Help:Wiki editor's reference
 | This page is a how-to guide detailing a practice or process on the wiki. |
References for advanced users.
Contents
Wikitext
The Wikipedia Cheatsheet contains basic formatting commands. Content is more important than format. If you run into difficulty, please continue to edit and ask for assistance later. The editing toolbar will display help text when the mouse is placed over the icon.
Color
- Font color: <span style="color:brown;">text</span> will display as text
- Background color: <span style="color:white; background-color:gray">text</span> will display as text
The code inside "style=" can be used for tables.
MediaWiki understands color names as well as the hex codes. For example, you can use "WhiteSmoke" instead of "#F5F5F5;".
- Colors for web pages
- Main page phpBB color scheme: Change colors: phpBB Style "Prosilver", from phpBB's [Tool] online style editor (100+ styles)
- (Tango Icon Theme Guidelines (deprecated, use phpBB theme)
Formatting text
Some text formats use HTML elements; such as bold (<b>), underline (<u>), superscript (<sup>), and subscript (<sub>). These tags will function even if raw HTML is disabled (see below).
Images
- Images, How to size and frame images
- Force text to relocate after an image: <br style="clear: both" /> From MediaWiki image page.
Interwiki links
Interwiki links are links to pages of other wikis, using the wiki's built-in internal link style. There are quite a number of existing links already available, such as Wikipedia, Wikibooks, and Wikinews. For a short list, please see Manual:Interwiki (entered as [[mw: Manual:Interwiki | Manual:Interwiki]]).
- [[acronym:ETF]] goes to: acronym:ETF, which can be reformatted to show as " ETF" - very useful when placed in context.
- [[google: investing]] results in a Google search for "investing." (google: investing)
- [[Wikipedia:John C. Bogle|Jack Bogle]] goes to: Jack Bogle
The Bogleheads' wiki is also customized to provide an interwiki link to our sister Canadian wiki, finiki. For example, enter [[finiki: RRSP]] to go to: RRSP.
Links
You can use a bare protocol, without the https: or http:, so that [//www.bogleheads.org/forum Bogleheads forum] displays as Bogleheads forum.
Math
Parameters, parsing
- Magic Words
- Parser Functions, how to process parameters passed to templates
Tables
- The basics: Tables
- Comprehensive: WikiTable Markup Guide, lots of examples to do just about anything
- Use excel2wiki to create tables directly from a spreadsheet.
This website is run by Wikimedia Tool Labs, the organization which oversees Wikipedia.
Templates
- Transclusion, the key to it all
- Help:Templates, simple example to get started
- Help:Template, covers parameters, substitution, parsing
- Template Substitution, how it works, when you should use it, (more importantly) when you should not use it.
- Advanced Templates, parameter passing
HTML
- HTML Element, attributes, such as <div>, <span>, <img>, and [b], [i]
- HTML scripting
- Cascaded Style Sheets, reference doc (Standard from W3C) for many HTML items
- XML and HTML Character References
- Want to know how to generate a non-break space, ± < > λ and about 252 more? Use this reference.
- Web Building Tutorials
- Tutorials with lots of examples to practice on live. HTML, CSS, XML, JavaScript, ASP, SQL, and more.
Raw HTML
Use of raw HTML is currently permitted in this wiki. To use HTML, wrap <html></html> tags around the code. HTML is very useful in some situations, such as embedding a YouTube.com video. Please use wikitext in-lieu of HTML where possible, as HTML may be disabled at a later time if security concerns arise.
How to embed YouTube.com video in the wiki:
- Add <html> first.
- Go to YouTube and copy-n-paste the video <embed> code into the next line.
- Add </html> last.
- Select "Show preview" to confirm everything works, enter a "Summary" to document what you did, "Save page" when done.
Working YouTube.com example:
- <html>
- <object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/x8_LVRyuclc?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/x8_LVRyuclc?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>
- </html>
MediaWiki
Admin
Namespaces
Page cache (refreshing)
Sometimes, the MediaWiki engine may fail to rebuild a page. The result is that the change appears to have no effect, despite the user reloading the page from their browser. This is not a normal occurrence. Updating a Google widget[1], such as Google Document may result in this problem.
The user needs to force a cache purge. Append "?action=purge"[2] to the URL of the page in question.
Special pages
- Special:Version - Installed MediaWiki software and extensions
- Special Page Help
Special:Allpages
The Special:Allpages works by displaying all categories starting with a character or phrase.
- {{Special:Allpages/Category:Main Page}} will display all categories starting with Main Page and go to the end
- {{Special:Allpages/Category:V}} will display all categories starting with V and go to the end
- {{Special:Allpages/Category:W}} will display all categories starting with V and go to the end
Widgets
Google Widgets are available.
- Google Spreadsheet - for embedding spreadsheets
- Google Document - for embedding documents
- Google Form - for embedding spreadsheet forms
- Google Presentation - for embedding presentations
Portals
Design guidelines used to create the former Main Page portal.
Wikipedia portal listings
- Portal Directory
- Portal list by category
- Featured Portals, highly rated
Main page candidates
The Main Page was based on a mixture of these portals:
References
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