Help:WikitextTutorial

From WikiBone

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Text formatting 2.1 Italics 2.2 Boldface 2.3 Boldface Italics 3 Block formatting 3.1 Bullet lists 3.2 Numbered lists 3.3 Indentation 3.4 Article sections 4 Linking 4.1 Internal links 4.2 External links 5 Using HTML 5.1 Text formatting 5.2 Block formatting 5.3 Comments 6 Using templates 7 Where to learn more 8 Related articles

Introduction

Wikitext is the the text mark-up language used to format WikiBone articles. At first glance Wikitext can appear rather intimidating to people who are accustomed to formatting documents in a word processor by selecting a block of text with their mouse and then choosing a formatting option from a menu. Articles that exploit some of Wikitext's more advanced formatting capabilities can look particularly intimidating to newcomers, who sometimes described them as hieroglyphics. Despite these obstacles, the essential elements of Wikitext that most people use most of the time are really quite simple. This tutorial is designed to help you see the trees through the forest.

Wikitext allows you to control the appearance of an article by using certain keyboard characters in your the text in "magic" ways. The Wikitext capabilities with which all authors should be familiar can be divided into three basic categories: text formatting deals with the appearance of the text itself (italics, boldface, etc); block formatting deals with the arrangement of blocks of text (sections, subsections, paragraphs, etc.) and other elements (images, tables, etc.) within the page; linking deals with embedding hypertext links to other resources within WikiBone or on other web sites. You may also use a limited number of basic HTML tags to further control the formatting of your articles.

WikiBone requires that all articles contain certain standard components, so you must also understand how to use templates to embed these components in your articles using the standard WikiBone templates.

Text formatting

The "magic" character that serves as the workhorse for text formatting in Wikitext is the apostrophe ( ' ), also known as a single quote. A sequence of two or more adjacent apostrophes has special meaning in Wikitext.

Italics

To display text in italics, precede and follow it with two adjacent apostrophes:

Wikitext:	You ''must'' remember one thing...
Display:	You must remember one thing...

Be sure to use two apostrophes ( ' ' ) and not a quotation mark ( " ). If you need to use an apostrophe at the beginning or end of the italicized text, that's okay:

Wikitext:	'''Twas the Night before Chistmas'' was written in 1822.
Display:	'Twas the Night before Chistmas was written in 1822.

Boldface

Boldface works much like italics. To display text in boldface, precede and follow it with three adjacent apostrophes:

Wikitext:	You '''must''' remember one thing...
Display:	You must remember one thing...

As with italics, if you need to use an apostrophe at the beginning or end of the boldface text, that's okay:

Wikitext:	''''Twas the Night before Christmas''' was written in 1822.
Display:	'Twas the Night before Chistmas was written in 1822.

Boldface Italics

The same principle applies. To display text in both boldface and italics, precede and follow it with five adjacent apostrophes:

Wikitext:	You '''''must''''' remember one thing...
Display:	You must remember one thing...

As before, if you need to use an apostrophe at the beginning or end of the italicized boldface text, that's okay:

Wikitext:	''''''Twas the Night before Christmas''''' was written in 1822.
Display:	'Twas the Night before Christmas was written in 1822.

Block formatting

Block formatting is the process of organizing blocks of information within your article for display. A block of information might be a simple paragraph, an indented paragraph, a bulleted or numbered list, an image, or a table. This section describes the basic Wikitext facilites used to format text blocks.

Bullet lists

A bullet list is a simple way to organize information and present it in a visually interesting way. You may create items in a bullet list by using an asterisk ( * ) as the "magic" character at the beginning of each line:

Wikitext:	* a quart of milk * a dozen eggs * a loaf of bread
Display:	a quart of milk a dozen eggs a loaf of bread

Bullet lists may be nested by using more than one asterisk for each level of nesting:

Wikitext:	* This is level one. ** This is level two. ** This is still level two. *** Now we're at level three. ** Back to level two. * And back to level one again.
Display:	This is level one. This is level two. This is still level two. Now we're at level three. Back to level two. And back to level one again.

Numbered lists

Sometimes a numbered list is more appropriate than a bullet list. You may create a numbered list by using a pound sign ( # ) as the "magic" character at the beginning of each line:

Wikitext:	# a quart of milk # a dozen eggs # a loaf of bread
Display:	a quart of milk a dozen eggs a loaf of bread

Like bullet lists, numbered lists may also be nested:

Wikitext:	# This is level one. ## This is level two. ## This is still level two. ### Now we're at level three. ## Back to level two. # And back to level one again.
Display:	This is level one. This is level two. This is still level two. Now we're at level three. Back to level two. And back to level one again.

Indentation

Sometimes you want to make the structure of the information in your article more apparent through the use of indentation. Material presented in this way looks much like a bullet list without the bullets, and is created in much the same way. To indent text us a colon ( : ) as the "magic" character at the beginning of the line just as you would an asterisk when creating a bullet list:

Wikitext:	This is our baseline, no indentation. : This line is indented one tab stop. : So is this one. :: This line is indented two tab stops. : Back to one tab stop. : And back to our baseline.
Display:	This is our baseline, no indentation. This line is indented one tab stop. So is this one. This line is indented two tab stops. Back to one tab stop. And back to our baseline.

