Help:Editing
From NOTE Wiki
"Wikis" are designed to be a collaborative project, editable by anyone with access to them. NOTE Wiki uses the MediaWiki software, making editing easy and at your fingertips.
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How do I start?
Before you can make changes to a pages, you have to know how to view the source code of the page.
Editing an existing page
Every page on the server is displayed in the standard NOTE Wiki frame; this frame includes a list of tabs: Article, Discussion, Edit, History, Move, and Watch. To edit the page you are viewing, click the Edit tab. This will bring up a text field displaying everything contained in the article.
Anything you type into the edit field will instantly appear on the page as soon as you click on the "Save page" button below the edit field. (Note: some browsers may require you to refresh the page before changes appear.)
An html-savvy user will notice that the edit field can be reached by replacing "/PAGENAME" in the URL with "?title=PAGENAME&action=edit". This method is not recommended, as it does not allow you to view the page before making changes.
Creating a new page
There are three ways to create a new page:
- Navigating to a page which does not exist by way of a wikilink (see below) will automatically direct you to the edit field for that page. Just type away and save your changes.
- Navigating to a page which does not exist by typing the URL into your browser will return a message that the page does not exist; clicking the Edit tab or on the "edit this page" link will bring up the edit field.
- Searching for a page which does not exist will return a message that no pages match your search requirements; you can refine your search, or you can create the page with the "create this page" link.
Edit window
The edit window has a number of features designed to make editing easier. Above the edit field is a toolbar for formatting; for a complete discussion of these and other formatting techniques, see Help:Syntax.
Below the edit field are three buttons:
- "Save page" will save the changes you have made to the edit field; they will immediately be displayed on the page.
- "Show preview" will show you what the current rendering of the edit field (including any changes you have made) looks like. It will not save your changes, but the edit field (along with the normal buttons) will still be usable below the preview.
- "Show changes" will show you the changes made to the edit field since you started editing. As with the preview button, it will not save your changes.
Above these buttons you will see three options. "Watch this page" will add the page to your watchlist. "This is a minor edit" will mark the edit with an "m" in the recent changes log. The summary box allows you to include a brief description of your edits. Using the summary box is highly recommended for ease of viewing, both for you and other editors. (See History below.)
Fineries of editing
Although a basic understanding of the above allows any user to edit the pages on this wiki, MediaWiki software has a number of powerful options to make editing easier and more flexible.
Edit section
Pages broken up into sections (see Help:Syntax) can be edited section by section. To edit a particular section of a page, instead of clicking the edit tab, click the "[edit]" link next to the section header.
Editing a section will allow you to change only the things which appear in that section. The contents of that section will appear in the edit field. You can change the section heading, but cannot change other sections or change its position in the overall article.
This is helpful for a particularly long article, as well as for making History pages easier to read.
History page
Every page has a History of all versions of the page to date. When a page is edited, the previous version is saved by the server so that it may be viewed later.
To view the history of a page, click the History tab at the top of the page. Clicking on a date will show you the version of the page as of that date. Selecting two dates by the bullet selection and clicking "compare selected versions" will show you the difference, in wiki-syntax, between the two version.
IMPORTANT: Editing a previous version of an article is possible, but it will undo all changes made since that version.
Protected pages
Some pages are "protected" and can only be edited by sysops. If you would like a protected page edited, suggest the changes on its talk page and notify a sysop.
Note: You can still view the source code of a protected page in the edit field even though you cannot edit it. To do so click the "view source" tab (which replaces the Edit tab on protected pages).
Talk pages
- See Help:Talk
