Advanced Editing

From Istaria Lexica

Common impressions[edit]

You may or may not have examined some weird code inbetween the texts shown in WikiEditor. Don't be afraid of any you see there. Most is easy understandable once you have read this tutorial, other parts may not even be of interest to you at all. To try out the things you want to learn here, accessing your personal sandbox is very useful. It is a special, safe page for any tryouts. Use it plenty to mess around with your upcoming experiments. Have no fear on damaging stuff.

WikiEditor's views[edit]

File:WikiEditor top tabs.jpg
WikiEditor's editing tabs

The WikiEditor comes with three views, accessible by the tabs ontop of it's window.

  • The Wikitext tab is the edit area where you add and change your article.
  • The Preview tab is a preview area for your changes. It shows the page how it should look like once you commit it.
  • The Changes tab is an overview of the changes you have made since you started. It compares each line to the previous version.

Texting and formatting[edit]

Basic texting is straight forward. You write down your text and format it. Paragraphs are inserted automatically once you start a new line.

Bold, italic, underlined and indents[edit]

Here are some examples to simply format texts.

Note: The lines in <!-- comment --> format are html comments to explain the 'code' for you. These are invisible on previews. Feel free to copy and paste the contents into your personal sandbox and play around for a bit.
<!-- Adding three apostrophes around a text passage makes text look bold. -->
This is normal text, '''until I make it bold!'''

<!-- To create an italic text, add two apostrophes around the text. -->
This is normal text, until I make it ''italic!''

<!-- A both bold and italic text is possible aswell. Simply add five apostrophes around the text -->
This is a '''''bold and italic text.'''''

<!-- Underlined text is done by adding the <u> html tag around text -->
For <u>underlined text</u> you got to add some html tag.

<!-- To indent a line, add one or more colons infront of it -->
This is a normal line.
:This line is indented.
::This line is even more far away.
:::This line is even much more far away.

List up things[edit]

You can use bullet lists or numbered lists.

Note that combining both list types sometimes does not work out too well on the Wiki. Numbered lists will mess up whenever you want to place some additional text inbetween each list point. The numbers may not increment correctly then. You will want to stick to bullet lists alternatively.

<!-- create a bullet list, set an asterisk infront of each entry -->
*First Entry of the list
*Second Entry of the List
*Third Entry of ... and so on ....

<!-- create a sublist in a list with two or more asterisks -->
*I am a Golem
**I am a Stone Golem
***I am a Slate Golem
***I am a Sandstone Golem
**I am a Metal Golem
***I am an Iron Golem
*I am a Spider
**I am a Redbacked Spider
**I am a Shadow Spider

<!-- create a numbered list, set a hash infront of each line -->
#I am a Golem
##I am a Stone Golem
###I am a Slate Golem
###I am a Sandstone Golem

Links to other shiny sites[edit]

Linking is the best practice for having a cool Wiki structure. As an example, whenever you create a page for a creature you would want to describe where it can be found at. You name the location, that could be a city or an area, and set it up as a link and are done. Most of these sites are already available, others are not yet.

Whenever you open the link creation with two brackets ([[) and enter some characters, WikiEditor will search for existing pages and mention them to you. Most of the time you will be able to find an existing page and can auto-complete the link. Don't worry if you don't find a page. The link you create still works and is shown as a 'red link'. Red links signal you and other readers that the page is not yet available. Once you follow that link the page creation dialog shows up. However, don't fear to get burned out by doing too much stuff. Stay at your current site first and finish it. Red links don't need to be done by yourself if you don't want to.

<!-- to create a simple link to a wiki site, use brackets -->
[[The Gifted's guide to the Istaria Lexica Wiki]]

<!-- to create a link with an alternative text, use a pipe -->
[[The Gifted's guide to the Istaria Lexica Wiki|Best guide ever!]]

<!-- links to external sites do not not need any brackets (autolinks) -->
http://istariareference.com

<!-- link with an alternative text is done by adding it with a leading blank -->
[http://www.istariareference.com This is the link text]

<!-- suppress the whole link and add a shortlink -->
Short-link: [http://www.istariareference.com]

<!-- links to category pages need a colon infront, add alternative text as usual -->
[[:Category:Creature]] 
[[:Category:Creature|Alternative Text]]

Messing around with images[edit]

Add a photo[edit]

Adding a photo is done using wiki code. Wow, that might be your first time! It's not that hard. Please read the following line:

[[File:Cedric the Entertainer.jpg]]
  • This code tells the wiki to show a file named 'Cedric the Entertainer.jpg'. The wiki is able to differ between file types and knows this is an image. It will show a standard (re-)sized version of it right in place.
  • The brackets on both, beginning and end tell the wiki that the stuff inbetween is a link to something. That could be a hyperlink or a file or...
  • If you try the above example in your sandbox you'll find that no picture is shown. That happens whenever the linked file does not yet exist. The wiki prints out a red link then (similar to article red links), which leads you to the image upload page. There you're able to upload the file using an assistant.

