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Welcome to the Starter's Help Page
Editing a Wiki can seem fairly daunting at first. Even if you are confident with the knowledge you wish to contribute, the actual editing can be a little scary. This starter help is intended as a compliment to our Tutorial and Beginners guide, linked to below.
If you are having difficulty, try the tutorial, then read the beginners guide, then come back to here.
Other Help
Sandbox
There is a special area called "the sand box" where you can go to try out try these instructions without fear of doing any damage to the site.
There are two ways to get to a sandbox:
- If you just want to play click here to go to the sandbox. This is a public space and you will lose what you put in here quickly, as other people come to practise.
- If you are clear you want to contribute you may register with the site. Click on "create an account" on the top right hand corner of this page.
- Here is where you sign up. This is free and easy to do. With the account comes your own user name, user page and your own sandbox. In your own sandbox, things you add will be kept for longer, as others are unlikely to edit it. Once signed up you can get to your sandbox by typing in:
- http://www.wikia.com/wiki/User:Yourusername:sandbox
Just towards the top left hand corner of the page is a link which says "edit" click this and wait for the edit page to load.
Note the editing space inside the boxed outline and the line of buttons, with pictures and letters, above and the "Save page" buttons below the frame. You sometimes have to scroll down to the latter if you are working on a small screen.
In the box highlight any existing text and delete. You are now ready to start.
To Edit a page
Type a few lines of text, as though they were the beginning of an article, in the box.
Save your work by clicking the "save page" button below the editing box.
If you want to preview your editing before saving the page, click the "Show preview" button. This will show you what the page will look like before it is saved. More advanced users still use the preview button to preview complex changes they may have made. It is a good way to spot mistakes.
Once you have finished previewing, you can save the page.
Its so simple. You will see that you have now edited the page.
To create a new page
Now, to create a page linked to this bit of text, choose the "edit" tab again. Highlight a significant word in you text – any word will do - and click on the "Ab" button in the row of buttons . This puts two brackets around your word. This makes a new page and a link to it on the page you are editing. To see this click the "save" page button and you will see that the word is underlined. Click on it and it will take you to the edit box on a new page.
To make a link to a Wikipedia article
In your sand box.
- Click on "edit this page" and wait for it to load.
- Type out the name of a link, (or cut and paste the link name from the address box at the top of a wikipedia article, or cut and paste from the example below). Remember to include the http:// bit.
e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness
This is the link to the Happiness page in Wikipedia.
- Because we want to hide the link and give it a usable name like – wikipedia happiness page -we add that name to the end, after a space like so
e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness wikipedia happiness page
- Highlight from - http to page- and then click on the "globe" button to make the link.
- To see how the link works click on it. It should take you to the happiness page. Enjoy it. Use the back button to return to the sandbox.
After reading Starter Help you should be able to...
- Edit text.
- Open a new page.
- Make an internal wiki link to that new page.
- Make an external link to web-based material.
Want to Learn More?
Try our Intermediate help
Alternatively try:
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