Wiki Usage Notes

There are many good reasons to set up a wiki; to allow many people to write in the same space about the same subject, with document version history automatically tracked and the results of edits displaying instantly are a couple of compelling reasons. The other positive reason is that writing on a wiki does not require understanding of HTML, or potentially complex layout and formatting systems such as CSS.

Please Note: This document is written assuming a basic familiarity with WikiText on the part of the reader.

Formatting a Wiki Page

While it is true then that one can simply type into the edit box and hit Save, it is also true that a little understanding of WikiText - the language of the Wiki - can aid in producing complex looking documents, with a minimum of technical input.

Tables of Contents and Section Header Usage

One of the simplest things to do on a Wiki page is to create the "Table of Contents" seen at the top of most wiki pages. It's simple because the wiki software does it for you, if you give it a little hint.

The key to this hint is Section Headings, which are created by enclosing a short line of text between equals' signs. The real trick is that different levels of headings can be created by using different numbers of equals' signs and this in turn helps the wiki software to create a nicely formatted table of contents.

My personal style when creating pages on this wiki is to use two equals' signs to create headings for major sections in my article, and three equals' signs to denote a subsection of that major section.

In this way, as one moves linearly down the editing page, a structure of headings will appear; major headings wrapped in pairs of two equals' signs with groups of related headings below wrapped in pairs of three equals' signs, until a new major heading appears, again wrapped in pairs of two equals' signs, and the whole structure begins again. This kind of structuring helps the wiki create a logically formatted contents table, and tends to create easy to follow pages with easy to reference subsections.

Linking to Subsections of Pages

If a page on the wiki is laid out using the section header method described above, it becomes very easy to reference a particular section of the page; one only needs to create a Wiki Link constructed of the page name followed by a hash or pound sign ("#") and then the section name. A formal title for the link can then be applied by typing a vertical bar or pipe symbol ("|") and then the description to be displayed.

For example, to link to the page formatting section above, the WikiLink for this looks like this: [[Usage Notes#Formatting a Wiki Page|page formatting section above]].