Help:Formatting

Revision as of 23:10, 28 November 2013 by Johan G (talk | contribs) (Rewritten the page all the way down to the Links heading)
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The basics of editing the wiki will be gone through on this help page. You, the users, can collaboratively edit this wiki and help each other out to extend and improve this wiki.

Typical article layout

Messageboxes
A typical article page could begin with one or more messageboxes telling the reader something about the article, like that it is outdated due to new developments.
Infobox or navbox
The message boxes are often followed by either a infobox about a software, an aircraft etc. or a navbox to help the reader find his way around an article series.
Short summary
An short summary of the article should precede the article text, even before the first heading, preferably containing the title of the article in bold within the first sentence. This summary would help a reader to quickly figure out if he found the page he was looking for, as well as help a him grasp the main concepts of an article a bit faster.
Article text
The article text that follows is preferably broken up in not too long, but not too short sections. Often it would help the reader if there are images and tables to help understand the article text. Sometimes it is a good thing to mark more some important words differently.
Links
Links to related content and to external resources should be put in the end, though in general having the internal links within the article text is preferable.
Navbox
Many pages end with a navbox with for example other aircraft by the same manufacturer.
Language links and categories

All articles should end with one or more categories, who often is preceded by language links.

{{Some messagebox}}
{{Some infobox or navbox}}

A '''generic article layout''' would be something like this.

== Heading ==
Some text...

== Related content ==
* [[Some page]]

== External links ==
* [Some link] Some description

{{Some navbox}}

[[en:Some language link]]

[[Category:Some category]]

Basic text formatting

Wiki editing is a bit different from editing text in a word processor. You will not see what the text will look like until you click the preview button. In order to have the text human editable it uses a markup language that is considerably simpler than the HTML that is used in the resulting web page. This markup is often called wiki markup or wikitext and is the same one as the one used on Wikipedia which uses the same software, MediaWiki.

Bold and italics

Bold and italics are marked using two, three or five apostrophes ' on each side of the text section to be emphasized.

What you type What you get
''Italics''
Italics
'''Bold'''
Bold
'''''Bold italics'''''
Bold italics

A few useful HTML tags

Yes you can use HTML tags in a wiki page. Usually it is not needed, but in a few cases they can be very helpful.

What you type What you get
V<sub>NE</sub>
VNE
ft<sup>2</sup>
ft2
<!-- Comment -->

Apart from the HTML tags there is also some wiki tags, a few of them more useful than the others.

What you type What you get
<nowiki>'''Bold'''</nowiki>
'''Bold'''

Lists and indentation

Lists and numbered lists can be done in wiki markup. Unfortunately numbered lists can not be started from an arbitrary number. Do note that both list and indentation markup must start right at the left margin.

Indentation is usually the way that comments from different users are separated.

What you type What you get
* Item
** Item
*** Item
  • Item
    • Item
      • Item
# Item
# Item
## Item
## Item
### Item
  1. Item
  2. Item
    1. Item
    2. Item
      1. Item
# Item
#* Item
#* Item
# Item
#* Item
  1. Item
    • Item
    • Item
  2. Item
    • Item
;Term
:Definition

;Term:  Definition
Term
Definition
Term
Definition
No indentation
:Indentation
::Indentation

No indentation

Indentation
Indentation


Headings and subheadings

Headings and subheadings are an easy way to improve the organization of an article. If you can see two or more distinct topics being discussed, you can break up the article in sections by inserting headings. There are several heading levels, of which level one is reserved for the page title. Do note that heading markup must start right at the left margin.

If a page has more than four headings a table of contents will be generated automatically. In some cases you might want one even before that. That can be done by adding the magic word __TOC__. In some rare cases you would want to suppress the table of contents generation. That can be done with another magic word, __NOTOC__, though this is most often undesirable.

Having the page broken up in sections will make it easier for the reader to find his way around the page, as well as help him understand the context of the page and how the pieces fits together.

What you type What you get
== Level 2 ==

Level 2

=== Level 3 ===

Level 3

==== Level 4 ====

Level 4

Links

Linking Wiki articles together is very important. These easily created links allow users to access information related to the article they are reading and greatly add to Wiki's utility.

When to link

The easiest way to learn when to link may be to look at Wiki articles for examples.

How to link

If you want to make a link to another Wiki page (called a wiki link) you have to put it in double square brackets, like this:

[[Aircraft]] = Aircraft

If you want the display text of the link to have a different title, you can do so by adding the pipe "|" divider (SHIFT + BACKSLASH on English-layout and other keyboards) followed by the alternative name. For example:

[[Target page|display text]] = display text

You can make a link to a specific section of a page like so:

[[Target page#Target section|display text]] = display text

If you want the display text of the link to appear in italics or bold, nest the double square brackets for the link within the multiple apostrophes that delimit the italicized or bold text, like this:

''[[Main Page]]'' = Main Page

Please check your links to ensure they point to the correct article.

Categories

You can also put the article in a category with others in a related topic. Just type [[Category:]], and put the name of the category between the colon and the brackets.

To make a link to a Category page (for example, as a reference for further research), simply put a colon (:) at the beginning of the "Category" tag, like this:

[[:Category:Aircraft]]

The above code would produce the following:

Category:Aircraft

Redirects

Pages need redirects if:

  • they have abbreviations (eg. HUD redirect to Head-up display).
  • they have symonyms (eg. FlightGear Wizard redirect to FlightGear Launch Control).
  • there are various spellings or common mis-spellings (eg. Flight Gear redirect to FlightGear).

With redirects we can decrease the time people will need to find the article they were looking for. Most people get discouraged if they have to search to a long list of possible results.

To make a redirect, add the following code to an empty page:

#REDIRECT[[Page name]]