Help:Editing
Cunnan is a WikiWiki, meaning that anyone can easily edit any article and have those changes posted immediately. This page is the reference for Wiki markup. You may also want to learn about:
- How to start a page
- General policies in Cunnan:Policies and guidelines
- Cunnan:Naming conventions for how to name articles themselves
It's very easy to edit a Wiki page. Simply click on the "Edit" link at the top or bottom of a Wiki page to change the page itself, or click on "Discussion" link and then on "Edit this page" to write on the corresponding talk page. This will bring you to a page with a text box containing the editable text of that Wiki page.
Then type away, write a short Edit summary on the small field below the edit-box and when finished press "Save page"! You can also preview your changes before saving if you like. Depending on your system, pressing Enter while the edit box is not active (there is no typing cursor in it) may have the same effect as pressing Save.
Please use a neutral point of view.
It is often more convenient to copy and paste the text first into your favorite text editor, edit and spell check there, and then paste back into the browser to preview. This way, you can also keep a local backup copy of the pages you authored so that you can make changes offline.
Minor edits
When editing a page, a logged-in user has the option of flagging the edit as a "minor edit". When to use this is somewhat a matter of personal preference. The rule of thumb is that an edit of a page that is spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearranging of text should be flagged as a "minor edit". A major edit is basically something that makes the entry worth relooking at for somebody who wants to watch the article rather closely, so any "real" change, even if it is a single word. This feature is important, because users can choose to hide minor edits in their view of the Recent Changes page, to keep the volume of edits down to a manageable level.
The reason for not allowing a user who is not logged in to mark an edit as minor is that vandalism may be marked as a minor edit, in which case it may stay unnoticed longer. This limitation is another reason to log in.
The wiki markup
In the left column of the table below, you can see what effects are possible. In the right column, you can see how those effects were achieved. In other words, to make text look like it looks in the left column, type it in the format you see in the right column.
You may want to keep this page open in a separate browser window for reference. If you want to try out things without danger of doing any harm, you can do so in the Sandbox.
Sections, paragraphs, lists and lines
| What it looks like | What you type |
|---|---|
|
Start your sections with header lines: New sectionSubsectionSub-subsection |
== New section == === Subsection === ==== Sub-subsection ==== |
|
A single newline has no effect on the layout. These can be used to separate sentences within a paragraph. This aids editing and improves the diff function.
|
A single newline has no effect on the layout. These can be used to separate sentences within a paragraph. This aids editing and improves the ''diff'' function. But an empty line starts a new paragraph. |
| You can break lines without starting a new paragraph. |
You can break lines<br> without starting a new paragraph. |
|
* Lists are easy to do: ** start every line with a star ** more stars means deeper levels |
|
# Numbered lists are also good ## Very organized ## easy to follow |
|
* You can even do mixed lists *# and nest them *#* like this |
|
; Definition list : list of definitions ; item : the item's definition |
A manual newline starts a new paragraph. This is, however, considered bad practice. |
:A colon indents a line or paragraph. A manual newline starts a new paragraph. |
IF a line starts with a space THEN
it will be formatted exactly
as typed;
in a fixed-width font;
lines won't wrap;
ENDIF
this is useful for:
* pasting preformatted text;
* algorithm descriptions;
* program source code
* ascii art;
WARNING If you make it wide, you force the whole page to be wide and hence less readable. Never start ordinary lines with spaces. |
IF a line starts with a space THEN
it will be formatted exactly
as typed;
in a fixed-width font;
lines won't wrap;
ENDIF
this is useful for:
* pasting preformatted text;
* algorithm descriptions;
* program source code
* ascii art; |
<center>Centered text.</center> |
|
| A horizontal dividing line: above
and below. |
A horizontal dividing line: above ---- and below. |
Links, URLs, images
| What it looks like | What you type |
|---|---|
London has good public transport.
Thus the link above is to http://www.cunnan.org/wiki/Public_transport, which is the article with the name "Public transport". |
London has good [[public transport]]. |
| Same target, different name: answers. | Same target, different name: [[cunnan FAQ|answers]] |
| Endings are blended into the link: testing, genes |
Endings are blended into the link: [[test]]ing, [[gene]]s |
|
Automatically hide stuff in parentheses: kingdom. Automatically hide namespace: Village Pump. The server fills in the part after the | when you save the page. |
Automatically hide stuff in parentheses: [[kingdom (biology)|]].
