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Welcome to the editing help page. This page will describe some of the nuts and bolts of editing pages in SFWiki. Even if you are familiar with editing Wikipedia, there may be some useful information here. Please read on!
Contents |
To get started editing a page, just click the edit button at the top of the page! Of course, please don't delete useful content or add your tests to active pages in the wiki.
To make learning easier, we've designated a special page for trying new things. So, feel free to try any changes or experiments in the Sandbox. Most pages on the wiki are intended to be informative for Bay Area residents and visitors, but the Sandbox is just a place for learning and goofing off.
In addition to editing existing content, there area number of operations that one might wish to perform on a page in the wiki.
Please think carefully before you create a page. As noted below, a normal user cannot remove a page once it is created. The purpose of SFWiki is to provide information about life in the bay area. Any new pages should keep this goal in mind. Profiles of local business are a great asset to the wiki, but we don't want ads. If you do add a page to the wiki, please try to write with a neutral tone.
The most common way to create a page is to create a link to it on another page. This is because if you click on any link in the wiki for which the target doesn't exist, you'll automatically be taken to the edit tab for that page.
Another way to create a page is to change the "page name" part of any exisiting SFWiki URL to the desired page name. For example, I could change the name of the current page from "Wiki_Guide" to "Example_Empty_Page" and my browser would take me to the new page (Try it)! Of course, now that you have an empty page, you need to know how to edit it.
To edit an existing page, click on the edit tab at the top of the page. This will redirect you to a form where you can edit the page. See below for formatting tips.
Many of the pages on SFWiki are categorized. This allows us to generate an index of all the pages in a particular category. To add a page to a particular category, put a category marker at the bottom of the page. A category marker is formatted like an internal link: [[Category:categoryname]]. For example, this page is in the guides category, and has the marker [[Category:guides]] at the bottom of the page.
Every page in SFWiki has an associated "talk page." This page can be reached either by clicking the discussion tab at the top of the page, or by changing the name in the URL from pagename to talk:pagename. The purpose of the talk page is to coordinate changes with other editors of the page.
Renaming a page is a pretty drastic step. Please don't do it unless there is a good reason to do so. Also, it is a good idea to talk to other wiki users about the rename before you make the change (use the talk page). However, if it is necessary to change the name of the page, click on the move tab at the top of the page. This will take you to form that can be used to move the page.
It is not possible for normal users to remove a page.
| Markup | Description |
|---|---|
| [[target page name]] | An internal link that points to another SFWiki page. The target page name can contain spaces, and does not need to currently exist. For example, a link to the main page looks like [[Main Page]]. |
| [URL display text] | An external link. The resulting link points the URL provided, displaying the "display text" in the page in place of the URL. |
| '''bold text''' | Makes the text contained between the marks bold. |
| ''italicized text'' | Two pairs of single quotes italicizes the text contained between the marks. |
| <nowiki>raw text</nowiki> | Leaves the text between the tags completely unformatted. |
| ---- | Inserts a horizontal rule. |
| ==Section Header== | Marks the text as a section header (h2). Use of this marker causes a table of contents to be displayed at the top of the page. |
| ===Section Header=== | Marks the text as a subsection header (h3). Like ==, this marker causes a table of contents to be displayed at the top of the page. |
A template is a preprepared bit of formatting that you can include in any page. One nice thing about templates is that you only have to update the template to update the look everywhere it is referenced. This helps give the site a consistent look and feel.
To invoke the template called "templatename", simply include the text {{templatename}} in your page. This will include the page called Template:templatename in your page.
Including another page is useful, but it is even more useful to be able to pass arguments to the template, and it is possible to do this with mediawiki! To pass an argument, use the format {{templatename|arg1=val1|...|argn=valn}}. If you don't pass a mandatory argument to a template, you might notice strange text showing up in your page. This can sometimes be eleminated by passing a blank argument. For examples, see the templates documented below.
The business template creates a box in the upper right corner of the page that contains a summary of the important information about the business. Its arguments are as follows:
This example is taken from the Wing Lee Bakery page. Go to that page to see what the template looks like! The URL that points to a google map in the address field is a good idea that can be used on other business pages. Also, note that we pass a space as the homepage argument. This causes the homepage field to be left blank (as mentioned above).
{{business|
name = Wing Lee Bakery|
hours = 7 a.m.-7 p.m. daily; |
address = 503 Clement St. (corner of Clement and 6th) San Francisco.|
phone = (415) 668-9481|
homepage = |
map = <gmap> point=(37.782984,-122.464583)|address= 503 Clement St.,San Francisco,Ca </gmap>| }}
The gmap extension is not actually a template, but rather an extension to mediawiki that allows us to include google maps in a page. This is most often used to fill in the map argument for the business template. The syntax is as follows (defaults are show):
<gmap>lat|lon|type = street|height = 250|width = 235|zoom = 3|controls = yes</gmap>
The parameters are defined as follows:
gmaps can now be centered with an address. However, the process is still a bit clunky. The address lookup isn't done until you save the page. If you preview the page, the map won't appear or if it does, it'll be incorrectly centered. If you want to center it manually, this is still possible using the old method. That is, if you click on a gmap in the wiki, the lattitude and longitude of the point you clicked will appear below the map. The old procedure to find the correct lattitude and longitude is to start with something close (the default center is on market street) and to click on the correct location to find the lattitude and longitude.
<gmap>lat=37.782929|lon=-122.464302|controls=no</gmap>
Try clicking on this map to see the lattitude and longitude of your click appear!