, click on that link, and "Poof!!" Your page has been created! Just start typing, or paste something you copied. Use the toolbar for formatting -- it might take some practice. Click "Show preview" to view what you've just added, or click "Save page" to finalize your content.
Great!! You've created a wiki page. Now you want all of your collaborators to start editing, appending, rearranging ... making a mess of what you just did, but working together to finish that project in record time! So you go to the Main Page and look for a link. It's not there!? Nonexistent.
How to create a link.
If you want to get to your page from the Main Page, you need to edit the page and add a link. Click on the tab that says "Edit." You should see some text in brackets [ ] and double brackets [[ ]]. These are links.
The most useful link type for accessing pages on the wiki you're working on is the one in double brackets. This creates an internal link. If the title of the page is the same as the text you wish to display, you can simply enclose the title, written in plain text, in double brackets. For example, [[Random Thoughts]] links to the page titled "Random Thoughts".
If you like, you can instead click the Ab on the editing toolbar near the top of the edit page. Here's what you get: [[Link title]]. Just put your title in the place of "Link title", and you're all set.
Keep in mind that when MediaWiki looks for "Random Thoughts" it actually looks for "Random_Thoughts." It has trouble dealing with spaces, so it inserts an underscore "_" in place of each space. There is a more complete version of the internal link that looks like this:[[Page_title | display text]]. So we could rewrite the Random Thoughts link like this: [[Random_Thoughts | Random Thoughts]]. The vertical line "|" in the middle is called a pipe. It can be found on most keyboards either above the Enter key, or in the upper left corner. It is usually shift-backslash (\).
Why do this, you ask? Why make it more complex? That's a good question. Here's why. The display text of a link isn't always the same as the text of the actual link code. What if you wanted to display Random Thoughts Of Elementary Ed Teachers, but link to Random_Thoughts? Now you can.
[[Random_Thoughts | Random Thoughts Of Elementary Ed Teachers]]
Another way to create a page
Think of a title for your new page. On the Main Page (or on another page where you wish to place the link), create a link as you did in the previous section. Use the new title when you do this. Preview or save your edit. Click on the new link. Voila!! There's your new page. This way you create the page AND the link in one step. Very efficient.
Links to other web sites
This is an external link, since it is not a page in the wiki. It should look like this: Ideas Unleashed Web Site. Note the single brackets this time. The address you wish to reach when the link is clicked comes immediately after the first bracket. This must be followed by a space. The remainder of the link is the text you wish to display.
As with internal links, there is a toolbar icon for external links as well. It's to the right of the internal link icon -- it looks like a globe with a sheet of paper in front of it. Here's what you get: [http://www.example.com link title] Just replace the example text.
