Help:Contents

Here you will find some very basic help to help you get started... It's not that hard really once you get the hang of it.

More Information and Getting Started

Consult the User's Guide for information on using the wiki software and How to Edit for information on how to edit pages.

I would really suggest reading the pages on Editing Pages and Creating a New Page

Once you are logged in, at the top of any editable page you will find a selection of tabs, that allow you to (depending on your rights) Discussion/Edit/View source/History of any page.

These are basically your tools to allow you to write and manage your pages.

Writing an page is really easy. The rule is.. don't worry about all the difficult things like formatting or links to start with, someone can always come in and sort these out for you... as the Wiki help says

The number one rule of wiki editing, is to be bold. Dive in and make changes. Other people can correct mistakes later, so have confidence, and give it a try! There can be all kinds of editing conventions, rules, and philosophy governing the editing of wiki pages, but the "be bold" rule overrides these!

Although I said, don't worry about formatting, there are a few things that are useful to remember If you want to create a heading use the '=' sign twice before and after the heading... this actually makes it look a bit like a heading anyway.

NOTE: Although it is possible please do NOT use the top level heading with one = as this is reserved for the main title of a page

e.g

== Test Heading ==
A new paragraph of text...
The more = signs you add the smaller the heading becomes
==== A smaller heading ====
With some more text

Will look like this

Test Heading

A new paragraph of text... The more = signs you add the smaller the heading becomes

A smaller heading

With some more text

Links

The wiki thrives on links, links are easy, here is how to make them

Internal links

To link to internal pages or reference words in this site just put two square brackets around the word you would like to link, like this

Here you will find links to [[glass]] and other stuff

This will look like this

Here you will find links to glass and other stuff

External links

If you want to show the whole url just type the whole thing in as a link. like this

http://www.example.com

the above example will look like this...

http://www.example.com

But if you want to make the link have some different text from the url then use a single set of square brackets around the link and after the url leave a space, then add the text you want displayed for the link. Like this

[http://www.example.com Go to example.com]

The above example will look like this...

Go to example.com

More info

Each page actually has two parts to it.. the Main content, that people see as the page, and a discussion where you can discuss what should go there this is a really useful section.

Anyway, please don't be afraid to write anything... you can NEVER completely destroy anything, as all edits can be undone if necessary.

One final thing... While getting used to things I suggest using the "Show preview" button rather than committing (Saving) every edit you make, as it is easy to make a mistake, and although all mistakes can be corrected, it just adds to the editing history, and makes it messy !!

Anyway, just get in there and start writing.

Sandpit

There's a Sandpit for those not sure how to play with/edit a wiki. Go there and have a go if you want to have a play, but are scared you might mess up the wiki ;o) (but don't worry... you can't, anything you might muck up can be undone!)