Superquick wiki guide

Overview
Wiki is an open content management system (although I do ask you to create a login) which I use to help capture, manage and distribute my teaching content. However, a neat part of the wiki is the ability for all users to participate. On this page I will give you a few tips on how to add content to my wiki while keeping the format consistent. I welcome your contribution in the hope that it will continually improve my content. (Michael)

Getting started
1. Make sure you create a login (so that your IP address isn't recorded)

Your first wiki
Once you have logged in the wiki software creates a link to your special page (everyone else can access it but really it's just for you !!) so we'll use this page to let you play around and learn a little about working with wikis.

2. Click on your user name at the top right (ish) of the screen - it should be red to start with.

.. this will automatically take you into the edit box for a new page.

3. Type in your name.

4. Now enter something about yourself (remember its public so don't write anything you wouldn't want the world to know). Tip: If you want a new paragraph you will need to leave a blank line between them in the edit box.

5. Experiment with the [B] and [I] buttons.

6.finally save the page by clicking on the [Save page] button.

Your new wiki page is now available for the world :)

Editing your wiki page, and adding headings
7. click edit to edit (doh!)

8. Now we will add some headings, so on the first line type

==About me==

9. and at the end of the page

==My interesting links==

10. then type in some urls e.g.

http://www.virtualmv.com/wiki

http://www.wikieducator.org

11. Save the page, to see what you have done.

Linking to another page
12. Now back into edit and on a new line, enter

Test page

OR, you can get MediaWiki to automatically add this to your user page like this...

Test page

13. Save the page. You should now see a red link on your page saying Test page

14. Click on this link and you will be taken to the edit box of your new test page.. easy aye!

Keeping the pages looking standard
15. I have created a template for my pages so if you want to follow this, cut and paste the following to your new wiki page.

16. Change the UserName to your one, then save to see what you have done(Cool aye).

The curly brackets allow me to create special template pages, by putting in your own stuff they can be used to create standard effects (like the objective box)

Quick tips
By clicking on your user id (top of page) you will link to your own page. As this appears at the top of every page it can be used to create your own personal (but public) notes. Use [Ctrl]+[Click] to open in a new tab (or [Shift]+[Click] to open in a new browser). This page can also be used as an index to your own personal wiki!!

Editing
1. Add two round text to create a hyperlink (on save will create a link to the new page that you can edit). Use a colon to separate topics and subtopics e.g. FlashCS3:Intro [[To page  different title

2. Add 2 equal signs == around some text to create a sub-page (allows part of the page to be edited) ==Sub page==

3. Headings of different sizes can be created as ==Sub page== ===Level 2=== ====Level 3==== =====Level 4=====

4. Use * in the front of a line to create an unordered list (bullet). Two stars will indent. * Bullet 1

5. Use # in the front of a line to create an ordered list (numbered).
 * 1) Number 1

6. Have a blank line in between each line to create a new line.

7. Two ' round a word will italicise, and three will bold italicise bold  bold and italic

8. Adding an icon (video, sound or document) video (also sound document)

9. For programming code leave a space at the start of the line This is code

Signing an edit
Something that is useful if you want to leave a message is the -~. This will be replaced by your user name at the time you saved the change. For example: -Mverhaart 09:03, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Linking

 * 1) Hyperlink other web pages, just have full URL (include http) e.g.
 * 2) http://www.virtualmv.com/wiki gives http://www.virtualmv.com/wiki


 * 1) To put linked text, put url and text link between single [, e.g.
 * 2) virtualMV Web Site gives virtualMV Web Site

Examples (and link with description) http://www.webpage.com description

Inserting an image
Before an image can be added to the wiki it must be uploaded to the wiki site. So, look for an image that represents you (make sure its not too large (around 150 x 200 px) - please don't use images that you have copied from the web (to avoid copyright problems).

In order to both keep image sizes down and print properly the MAXIMUM width of any image upload is 595 pixels. Before you upload can you resize your images so they are less than 596 pixels.

There are several ways to add images, however the first "rule" is that the image is available on the internet. Two common techniques to add images are
 * 1) Link from wikicommons or
 * 2) Upload a file (see toolbar on the left) then link to the image

Adding from wikicommons
will appear Change Example.jpg to the filename of the media commons file (cut and paste is easiest)
 * 1) Search for an image at http://commons.wikimedia.org/
 * 2) In the wiki page you want to insert the image, click on the insert image button

Adding your own image
will appear Change Example.jpg to the filename of the File you uploaded (cut and paste is easiest)
 * 1) Upload the image using "Upload File" from the toolbox (left of your screen). I use [Ctrl]+[Click] so that it opens in another browser window.
 * 2) In the wiki page you want to insert the image, click on the insert image button

Some extras

 * To align the image : Example.jpg Example.jpg Example.jpg
 * To change the image size: Example.jpg
 * image aligned right with caption file.png
 * thumbnail file.png
 * 200 pixel wide with tooltip file.png

There's lots more but this is a quick guide :)

(Note: I have found File works better than Image)

New line
Use &lt;br /> for new line in a paragraph (also used to extend a bullet point)

Source code formatting
Source code formatting has been installed in virtualMV wiki you can use (Note I have had to put spaces into the source and div tags to enable them to show in the example)

 there are lots of languages to choose from (e.g. asp,cpp,css,mysql,php,sql,vbnet,xml). Check out http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi for a list.

or getting a bit flasher I have created a template ...  }}

gives


 * You can highlight lines of code using the highlight attribute in the source tag
 * e.g. highlight="5", highlight="5,7,9", highlight="5-9"
 * You can line number using the line start attribute
 * e.g. line start="100"

Basic table (with borders)
You can also use your HTML skills, for example creating a table &lt;table> &lt;tr> &lt;td>Row1,Column1&lt;/td> &lt;td>Row1,Column2&lt;/td> &lt;/tr> .. &lt;/table>

Templates
Media wiki allows you create template pages that can be used where you want to reuse content. You can create dynamic content by using the | to separate the parameters

Adding some boxes
I have added some box templates to make you work a bit flashier!!

 
 * Valid types so far = Objective, Objectives, Note, Notes, KeyPoint, KeyPoints
 * For example:

Adding references (APA style)
In this wiki I have added a references extension

In the text use  e.g.  Then add the following to the bottom of the page  If you want to refer to the same reference more than one use  then for the subsequent refs use  E.g.  then for subsequent ones 

Ref: Extension:Cite/Cite.php. (2009)

To simplify the adding of a references section on each page I have created a wiki template. Add the following template command to the end of your wiki page.

 For example: 

If you want to have the APA page reference at the bottom of the page but there are no references on the page use 