WikiTextFormattingRules

PublicReengineering Wiki

When you click on Edit this Page in the navigation area at the bottom of any WikiWeb page you are brought into a text editor for editing the page contents. The text you type into this editor must conform to the following WikiTextFormattingRules.

It is important to understand that the edit text format is intended to be as simple as possible. It is not meant to be WYSIWYG. It is meant to be easy to understand and quick to use so that form does not take precedence over contents.

General

Most text that you type is just word wrapped and appears as you enter it. A number of simple formatting options are available: 

   Blank lines create new paragraphs. 
   _text_ gives italics.
   *text* gives bold.
   --- or more dashes inserts a horizontal separator.

You can create indented paragraphs and list using multiples of 3 spaces or the TAB key as follows. Note that in some browsers Ctrl-I can be used in place of a TAB. 

   <3 spaces>* gives a list item.
   <3 spaces>9 (or any number) gives a numbered list item.
   <6 spaces>* gives an indented list.

Note that when you save a page, TAB characters are automatically converted to multiple spaces.

HTML tags

In addition to all this you should find that most HTML tags will work as expected. However, you are not encouraged to make your pages too pretty. Remember, it is the content that matters and the text for your page must remain easy for others to edit.

Internal Links

You can create an internal link to another page in this web simply by typing a WikiName. If the linked page does not yet exist then it will be displayed followed by a ?. Click on the ? to define and edit the new page.

Links to other Wiki Webs

It is possible to create inter-WikiWeb links that link to a page in another web running of the same server. You can use the following form to do this: 

%foo:bar%

This will link to the page called bar in the web called foo.

External Links

There are a variety of way to create external links. 

http://   is linked automagically. 
https://  is linked automagically. 
news://   is linked automagically. 
ftp://    is linked automagically. 
gopher:// is linked automagically. 
mailto:   is linked automagically.

Links to .jpg, .jpeg and .gif files are treated as images to be displayed within the page itself.

External Link References

Sometimes it is useful to be able to link to external pages without the full URL appearing inline in the text. To do this you can create a numerical reference by placing [nn] as a place marker for the link. Then, somewhere else in the document (usually at the bottom), define the link using [nn: some full URL]. For example:

You may like to visit the Object Arts[1] site.

You can see how this is defined by editing the text of this page.

Related pages: WikiBeginnersTopics
This page last edited on 4 December 1998
 
 
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