Help:Editing

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Revision as of 18:01, 5 May 2011 by Voxphoto (talk | contribs) (Lists: moved some "tricky" code to the editing reference page)
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Basics

Most Camera-wiki.org pages have an "Edit" link in a tab at the top of the page. Click this, and the page contents will be shown in a text-editing box, along with many additional symbols and punctuation marks. These are the page markup codes used by our MediaWiki software to format different page elements in the desired way.

Tool buttons

A page-editing window has the following ribbon of tool buttons above it. These are shortcuts to insert formatting code for you—so you don't need to memorize the code or worry about making mistakes.

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When you click one of these buttons, you'll see code (multiple quotation marks, etc.) appear at the insertion point. All these marks have a specific meaning, interpreted by the MediaWiki software to display the finished page as you intend. We will explain some of this "wiki markup" below.

Let's start with just the first five buttons. From the left:

  1. B —Bold text
  2. I —Italic text
  3. Ab —Link to another wiki page
  4. [Globe] —Link to an external web page
  5. A —Headline of an article section

Some simple wiki markup

  • '''bold''' (three single quotation marks before and after the text) adds boldface: bold
  • ''italic'' (two single quotation marks before and after) italicizes: italic

Linking

A simple link to a page outside camera-wiki.org (an external link) is created by [http://www.address-so-and-so.com Title_of_page] and appears as Title_of_page. Note the format: URL, space, title. (Do not use the pipe | character, mentioned below.)

Within the main text of an article, it is better to minimize external links. (External links are usually put at the end of an article, whether in a footnote or in a list.)

By contrast, links inside camera-wiki.org may be added freely. Such a link is easy to make: it's the exact title of the article linked to, in double square brackets: [[Article]].

A link inside camera-wiki.org but with link text different from the title of the linked article: [[Article | other text]]. Note the vertical line, called a "pipe" — you'll find this at the far right of your keyboard.

An article title can be made plural (or otherwise extended) by adding the desired suffix outside the closing brackets: [[lens]]es renders lenses.

If you'd like to link to a category, you can do so by prefixing "Category" with a colon: [[:Category:lens makers|lens makers]] renders lens makers.

Section headings

  • A named section begins with a headline enclosed in two double equal signs (==)
  • When an article has more than three section headings, the wiki software will automatically create a table of contents towards the top of the page
  • Further structuring of a camera-wiki article is possible by sub-headlines enclosed in two triple or quadruple equal signs (===, ====)

Other useful markup

Special characters

Sometimes your text may need an unusual character not found on your keyboard. The following are some common examples, which you can type or paste into into your article to display the desired character.

Note that the ampersand (&) at the beginning and the semicolon (;) at the end are part of the code: Both must be included.

  •   creates a non-breaking space, one that will not break over two lines; useful if (for example) you don't want the A to be separated from the Ikonta in Ikonta A.
  • ¼, ½ and ¾ give the fractions ¼, ½, and ¾
  • × gives the typographically-correct multiplication symbol, in for example 6×9 cm.

Lists

  • simple list: A simple list is a text block with several lines, each with a solid blue dot at the start—a 'bullet list'. simply type each line beginning with an asterisk symbol (*) followed by a space before the text:
* Cameras
* Lenses
* Tripods

gives this:

  • Cameras
  • Lenses
  • Tripods

If you use hash characters (#) instead of asterisks, you get a numbered list instead.

# Cameras
# Lenses
# Tripods

gives this:

  1. Cameras
  2. Lenses
  3. Tripods

Tables

see Help:Editing Tables

Pictures

We strongly encourage use of Camera-wiki.org's Flickr image template. This is inserted into the text by clicking the rightmost button on the toolbar above the edit window (the one whose icon resembles a photograph). Our help page on adding images explains in detail how to include images in a wiki page.

Categorizing your page

Indexing a page with categories helps visitors find other, related pages. To learn how to do this, please see our help page about categories.

Notes

You can include footnotes in your text. These are particularly handy for acknowledging the sources of your information, wthout interrupting the flow of your article. Footnotes can also be used as an alternative to parentheses for comments aside from the main theme of the text. To use footnotes, you must include a section at the bottom, where you want the footnotes to appear:


==Notes==

<references />


You can vary the heading, what level of heading you use, and where this appears; but the references tag must be as shown.

The footnote text is entered at the point in the text from which you want to reference it.

The second rangefinder model of the Agifold was introduced in 1955<ref>Some sources say 1954.</ref>. It has a redesigned top housing.

The article text will show

"The second rangefinder model of the Agifold was introduced in 1955[1]. It has a redesigned top housing."

For certain standard reference works the wiki has set up template "shortcuts." Here's an example of that:

The second rangefinder model of the Agifold was introduced in 1955<ref>{{McKeown12}}, pg. 41</ref>. It has a redesigned top housing.

This displays as,

"The second rangefinder model of the Agifold was introduced in 1955[2]. It has a redesigned top housing."

At the bottom of the page, these two notes produce,

Notes

  1. Some sources say 1954.
  2. McKeown, James M. and Joan C. McKeown's Price Guide to Antique and Classic Cameras, 12th Edition, 2005-2006. USA, Centennial Photo Service, 2004. ISBN 0-931838-40-1 (hardcover). ISBN 0-931838-41-X (softcover)., pg. 41

Other tips

  • When writing for Camera-wiki.org, keep in mind our quality standards.
  • If you want to prevent the interpretation of what you write as markup commands, you can use the <nowiki></nowiki> tags. Anything between these tags will be displayed just as it is typed.
  • If you know an article you have begun needs much more information than you can soon provide, then add {{stub}} to it (including the double curly brackets). This flags it for other editors.

Further reading