Wiki-Basics

From Common Energy UVic

Wiki-Basics is a very bare-bones primer for editing our wiki that is part of our Wiki Help section. We have much more detailed instructions in How to Use a Wiki and the more specific How to Use the Common Energy Wiki pages.

[edit] New to Wikis? This is the place to start

Editing a Wiki is deceptively simple, just a little daunting at first. This page will help you get the process down. First thing to do is find the page you want to edit!

For example: You wish to edit part of the text of this page. However, note that there are no 'edit' tabs on this page since we are not logged in yet.

Assuming, for this example, that you want to edit one of the Food Group pages. The first step is to ensure you are logged in. So go to the 'log in/create account' option in the upper right corner of any screen. If you are new here, you can easily make an account (assuming you have an email address), simply follow the steps! If you already have a user name, then fill that in as well as your password.

This is the log-in screen

Once you are logged in, you will see this (for this example the user is called 'User1' (real creative we know...)

So now User1 is logged in and can edit pages.

To return to the page you were on previously, just hit the link that says 'return to XXX(the page you were on before logging in)XXX

Once you are back at the page you wish to edit, you now see a row of tabs above the main title. These are 'article', 'discussion', 'edit', 'history', 'move', and 'watch'. If you are wishing to simply comment on the article then you can head to the discussion tab. If you wish to actually edit the contents of the page then click on the 'edit' tab

We now can see the row of tabs at the top allowing us to edit, discuss and contribute to this page!

By clicking on the edit tab, you will be taken into the edit screen

This is a typical edit screen (with pre-existing text). From here you can add and edit.

Note at the bottom of this page are a few important items. The most important are the 'Save page' icon that must be clicked once you are done so your changes will be saved. Please take the time to fill in the quick summary of what you have done to the page in the 'Summary' box, as it is useful for us to be able to keep track of the Wiki as it evolves (the summary is shown in the 'Recent Changes' page). Also it is possible to preview the page (to check and make sure you have the syntax right), this is 'Show preview' button.

In Wikipedia, a syntax is used to create things like subheadings, to bold words italicize them etc. and we need to quickly look at that. Here is an example of Wikitext in action:

This is the text in the edit page

And this is what the text looks like on the final page (a red link indicates that the page does not exist yet, while a blue link means that the page exists

Note that the 2 equal signs (=) before and after a statment make it into a subheading, also using two square brackets ([[) on either side of a statement will create a link to that page in our wiki (in this example the 'Coordinator' page). Also if the page has been created but contains no text, the link will be red instead of blue. Once you start using it, it becomes quite natural (trust us).

To get the full listing of all the possible syntax, please head to the [WikiText help page]

Now you can dive right in! Have fun. (if you want more help check out : How to Use a Wiki)