PESWiki:How to edit a page

From PESWiki

PESWiki is a Wiki, which means that anyone can easily edit any unprotected page and save those changes immediately to that page. Editing a PESWiki page is not very difficult and there are plenty of places to get help. A Quick guide is located at PESWiki:Quick guide. After your first edit, you are a PESWiki editor! Basically, all you have to do is click on the "edit" button in the heading of the section you want to modify, make the modification, preview, then save. To edit the entire page, or more than one section, you can select the "edit" link at the top of a page. For step by step introduction to becoming a PESWikin, see the PESWiki tutorial. Those pages will discuss the useful features of the wiki software, the pieces of style and content guidance, information about the PESWiki community, or important PESWiki policies and convention.

Jump In, the Water's Fine

To begin editing after logging in, simply click on the "edit this page" tab at the top of a PESWiki page (or on a section-edit link). This will bring you to a new page with a text box containing the editable text of the original page. If you just want to experiment, please do so in the sandbox; not here. You should write a short edit summary in the small field below the edit-box. You may use shorthand to describe your changes, as described in the legend, and when you have finished, press the Show preview button to see how your changes will look. You can also see the difference between the page with your edits and the previous version of the page by pressing the "Show changes" button. If you're satisfied with what you see, be bold and press the Save page button. Your changes will immediately be visible to other PESWiki users.

You can also click on the "Discussion" tab to see the corresponding talk page, which contains comments about the page from other PESWiki users. Click on the "+" tab to add a new section, or edit the page in the same way as an article page.

You should remember to sign your messages on talk pages and some special-purpose project pages, but you should not sign edits you make to regular articles. In page histories, the MediaWiki software keeps track of which user makes each change.

Anyone can contribute content, it's easy

• If a link is red, that means the page has not yet been created. You are free to create it by clicking on it and submitting content.
• To edit content on any page, simply click on the "edit" link next to it, or click on the "Edit this page" link at the top of the page.
• Each page has a "history" link to show previous interations of the page to which it can revert in the case of inappropriate changes being submitted.
• Sandbox - Go ahead and click the sandbox link and give it a whirl. The sandbox is designed for you to make mistakes and for it to be okay. It all starts with the "edit" button. Remember, even on regular pages, you are given a "preview" option to see how your content is going to appear before you save it to go live.

Note that each page of the site has a "talk" link, where you can post your remarks about the page. The following may be useful:

• Listing Guidelines - Items to include in listings, quality criterion to keep in mind, recommendation to note stage of development; link sequence recommendation; suggestion of having topic editors listed for each project.
• Tasks - Projects to tackle, subjects to cover, personal checklist. First priority should be given to documenting technologies for which working prototypes exist or for which such is claimed to have existed.

Minor edits

See also PESWiki:Minor edit

When editing an article page on this site, a logged-in user can mark that edit as being "minor". Minor edits generally mean spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearrangement of text. It is possible to "hide" minor edits when viewing the recent changes. Marking a significant change as a minor edit is considered bad behavior, especially when it involves the deletion of some text. If you accidentally mark an edit as minor, you should edit the source once more, mark it major (or, rather, ensure that the check-box for "This is a minor edit" is not checked), and, in the summary, state that the previous change was a major one.

Wiki markup

The wiki markup is the syntax system you can use to format a PESWiki page. The information below is an elaborate list of various edits (for a more succinct reference, please refer to PESWiki cheatsheet). The left column shows the effects available. The right column shows the wiki markup used to achieve them.

You may want to keep this page open in a separate browser window for reference. If you want to try out things without danger of doing any harm, you can do so in the Sandbox. Try opening the Sandbox in a separate window or tab and keeping this page open for reference.

Table of contents

At the current status of the wiki markup language, having at least four headers on a page triggers the TOC to appear in front of the first header (or after introductory sections). Putting __TOC__ anywhere forces the TOC to appear at that point (instead of just before the first header). Putting __NOTOC__ anywhere forces the TOC to disappear. See also compact TOC for alphabet and year headings.

Tables

There are two ways to build tables:

• in special Wiki-markup (see Help:Table)
• with the usual HTML elements: <table>, <tr>, <td> or <th>.

For the latter, and a discussion on when tables are appropriate, see PESWiki:How to use tables.

Sections and subsection

=Top section=
==New section==
===Subsection=== 
====Sub-subsection==== 

Remember:

• It is preferable to start with a second-level heading (==); Please use use top-level headings sparingly.
• If possible, place subsections in an appropriate order.
• A Table of Contents will automatically be added to an article that has four or more sections.

General

Newlines

 
 A single newline generally has 
 no effect on the layout. These can 
 be used to separate sentences 
 within a paragraph. 

 But an empty line starts a new 
 paragraph. A newline can affect 
 the layout.
 

line breaks

 
 You can break lines<br/> without 
 starting a new paragraph. 
 

Please use this sparingly. Close markup between lines, do not start a link or italics or bold on one line and close it on the next.

Lists

Bullet

 
 * here asterisk "*" 
 ** here asterisk "**" 
 *** here asterisk "***"
 **** here asterisk "****" 
 

An empty line starts a new list.

