Help:Tutorial

From UBC Wiki

Thanks for using the UBC Wiki! This page provides a very brief overview of the UBC Wiki. Please also check out Help:Contents for all help and support documentation.

New to Wikis?

Check out this intro to 'wikis in plain English'

Editing An Existing Page

To edit an existing page, you simply click on the edit tab on the top of that page. Yep, it's as simple as that. Please note that you might have to sign in with your CWL before you can see the link.

See also: Help:Editing and Help:Formatting

Step 1: Starting A New Page

Starting a new page is super easy, too. The easiest way is to type the full title of the page you are starting into the search box on the left and click Go. This would take you to the No page title matches page and you should see a create this page link.

If you are creating a new page for a specific course, be sure to add it to the Course space by prefixing your page title with Course:. For example, to start a page for the course ABD123, you should actually search for Course:ABCD123.

See also: Help:Starting_a_new_page

Putting Your Content Into the Proper Space

Any new pages you add should go into the proper area. The UBC wiki is organized into different spaces to accommodate different needs:

  • The root of the wiki is open space reserved for articles relating to UBC. It is primarily a community area for knowledge sharing about all aspects of the University.
  • Course-based content or activities should be added to the Course space. See Using the UBC Wiki for Course Work for more information.
  • The Sandbox serves as a personal or collaborative workspace.
  • Finally, there is a Documentation space, for documentation, support and other similar content.

See also: Help:Namespaces for information on how to add your page to these spaces.

Step 2: Formatting & Headings

Basic formatting is quite simple, especially with the use of the tool bar.

  1. Type your text.
  2. Italicize or bold by highlighting the text and clicking on the appropriate button, which will put two and three apostrophes respectively around the appropriate text. You can even combine them to make bold and italicized text.

For more options and tips on formatting, check out Help:Formatting.

Headings

You want to organize your text using different levels of headings like any other document. On a new line, select the appropriate heading level (it's under Advanced on the toolbar) and fill in your text. The more equal signs, the lower level the heading. For example, "Headings" has 3 = signs on either side on a line of its own.

Notice that by the time you get to 5 equal signs it look more or less just like bold. The difference is that headers will automatically show up in the table of contents.

For more on headers, take a look at Help:Formatting#Headers_.26_Lines.

Step 3: Links & Images

Links

Links can be either internal (to another wiki page) or external (to another webpage). If you use the toolbar, place your cursor where you want the link inserted and type all appropriate text in the box (as opposed to highlighting it).

  • Internal Links: uses the format [[wiki page name|optional display name]] (capitalization sensitive).
  • External Links: links will automatically link to the page, but if you want it to link some words use the format [link description], for example[http://www.ubc.ca UBC Homepage], which gives UBC Hompage.

For more on links, see Help:Links

Images

To add an image, click on the "embed file" or use [[Image:image name.ext]]. To resize, you can add "|200px" (for example to change the width to 200 pixels) after the image name to resize the image. You can also center the image by adding "|center" before the close bracket.

For more options and information, read over Help:Adding_Media, which includes adding other types of media.

Step 4: Categorize

Add your page to one or more appropriate categories. At the bottom of your page, add your page to a category using the format [[Category:category name]]. Each category will be listed at the bottom of the page.

For example, you should see "UBC Wiki" at the bottom of this page. You can also view the category page which shows you all the pages in that category. Categories help you organize and pool your pages together without having to keeping a list.


You can also make subcategories! See Help:Categories for more on categories.

Step 5: Save!

Finally, add a quick note in the "Summary:" box to let people know what you did, and save!

At any time, if you just want a preview, you can use the preview button instead. You can also undo your change, by going to the "history" tab and clicking on "undo" to undo all the revisions up to that point.

Rename/Move/Delete a Page

You can also rename a page by moving it (using the move tab at the top). If you would like to delete a page, you may mark it for deletion by putting {{Delete}} at the top of the wiki page and the Wiki Administrator will delete it for you.


Other Resources