How to edit pages
From AnaesthesiaMCQ
How to Edit Development Wiki
| Table of contents |
A Simple Editing Tutorial
Once you learn the basics, you can start on a practice page known as a sandbox. In the Edit BOX that comes up on that page, just start typing some relevant material using your keyboard. This is the same as with any Word Processor. Use the [Enter] (or [Return]) key to enter 'line returns' to separate the text into paragraphs. You will need 2 line returns to make separate paragraphs.
To see what the final version of the text will look like, just press the [Show Preview ] button at the bottom. This does NOT save your text though. To save your changes, click on the [Save page] button.
However, before going to the practice page, have a read through the following sections that cover some of the basics, such as adding in lists, headings and hyperlinks, creating tables and correcting mistakes. When you want to practice what you have learnt, just go the the sandbox.
Basic Editing Skills
The THIRTEEN BASIC EDITING SKILLS you need to get yourself started are:
- Inputting text - this is just typing at the keyboard while in the Edit box
- Bold text - enclose the text in ''' ''' (OR highlight the text and click on the "B" symbol at the top of the Edit box)
- Italic text - enclose the text in '' '' (OR highlight the text and click on the "I" symbol at the top of the Edit box
- Paragraphs - just separate text with TWO line returns
- Dot-point lists - start each line with an *
- Numbered lists - start each line with #
- Headings - just enclose heading in a equal number of = signs (eg == == for a 2nd level heading; === === for a third level heading).
- Adding a line - just start a line with four - symbols (ie ----). This is converted into a separating line after saving. Use this very sparingly.
- Internal Hyperlinks - just enclose the intended link in double square brackets: [[ ]]
- External hyperlinks - just enclose http: address in single square brackets[ ]
- Adding a box around text - just start the line with a space (ie press the spacebar) OR multiple consecutive lines if adding more than one line.
- Indenting lines - just start each line with : (colon symbol) for a single tab, or :: (double colon) for a double trab,..etc)
- Saving your changes - click on the [Save Page] button at the bottom of the Edit box.
A more advanced skill is to create a table - see demo at the end of the page for an introduction to this.
NOTE: Editing in done while in "Edit mode". To enter this mode and bring up the Edit Box, you just click on the Edit tab at the top of the page. Note that this particular page does not have an Edit tab as it has been disabled as users do not need to modify the contents of this tutorial page.
How to add a Dot-point List
To make a list, you just start each line of the list with an asterix. So to make a list of the cities of Australia, you would enter the following in the editing box:
Cities:
* Brisbane
* Sydney
* Melbourne
* Adelaide
* Perth (& so on)
When you press the [Save page] or [Show preview] buttons, the list is set up with a 'dot' replacing each asterix as follows:
Cities:
- Brisbane
- Sydney
- Melbourne
- Adelaide
- Perth (& so on)
How to add in a numbered list
To produce a numbered list, use the hask symbol (#) instead of the asterix. You do NOT add in the numbers yourself; these are automatically generated.
Cities:
# Brisbane
# Sydney
# Melbourne
# Adelaide
# Perth (& so on)
When you press the [Save page] or [Show preview] buttons, the list is set up with a number replacing each # as follows:
Cities:
- Brisbane
- Sydney
- Melbourne
- Adelaide
- Perth (& so on)
Important Note: Do NOT have a line separating the entries as this results in the numbering starting from 1 again.
How to add in Headings
You can add in a Heading by clicking on the large A in the Toolbox at the top of the edit box. The heading will appear where the cursor is located. You need to replace the words "Headline Text" with the title you want. Inspect the code and you will see that the text in the Heading is flanked on the left and on the right by '=='. Click on [Show preview] to see what it looks like. This is a level 2 heading. (The main page title is the level 1 heading.)
To add in lower level headings use more equal signs. For example, use 3 equal signs ( === on both sides of the text) for level 3 headings. Experiment a bit to get familiar with this.
When you have four or more headings then a Table of Contents box will be generated automatically in the final version (as has occurred on this page).
An example of a level 3 heading.
Enter the following in the edit box:
===Level 3===
After saving this is displayed as:
Level 3
An example of a level 4 heading.
Enter the following in the edit box:
====Level 4====
After saving this is displayed as:
Level 4
Depending on how you have set up your preferences, this heading may have some numbering added to it in addition to the text you typed eg 5.1.1
Also check how this is displayed in the "Table of Contents" (TOC) box at the top of the page. The entries in the TOC box also act as bookmarks for the page, so clicking on them will allow you to jump to that place in the text.
With an understanding of this hierarchy of headings you will be better able to organise and structure your comments.
How to add a line
To add a separating line into the text, just start the line with 4 dash characters: ----.