Numbered

 
#Numbered lists (here number sign "#").
##very organized (here number sign "##").
##easy to follow (here number sign "##").
###easier still (here number sign "###").
 

Definition lists

 
 :;item: item's definition 
 :;another item: other definition 
 

Begin with a semicolon (;). One item per line; a newline can appear before the colon, but using a space before the colon improves parsing.

Mixed sets

 
 * You can even create mixed lists
 *# and nest them
 *#* like this
 *#*; mix definition list as well
 *#*: impressive
 *#*; most impressive
 *#*: it's easy 
 *#*:* a 
 *#*:* b
 *#*:* c
 

Indention

 
:A colon (:) indents the text
 

A colon (:) indents a line or paragraph. A manual newline starts a new paragraph. This is primarily for displayed material, but is also used for discussion on Talk pages.

blockquote

 
 <blockquote>The '''blockquote''' 
 command will indent </blockquote>
 

The blockquote command (<blockquote> </blockquote>) will indent both margins when needed instead of the left margin only as the colon does.

Pre-formatting

IF a line starts with a space THEN
    it will be formatted exactly
        as typed;
    in a fixed-width font;
    lines will not wrap;
END IF

 
 IF a line starts with a space THEN
     it will be formatted exactly
         as typed;
     in a fixed-width font;
     lines will not wrap;
 END IF
 

Pre-formatting a line has a line which starts with a space. Pre-formatting is useful for:

• pasting preformatted text;
• algorithm descriptions;
• program source code;
• ASCII art; and
• chemical structures

WARNING: If you make it wide, you force the whole page to be wide and hence less readable, especially for people who use lower resolutions. Never start ordinary lines with spaces.

Centered text

 
<center>Centered text.</center>
 

Please note the spelling of "center".

Links and URLs

Wikilink

 
[[Congress:Top 100 Technologies -- RD]]
 

A link to another article. Internally, the first letter of the target page is automatically capitalized and spaces are represented as underscores (typing an underscore in the link has the same effect as typing a space, but is not recommended). The link above is to the URL peswiki.com/index.php/Congress:Top_100_Technologies_--_RD, which is the article with the name "Congress:Top 100 Technologies -- RD". See also Peswiki:Canonicalization.

Piped link

 
[[Congress:Top 100 Technologies -- RD|Top 100 tech]]
 

Same target, different name. This is a piped link. The "piped" text must be placed first, then the text that will be displayed second.

Blending

 
[[generator]]s needed
 

Endings are blended into the link. Preferred style is to use this instead of a piped link, if possible. Blending can be suppressed by using tags, which may be desirable in some instances.

Namespace link

 
[[PESWiki:Manual of Style]]
 

Link to a namespace.

Images

Only images that have been uploaded to PESWiki can be used. To upload images, use the upload page. You can find the uploaded image on the image list.

Images

A picture: 
[[Image:PES Logo 95x94.gif]]

Clicking on an image displayed on a page leads to the description page.

Images and alternative text

A picture: 
[[Image:PES Logo 95x94.gif|PES lightning]]

Alternative text, used when a mouse hovers over the image or when the image is not loaded in a text-only browser, or when spoken aloud, is strongly encouraged. See Alternate text for images for help on choosing it. Clicking on an image displayed on a page leads to the description page. Clicking on an image displayed on a page leads to the description page.

Image right floating with caption

What it looks like	What you type
A picture: PES lightning	A picture: [[Image:PES Logo 95x94.gif|frame|PES lightning]]

The frame tag automatically floats the image right. The caption is also used as alternate text. Clicking on an image displayed on a page leads to the description page.

Image right floating without caption

What it looks like	What you type
A picture:	A picture: [[Image:PES Logo 95x94.gif|right|PES lightning]]

The help topic on Extended image syntax explains more options. This picture is resized. Clicking on an image displayed on a page leads to the description page.

Picture pixel resize (ex., 30)

A picture: 
[[Image:PES Logo 95x94.gif|30 px]]

The help topic on Extended image syntax explains more options.

Image name linking direct to description

A picture: 
[[:Image:PES Logo 95x94.gif]]

Text linking direct to image description

A picture: 
[[media:Image:PES Logo 95x94.gif|PES lightning]]

To include links to images shown as links instead of drawn on the page, use a "media" link.

vertical column table wiki markup

 
 Example: 
 {| align=right
 |-
 | 
 Place images here
 |} 

Variables

(See also Help:Variable)

NUMBEROFARTICLES is the number of pages in the main namespace which contain a link and are not a redirect, in other words number of articles, stubs containing a link, and disambiguation pages.

CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN is the genitive (possessive) grammatical form of the month name, as used in some languages; CURRENTMONTHNAME is the nominative (subject) form, as usually seen in English.

In languages where it makes a difference, you can use constructs like {{grammar:case|word}} to convert a word from the nominative case to some other case. For example, {{grammar:genitive|{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}}} means the same as {{CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN}}.

See also

• Help:Bullet format - suggestions for news/directory bullet formating
• Wikipedia:Wikipedia:How to edit a page
• Help:Contents