Part 1.0 - Creating and Editing Pages

Author

David Parkin

Overview⌘

• Overview of MediaWiki
• Basic Editing
• More Advanced Editing
• Customizing your MediaWiki
• Templates
• Categories and Namespaces
• Images and Files
• Extensions
• User Groups and Rights

Introduction ⌘

Wikipedia was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on 15th January 2001.

wiki means quick in Hawaiian, hence Wikipedia.

MediaWiki is an open-source wiki engine that was developed originally for Wikipedia.

It is now used by thousands of wikis around the world and is by far the most popular wiki software.

Navigating to your wiki ⌘

To open up your wiki, open up a web browser and go to localhost/MyWiki

This will take you to an empty installation of MediaWiki

Creating a Page ⌘

Search for the name of a page, and click 'create page'

The red text indicates that the page does not yet exist. clicking on a link with red text will take you to a create page.

Edit a Page ⌘

Click the edit button to make changes to a page.

You can rename a page by clicking the arrow and then move.

Basic Formatting - Headings⌘

Level 2 heading:

== Section title ==

Level 3 heading:

=== Subsection title ===

There are 5 levels of headings, although level 1 shoudn't be used within a page.

Basic Formatting - Spacing⌘

MediaWiki ignores single newlines

line 1
line 2

Will be interpreted as

line 1 line 2

We can create a newline either by leaving a line between each new line, or inserting the newline tag <br />

Basic Formatting - Text⌘

Bold and italic:

Unfortunately, italic text is often not as clear on the Web, so many editors use bold face.

Unfortunately, ''italic'' text is often not as clear on the Web, so many editors use '''bold''' face.

You can indent text

like

this

You can indent text
:like
::this

Basic Formatting - Lists⌘

Create numbered list with bulleted list inside:

Bullet points

*bullet1
*bullet2

Numbered List

#listitem1
#listitem2

We can create a second/nth level list by using ## or ** or *#

Create numbered list with bulleted list inside:

1. Numbered list item
2. Numbered list item
   • Bulleted list item
   • Bulleted list item
3. Numbered list item

# Numbered list item
# Numbered list item
#* Bulleted list item
#* Bulleted list item
# Numbered list item

Definitons⌘

Term

Definition

SEO

Search Engine Optimization

Linux

Free open source operating system

;Term
:Definition

;SEO
:Search Engine Optimization

;Linux
:Free open source operating system

Links⌘

You can put links to other parts of the wiki on a page, and also links to external sites.

An internal link Creating and Editing Pages

[[Creating and Editing Pages]]

An External link www.google.co.uk

[http://www.google.co.uk www.google.co.uk]

If you wish to rename the link

[http://www.google.co.uk google]
[[Creating and Editing Pages|other page]]

other page

google

Tables⌘

This is the example table, using the wiki editor create table.

Header text	Header text	Header text
Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-

! Header text !! Header text !! Header text
|-
| Example || Example || Example
|-
| Example || Example || Example
|-
| Example || Example || Example
|}

Tables⌘

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Header text !! Header text !! Header text
|-
| Example 
| Example 
| Example
|-
| Example 
| Example 
| Example
|-
| Example 
| Example 
| Example
|}

These are different ways of drawing the same table

Tables⌘

We can add styling to cells using html/css

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Header text !! Header text !! Header text
|-
| Example || Example || Example
|-
| Example || Example || Example
|-
| colspan="2" style="border:2px solid black;" | Example 
| Example
|}

Header text	Header text	Header text
Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example
Example		Example

Using HTML⌘

You can use html tags within wiki, although there not necessary. Not all tags are included however, e.g. <a> tag is not available for links, <img> is also not avaiable.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:HTML_in_wikitext

Embedding a Page⌘

You can transclude a page, essential add the exact contents of page: {{:Images and Files}}

Exercise ⌘

• Create a page.
• Add some text, try bold and italic.
• Create a list with numbers bullets and indents.
• Create a table with coloured border and styled text.

Exercise ⌘

• Create a page called "Cheese"
• Add an introductory paragraph.
• Create a table of cheeses by country

Cheese
English	stilton	hard
	cheddar	hard
	bree	soft