Article sections

Two or more adjecent equal signs ( = ) are used as the "magic" characters that identifiy sections within an artice. To divide your article into sections, precede and follow each section title with two adjacent equal signs:

Wikitext:	==Section Heading==
Display:	Section Heading

The sections of an article may be subdivided into subsection, which themselves my be further subdivided into additional subsections. To add subsections to your article, add an extra equal sign on each side of the section heading for each level of nesting. The deeper the nesting of a subsections within an article, the smaller the font used to display the section title:

Wikitext:	==Section Heading== Here's some text that introduces the section. It's a good idea to provide an overview of the section in the first paragraph of the section. === Subsection === Article sections may be subdivided into multiple subsections. You may subdivide them further if you wish by using additional equal signs in your section headings for each subsequent level of nesting. ==== A sub-subsection ==== Add the contents of this subdivision here... ==== Another sub-subsection ==== Add the contents of this subdivision here... ==== Yet another sub-subsection ==== Add the contents of this subdivision here...
Display:	Section Heading Here's some text that introduces the section. It's a good idea to provide an overview of the section in the first paragraph of the section. Subsection Article sections may be subdivided into multiple subsections. You may subdivide them further if you wish by using additional equal signs in your section headings for each subsequent level of nesting. A sub-subsection Add the contents of this subdivision here... Another sub-subsection Add the contents of this subdivision here... Yet another sub-subsection Add the contents of this subdivision here...

Linking

Articles should contain links to as many sources of other information as possible. These may be embedded in the body of the article, listed at the end of the article, or both. There are two types of links; internal links are links to other WikiBone articles, while external links are links to pages that reside on other web sites. Links contain two data items; the link reference contains either a namespace designation for a WikiBone article or the URL for a page on another web site, and the link text contains the text that will be highlighted and on which the reader may click to follow the link.

Internal links

Links to other WikiBone articles are constructed from five components:

• a pair of left brackets ( [ [ ) which denote the beginning of an internal link;

• the namespace reference for the article to which you wish to link;

• a vertical bar ( | ) character that separates the link reference from the link text;

• the link text on which the user may click to view the linked page;

• a pair of right brackets ( ] ] ) which denote the end of an internal link.

For example:

Wikitext:	[[ WikiBone:About | About WikiBone ]]
Display:	About WikiBone

A few blank spaces have been used in the example above to separate the individual components of the link and make them easily distinguishable. In practice this white space is often omitted:

Wikitext:	[[WikiBone:About|About WikiBone]]
Display:	About WikiBone

External links

Links to pages on other web sites are very similar to internal links and are are constructed from five components:

• a left bracket ( [ ) that denote the beginning of an external link;

• the URL for the page to which you wish to link;

• blank space that separates the link reference from the link text;

• the link text on which the user may click to view the linked page;

• a right bracket ( ] ] ) that denote the end of an internal link.

For example:

Wikitext:	[http://www.tromboneforum.org/ The Trombone Forum]
Display:	The Trombone Forum

Note that, unlike internal links, no whitespace is permitted between the the double brackets that begin the link and the URL for the external web page.

Using HTML

This section is not intended as a general tutorial in HTML, but rather as a guide for those who are already familiar with a few basic HTML tags. Some (but not all) HTML tags may be used to extend Wikitext's capabilites; a few of the more useful ones are discussed in this section.

Text formatting

In addition to the native Wikitext facilities described above to format text, you may also use certain HTML tags to perform additional text formatting tasks. The more common of these are described by example below:

Wikitext:	You may use HTML tags to <u>underline</u> or <strike>overstrike</strike> text, to display it <font color="red">in color</font>, or to force <br> line breaks <br> to occur where you want them to.
Display:	You may use HTML tags to underline or overstrike text, to display it in color, or to force line breaks to occur where you want them to.

Block formatting

In addition to the native Wikitext facilities described above to format blocks of text, you may also use certain HTML tags to perform additional block formatting tasks. The more common of these are described by example below:

Wikitext:	<p> This paragraph is aligned left. </p> <p><center> This paragraph is centered. </center></p> <p align=right> This paragraph is aligned right. </p>
Display:	This paragraph is aligned left. This paragraph is centered. This paragraph is aligned right.

Comments

It's sometimes a good idea to embed notes to yourself or other developers inside an article without displaying them to readers. You may do this using HTML comment delimiters:

Wikitext:	You may embed undisplayed comments <!-- like this one --> within the text of your article.
Display:	You may embed undisplayed comments within the text of your article.

Using templates

A template is a special type of Wikitext document that may be embedded by reference in other documents. WikiBone provides a collection of templates that perform useful services for authors. Some of these templates contain fixed text, such as the disclaimers that appear on many WikiBone pages. To use such a template in your document, precede its name with a pair of left braces ( { { ) and follow it with a pair of right braces ( } } ):

Wikitext:	{{Copyright}}
Display:	Copyright © 2006. All rights reserved.

Other templates act like forms that contain "blanks" which must be "filled" in when the template is used in an article. This information with which these blanks will be filled are referred to as parameters. Templates which use parameters are used in the same way as templates that contain fixed text, except that the template name is follwed by a vertical bar ( | ) and a value for each parameter the template uses.

For example, the DevNote template is used to highlight inline developers notes within an article. It uses one parameter, which contains the text of a developer's note:

Wikitext:	There are 2,963 individual parts {{DevNote|Is this true?}} in a typical Thayer valve.
Display:	There are 2,963 individual parts [ DevNote:  Is this true? ] in a typical Thayer valve.

Where to learn more

Aside from a page of Wikitext examples, very little Wikitext documentation has been written that is oriented toward beginners. The Wikibone technical reference manual contains an index of documents available on the net that describe a wide variety of Wikitext functionality in great, gory detail.

Unfortunately, most of this documentation was written by geeks for geeks, is hightly technical in nature, and can be something of a challenge for non-technical users to read and use effectively. Nevertheless, these documents are the best references currently available, and with perseverance you should be able to use them to answer any remaining questions you might have about Wikitext.

Related articles

• Wikitext examples
• WikiBone technical reference manual