Formatting a photo[edit]

Sometimes you would like to change how a photo behaves in a site. You are able to add additional parameters to the above example:

<!-- set a width for the image in pixel -->
[[File:Cedric the Entertainer.jpg|200px]]

<!-- set both width and height for the image in pixel -->
[[File:Cedric the Entertainer.jpg|200x100px]]

<!-- tell the image to float on the right side of the text flow-->
[[File:Cedric the Entertainer.jpg|right]]

<!-- the Clr template clears the formatting of floating elements. Use it so your text follows the normal flow again -->
{{Clr}}

<!-- tell the image to float on the center of the text flow-->
[[File:Cedric the Entertainer.jpg|center]]

<!-- show the image as a thumbnail, floting to the right -->
[[File:Cedric the Entertainer.jpg|right|thumb]]

<!-- tell the thumbnail to show a caption for the image -->
[[File:Cedric the Entertainer.jpg|thumb|This is cedric]]

<!-- Set a link to something else than the picture -->
[[File:Cedric the Entertainer.jpg|right|thumb|link=http://www.wikipedia.com]]

Create a gallery[edit]

Read the code below:

<gallery>
File:Icon_quest.png
File:Icon_races.png
File:Icon_skills.png|[[Skills]]
</gallery>

The first two entries show pictures while the last one additionally links to a site. You are able to link the caption text, or to format it with the common wiki code. Incase you did not yet upload the pictures for your gallery, the gallery shows placeholders for each of the missing files. Click on each to open the photo assistant.

Using templates[edit]

Templates are 'predefined code parts' you can use to automatically generate content on your article. There are two main purposes:

  • Unified layout and content for reocurring pages (ex. each creature page needs the same set of information: level, health, class, location, quests, loot, ..)
  • To ease your life in the wiki! You do not need to know the code to use it. You just call it and alot of work is done by not wasting your time (talking about inventing the wheel again, and again, and again...).

Add a single informative template to a page[edit]

The easiest method to learn about templates is to use predefined template pages. Luckily this Wiki has alot of them already. You can seek available templates in the Category:Templates. Most of the time a template page provides you a box of code you can copy and paste to where you need it. Let's try this by copying the code of the Template:Item Summary into your sandbox. On each of the template pages there is a documentation providing you with further information about how to use it. On Template:Item Summary there is even a direct link, opening your sandbox and automatically loading a sample code of the template.

Once you do a preview you'll see the template renders something (probably what it's made for), but there is no information in it yet. Or maybe weird stuff you wouldn't await. To add information on the template, go back to the Wikitext and read the code. You'll see lines ending with an equal sign. Infront of the signs you read some 'names' which may be almost the same than one of the texts shown on preview earlier. The only thing you need to do now is: Write down something behind the equal signs. Go do some trial and error and review your doings, so you get a feeling for the template.

Now let's try another template: Template:Quest. It offers you a little different stuff to fill and does some shiny things behind. Add some city to the 'port=' line. On preview you will examine that the template has linked your text automatically. If it was a valid city (or rather an existing page for the city) you can open it's article page. Again, play around a little bit to get a feeling for that. Try to add some invalid data (non-existant pages) to check what happens then.

Add a new page using the 'New Page Templates'[edit]

Istaria Lexica comes with alot of predefined page templates you should use to create a new page. They are found in Category:New Page Templates. Using these saves alot of time on creating new pages. You do not need to care about any single reference to relevant information. They take over crosslinking for you, extract additional information from existing pages, link/show the gathered data and place necessary categories accordingly. Also the wiki has a significant benefit off that: The article pages look unified in formatting and layout. Good to read, fun to read.

Please find the templates under Category:New Page Templates. Read into one of them for your next wiki adventure. You are able to import these into your sandbox, using the link on the template's description.

Some of the functionality may not work correctly in the sandbox. If you you're still curious feel free to open an existing page and review there. Don't worry about damaging anything. As long as you don't press the 'Save page' button nothing is changed. Even if you did that by mistake you can easily roll back the page through it's history page.

List of useful templates and magic words[edit]

<--! Print out the page's name. This is useful to keep a site dynamic and has it's benefit whenever the page is moved/renamed (may happen when a
     creature's ingame name changes, for example) -->
{{PAGENAME}} is a Golem.
{{PAGENAME}}s are found west of Kion.

<!-- Clearing a defined format behavior. For example if you wanted a text to stop flowing around an image on a certain position. Very useful on images having
     a big height and it's accompanied text is way too short. -->
[[File:Sandbox_template_itemsummary.jpg|thumb|Photo with text flowing to the left]]
This text flows right of the photo.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim 
veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. 
{{Clr}}
This text does not anymore flow around the image.

<!-- Marks a page as to be updated or incomplete, add on top. -->
{{Stub}}

<!-- Mark a page to be a beta content. Useful for information from the Blight shard which has not yet been released to the live shards -->
{{Beta}}

<!-- Mark a page as legacy content. Useful for info of still existing things which cannot be obtained anymore -->
{{Legacy}}

<!-- Mark a page for deletion. Only administrators are able to delete pages. But you are able to mark to be deleted and write a reason for that. Please add
     it to the top of the page -->
{{delete|This page has become obsolete because the quest was removed from the game.}}