Help-WikiMarkup

This page gives a quick introduction to the mark-up language used in the wiki.

Summary

If you are creating a new page it's highly recommended that you first open the Style guide for editing, copy the entire contents, and paste it into your new blank page. By starting from this and modifying as required, we will achieve a reasonably consistent style and layout across the wiki.

When creating or modifying a page in the wiki, most of the time you simply type the text you want. But there are simple conventions you have to follow to indicate a new paragraph, headings and lists etc. This page will introduce you to the most basic ones, but there are very many more which you can find in the Mediawiki Help pages.

Whenever you change a page, before clicking Save changes, always click Show Preview to check that it displays correctly. Often, you will also spot a typo you missed!

Paragraphs and text

In order to start a new paragraph you need to leave a blank line. Without a blank line, text is assumed to be more of the same paragraph.

Itallics is indicated by surrounding the text by a pair of single quotes, and bold by a triplet of single quotes. We use these sparingly in the Resterters wiki.

You type	You get
This is a single paragraph. But this is a new one.	This is a single paragraph. But this is a new one.
''Italics'' and '''Bold'''	Italics and Bold

Headings

Headings are indicated by a line starting and ending with (the same number of) equals signs. More equals signs indicate lower level headings.

You type	You get
==Heading 1== ===Heading 2=== ====Heading 3====	Heading 1 Heading 2 Heading 3

Links

Links to other Wiki pages are indicated by double square brackets ([[ ]]). Between them, insert the name of the page, a vertical bar (|), and the text which is to be hotlinked.

A link to a technical term in the glossary is similar. Instead of the name of a page, insert "Glossary:" followed by the technical term.

You type	You get
It's not so hard to [[Yes,_you_can_fix_your_laptop!|fix your laptop]].	It's not so hard to fix your laptop.
We don't recommend [[Glossary:Percussive_maintenance|percussive maintenance]] in general.	We don't recommend percussive maintenance in general.

Insert links wherever you can, to help readers who are not as familiar with the subject and its jargon as you are.

Sometimes you might want to add a link to a Wikipedia article. This is easy. See Interwiki Links in the Mediawiki Help.

Lists

For a bulleted list, start each line with an asterisk (*), or two asterisks for a second level of bullets. Numbered lists are created in exactly the sameway except using hash (#) signs.

You type	You get
*First item **First sub-item **Second sub-item *Second item	First item First sub-item Second sub-item Second item
#Item 1 ##Item 1.1 ##Item 1.2 #Item 2	Item 1 Item 1.1 Item 1.2 Item 2

Images

These are just a little more complicated. The easiest way is to copy an example and modify it to suit your purposes. Most often, alternating images justified right and left gives the best visual layout.

Uploading images

You must not upload images which are subject to copyright. You cannot assume you are free to use an image you come across somewhere in a web page. We strongly recommend that all images you upload are licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

You will find an Upload File link at the bottom of each page. This allows you to browse your computer for the file to upload, to set a sensible name for it, to add a meaningful description and to add licensing information.

The name you set will be used to reference the image on a wiki page so best to change it to something more meaningful than the name it came off your camera with.

Tables

For certain types of information tables are a great way of presenting it, but they are one of the slightly more advanced features. Take a look at the first few section of Mediawiki Tables to understand the basics, then look at an existing examle in our Wiki. There are some examples in our Batteries page.

Creating new pages

If you search for a page that doesn't exist you will be given the opportunity to create it. You should always use the Style guide as a template. Open it, click Edit tab to edit it, copy the entire text, close it without changing anything by cicking Cancel at the bottom, then paste the text into your new page.

If you create a new page, always also create a Discussion page. This has the same name as the main page but prefixed by Talk:. You should initialise it with the standard introductory text which you can copy from any other Talk: page.

When your page is complete (or sufficiently so to publish), decide where would be the best place for a link to it in the Main Page page, and add it.

Creating a new Glossary definition is a two stage process. For example, to define "Cat" you would first create a new page Glossary:Cat. Then edit Glossary and insert a reference to your definition in alphabetic order, using precisely the same structure as existing definitions.