Help:Editing

Editing a wiki is easy. You really just have to jump in and start.

The following materials are copied from Central wiki help pages. You may use the links below to go directly to editing tutorials in the Central wiki; but you will have to use the back button of your browser to return to this Dyslexia wiki help page. http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Tutorial_2 http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Introduction#Formatting

You can edit articles right now!

Editing
Like all wikis, you can edit any non-protected page. Your changes will be visible immediately. Just click the "edit" link that appears at the top of every page.

Explain your edit in the "Summary" box between the edit window and the save and preview buttons. eg: "typo" or "added info on xyz".

Use the show preview button to check your edit and get the formatting right before saving. Remember to save your preview before moving on.

If you are logged in, you can mark an edit as minor by checking the This is a minor edit box to let people know your edit is not something substantive.

To try editing, open a new window and go to the Sandbox (which is an editing test area), and then click the "edit" link. Add something and click save.

Pages that start with '"User"' are personal pages. It's considered polite to ask before doing major edits to these pages.

Formatting
Most text formatting is usually done with wiki markup, so you don't have to learn HTML.

Bold and italics
Bold and italics are added by surrounding a word or phrase with multiple apostrophes ('):


 *  italics  is rendered as italics. (2 apostrophes on either side)
 *  bold  is rendered as bold. (3 apostrophes on either side)
 *  bolded italics  is rendered as bolded italics.

Headings and subheadings
Headings and subheadings are an easy way to improve the organization of an article. If you can see two or more distinct topics being discussed, you can break up your article by inserting a heading for each section.

Headings can be created like this:
 *  ==Top level heading==  (2 equals signs)
 *  ===Subheading===  (3 equals signs)
 *  ====Another level down====  (4 equals signs)
 *  =====Another level down=====  (5 equals signs)

If an article has at least three headings, a table of contents (TOC) will be automatically generated. Try creating some headings in the sandbox and see the effect on the TOC.

Indenting
To indent text, place a colon (:) at the beginning of a line. The more colons you put, the further indented the text will be. A newline (pressing Enter or Return) marks the end of the indented paragraph.

For example: This is aligned all the way to the left.</tt>
 *  : This is indented slightly.</tt>
 *  :: This is indented more.</tt>

is shown as: This is aligned all the way to the left.
 * This is indented slightly.
 * This is indented more.

Bullet points
To insert a bullet, use an asterisk (*</tt>). Similar to rectal indentation, more asterisks in front of a paragraph means more indentation.

A brief example:
 *  * First list item</tt>
 *  * Second list item</tt>
 *  ** Sub-list item under second</tt>
 *  * Isn't this fun?</tt>

Which is shown as:
 * First list item
 * Second list item
 * Sub-list item under second
 * Isn't this fun?

Numbered lists
You can also create numbered lists. For this, use the number sign or hash symbol (#</tt>). Using more #</tt>s will affect the level of indenting.

Example:
 *  # First item</tt>
 *  # Second item</tt>
 *  ## Sub-item under second item</tt>
 *  # Third item</tt>

Shows up as:
 * First item
 * Second item
 * Sub-item under second item
 * Third item

Links
Links are important on wikis to help readers navigate your site.

Internal links
You can extensively cross-reference wiki pages using internal links. You can add links to existing titles, and also to titles you think ought to exist in future.

To make a link to another page on the same wiki, just put the title in double square brackets.

For example, if you want to make a link to, say, the Wikia page, it would be:
 *  Wikia </tt>

If you want to use words other than the article title as the text of the link, you can add an alternative name by adding after the pipe "|" divider (SHIFT + BACKSLASH on English-layout and other keyboards).

For example, if you wanted to make a link to Dyslexia, but wanted it to say "main page" you would write it as such:
 * View the main page ...</tt>

It would appear as:
 * View the main page...

Redirects
To redirect automatically from one page to another, type #REDIRECT and then put in brackets the name of the page to be redirected to.

For example, you could redirect from "Cats" to "Cat". That way, anyone typing either version in the search box will automatically go to "Cat".

Wiki variables and templates
Use to see the current Wikia. For instance,   on this site prints out as .

That and a few other templates are common to MediaWiki sites.

Check the current list of all templates specific to wikia.

You can create templates. After you create the page Template:XXX, using the command  will include that content in your current page. So, if you have something that needs to be included on many other pages, you might want to use a template.

Most templates available on this Central Wikia can be used on individual wikia with just "wikia:" prefixed to the name. See Help:Shared templates.

Discussion pages
Discussion or "talk" pages are for communicating with other Wikians.

To discuss any page, go to that page and then click the "discussion" tab at the top of the page. Add a new comment at the end, or below the comment you are replying to.

Sign your comments by typing <tt> ~ </tt> to insert your username and a timestamp.

Use indenting to format your discussion. Standard practice is to indent your reply one level deeper than the comment you are replying to.

Experiment by editing the talk page of the sandbox.

User talk pages
Everyone has a user talk page, on which other people can leave public messages. If someone has left you a message, you will see a note saying "You have new messages", with a link to your user talk page.

You can reply on the user talk page of the person you're replying to or on your own talk page beneath the original message. If you reply on their talk page, they will receive notification of it.