Editing File:Noluck.jpg (section)

= Using Mediawiki =

[[File:MediaWiki_logo_without_tagline.png|right]]

''Mediawiki is the underlying software of Wikipedia. It is robust, supported by a large community and supports hundreds of useful extensions.''

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== Progressive uses ==

* Basic site with pages and categories
** You just need to know a few things for your wiki to be as useful as most Web sites
* Add widgets for more interactivity
* Wiki gardening to reorganize content
* Add semantic classes for reusable data
* Guide users of the site
** Viewer
** Casual editor
** Advanced editor, gardener
** Semantic coder

== Creating pages ==

* How to name pages
** One topic per page
* Short, avoid special symbols, use sentence type capitalization, avoid Title Case unless appropriate
* Code and matching brackets

=== Basic markup ===

[[File:Sky_Clouds_13.jpg|right|400px|A picture of clouds with the sun poking through in case people start to panic]]

''Rather than using a rich text editor, Mediawiki uses a progressively learned set of markup, that's designed to be human-readable, consistent and enforces meaning over appearance. It's not dependant on special programs, and could be carved into a park bench and retain its meaning.''

* <nowiki>''Italic'', '''Bold'''</nowiki>
* <nowiki>* List heading level one</nowiki> — use # for numbered list
** <nowiki>** List level two</nowiki> — ## for numbered list
*** ...
* <nowiki>=Heading one=</nowiki>
** <nowiki>==Heading two==</nowiki>
*** ...

* <nowiki>[[Mypage]]</nowiki> — A wiki link
** "Red links" are links to pages that don't exist
** <nowiki>[[File:Mypicture.png]]</nowiki> — Media (inline or link)
*** A shortcut to creating images is to create the File: link first, then follow the red link to the upload form
** <nowiki>[[Mypage|This is my page]]</nowiki> Alternate link text (using pipe symbol)
* <nowiki>[http://theirsite.com]</nowiki> — A non-wiki link
** Use a space after the link to use your own link text. <nowiki>[http://theirsite.com Their site]</nowiki>.

* <nowiki>{{My Template}}</nowiki> — A template (reusable content, function or variable)
** Don't Repeat Yourself
** Pipe symbol is used to pass parameters — <nowiki>{{Show Something|Something}}</nowiki>
* <nowiki>{{ #geocode: Montréal, Quebec}}</nowiki> — Template function, in this case geocode turns a place name into geographic coordinates
* <nowiki>{{{1}}}</nowiki> — SMW variable, in this case the first value passed to a template

* Finding pages
* Starting new pages
* Proactive linking
** Brainstorm using links

{{Practice|Create a new page that's a unique generally recognized placename, include a link to another page and another site.}}

* Categories
** Subcategories

{{Practice|Put your page in a category, put that category in a sub-category}}

* Uploading images and files

* Moving pages
** Moving preserves the original link, can be useful for "also known as"

{{Practice|Move your page to a more specific location (Placename, Region), observe [[Special:RecentChanges]]}}
{{Bonus practice|Add an image, place it on the right and include a caption.}}

* Deleting pages

* Templates - used for consistently reused content

=== Making pages look good ===

''CSS is the style system of Web pages and can also be used in Mediawiki. Like wiki markup, learning can be progressive.''

[http://www.placeography.org/index.php/Main_Page Placeography] | [http://genozymes-ge3ls.ca/wiki/Bioenergy Biofuel Visions]

* Re-using CSS styling <nowiki><div style="background: orange">Hello world</div></nowiki>
** Avoid losing meaning (don't use <nowiki><big></nowiki> for headers), keep it simple
* Re-using styles [[MediaWiki:Common.css]]
* Possible to hide MW's menus and change the 'skin'

{{Practice|Add <nowiki><div class="noticebox">...</div></nowiki> to some page content}}

{{Bonus practice|Move your div to a reusable template}}