Automatically hide namespace: [[Cunnan:Village Pump|]]. |
| When adding a comment to a Talk page,
you should sign it. You can do this by adding three tildes for your user name: or four for user name plus date/time:
|
When adding a comment to a Talk page, you should sign it. You can do this by adding three tildes for your user name: : ~~~ or four for user name plus date/time: : ~~~~ |
| The weather in London is a page that doesn't
exist yet.
|
[[The weather in London]] is a page that doesn't exist yet. |
|
Redirect one article title to another by putting text like this in its first line. Note that there must be no text following this, or the redirect may not work. See Help:How to use redirect pages for more. |
#REDIRECT [[United States]] |
|
For a special way to link to the article on the same subject in another language, see Cunnan:Interlanguage links. |
|
| External link: Nupedia | External link: [http://www.nupedia.com Nupedia] |
| Or just give the URL: http://www.nupedia.com. | Or just give the URL: http://www.nupedia.com. |
A picture: 
|
A picture: [[Image:Wiki.png]] or, with alternate text (strongly encouraged) [[Image:Wiki.png|Cunnan - The Free Encyclopedia]] Browsers render alternate text when not displaying an image -- for example, when the image isn't loaded, or in a text-only browser, or when spoken aloud. See Alternate text for images for help on choosing alternate text. |
|
Clicking on an uploaded image displays a description page, which you can also link directly to: Image:Wiki.png |
[[:Image:Wiki.png]] |
|
To include links to non-image uploads such as sounds, or to images shown as links instead of drawn on the page, use a "media" link. |
[[media:Sg_mrob.ogg|Sound]] [[media:Tornado.jpg|Image of a Tornado]] |
|
To link to books, you can use Cunnan:ISBN links. ISBN 0123456789X |
ISBN 0123456789X |
Character formatting
| What it looks like | What you type |
|---|---|
|
Emphasize, strongly, very strongly.
|
''Emphasize'', '''strongly''', '''''very strongly'''''. |
|
You can also write italic and bold if the desired effect is a specific font style rather than emphasis, as in mathematical formulae:
|
You can also write <i>italic</i> and <b>bold</b> if the desired effect is a specific font style rather than emphasis, as in mathematical formulas: :<b>F</b> = <i>m</i><b>a</b> |
| A typewriter font for technical terms. | A typewriter font for <tt>technical terms</tt>. |
| You can use small text for captions. | You can use <small>small text</small> for captions. |
| You can and underline new material. |
You can <strike>strike out deleted material</strike> and <u>underline new material</u>. |
|
Umlauts and accents: (See cunnan:Special characters) |
À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ Ç È É Ê Ë Ì Í Î Ï Ñ Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö Ø Ù Ú Û Ü ß à á â ã ä å æ ç è é ê ë ì í î ï ñ ò ó ô œ õ ö ø ù ú û ü ÿ |
|
Punctuation: |
¿ ¡ « » § ¶ † ‡ • — |
|
Commercial symbols: |
™ © ® ¢ € ¥ £ ¤ |
| Subscript: x2 Superscript: x2 or x²
ε0 = 8.85 × 10−12 C² / J m. |
Subscript: x<sub>2</sub> Superscript: x<sup>2</sup> or x² ε<sub>0</sub> = 8.85 × 10<sup>−12</sup> C² / J m. |
| Greek characters: α β γ δ ε ζ |
α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ρ σ ς τ υ φ χ ψ ω Γ Δ Θ Λ Ξ Π Σ Φ Ψ Ω |
|
Math characters: |
∫ ∑ ∏ √ − ± ∞ ≈ ∝ ≡ ≠ ≤ ≥ → × · ÷ ∂ ′ ″ ∇ ‰ ° ∴ ℵ ø ∈ ∉ ∩ ∪ ⊂ ⊃ ⊆ ⊇ ¬ ∧ ∨ ∃ ∀ ⇒ ⇔ → ↔ |
x2 ≥ 0 true.
|
<i>x</i><sup>2</sup> ≥ 0 true. |
|
Suppressing interpretation of markup:
|
<nowiki>Link → (<i>to</i>) the [[Cunnan FAQ]]</nowiki> |
|
Commenting page source:
|
<!-- comment here --> |
Tables
HTML tables can be quite useful as well. For details on how to use them and discussion about when they are appropriate, see Cunnan:How to use tables.