When you save your changes, this is converted into a line:
Adding lines like this is sometimes useful, but is mostly not required. A second level heading automatically has a line under it. So use very sparingly.
How to add Internal Hyperlinks
To add an internal hyperlink just enclose the link in double square brackets as follows:
The hyperlink is the words in the brackets, in this case it is [[halothane]].
When you click on the [Save page] or [Show preview] button at the bottom of the edit page, the above will appear on your page like this:
The hyperlink is the word in the brackets, in this case it is halothane.
When you click on the word halothane above, it will act as an internal hyperlink and you will be taken to that page. It does not matter whether the link page exists or not.
- If the link currently exists, it will appear in a blue or purple colour and clicking it will take you to the page.
- If it doesn't yet exist, the link will appear in a red colour, and clicking it will take you to an edit box and you can start adding in comments to create the page.
To add a new page to the site, you just create the link to the proposed page on an existing page, then click on the link to create the new page.
How to add External Hyperlinks
You can also add links to webpages. You just need to enclose the full http address in a single set of square brackets. The http address does NOT display on the page but is replaced by a number. As the number does not mean anything to a reader, it is considered good practice to ALWAYS include a label next to the link. The label can be on the left or the right-hand side of the http link.
For example, click the [Show Source] button and compare how the following looks on the page and in the Source:
Site Home Page [1] (http://www.AnaesthesiaMCQ.com)
A comon practice is to have a section called 'References' at the bottom of the page and have hyperlinks grouped there with the label on the right hand side. The numbers are automatically generated in sequential order. For example:
[2] (http://www.AnaesthesiaMCQ.com) Home page
[3] (http://www.anaesthesiamcq.com/AcidBaseBook/ABindex.php) Acid-Base Physiology Tutorial
[4] (http://www.anaesthesiamcq.com/FluidBook/index.php) Fluid Physiology Tutorial
Notice how this list starts with the number 2 as number 1 has already been used in the earlier example.
It is also easy to make a piece of text into a hyperlink. This is often better as no number is displayed and the link text can be descriptive.
Now to use one of the previous examples. Say I want to make the text "Acid-Base Physiology Tutorial" show up on the page as a external hyperlink, I would enter the following in the Edit box:
[http://www.anaesthesiamcq.com/AcidBaseBook/ABindex.php Acid-Base Physiology Tutorial]
(Note the structure inside the square brackets: http:// address first, a space, then the descriptive text.)
This would show up on the page as:
Acid-Base Physiology Tutorial (http://www.anaesthesiamcq.com/AcidBaseBook/ABindex.php)
No numbers and the descriptive text is the hyperlink.
How to add a box around text
To do this, just start each line with a space (ie press the spacebar).
For example:
Space at start of this first line
Space at start of line 2
The above line just has a space at the start (which you can't see)
After saving this becomes:
Space at start of this first line Space at start of this line 2 The above line just has a space at the start (which you can't see)
Note that to add a blank line within the box, you just add a space at the start of the blank line. If you don't do this, you end up with 2 boxes of text instead of one:
Space at start of this first line Space at start of this line 2
The above line doesn't have a space at the start so this line is in a new box
How to Indent a line
To do this, just start the line with one or more colon (ie : ) characters. Each extra : indents the line a further tab space.
For example,
: Indented one tab space
becomes (after saving):
- Indented one tab space
:: Indented two tab spaces
becomes (after saving):
- Indented two tab space
Correcting Mistakes
If you find a mistake, just click on the edit tab at the top of the text frame. An edit box will open and you can make the desired changes. Remember though that some pages like the main page, index pages & information pages are protected and cannot be changed by you. There is a [View Source] button so you can look at the page source.
Adding in a Table
Its also quite simple to add in a table. To see how this is done consider the following table, then inspect the code (click the "view source" tag at the top of the page) that produced it. You can vary the no of columns, rows and background colours. The best way to get a handle of this is to experiment with the code on the sandbox practice page.
| title 1 | title 2 | title 3 | title 4 | title 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| row 1-col 1 | row 1-col 2 | row 1-col 3 | row 1-col 4 | row 1-col 5 |
| row 2-col 1 | row 2-col 2 | row 2-col 3 | row 2-col 4 | row 2-col 5 |
| row 3-col 1 | row 3-col 2 | row 3-col 3 | row 3-col 4 | row 3-col 5 |
| row 4-col 1 | row 4-col 2 | row 4-col 3 | row 4-col 4 | row 4-col 5 |
Creating an Index for the page
The top of this page has an Index (ie the "Table of Contents" section). You do not have to create this yourself as it is automatically generated for any page with 4 or more headings.
A Practice Page : the Sandbox
A sandbox (in wiki terminology) is a practice page where you can test you editing skills. Click the link and practice what you have learnt here.
