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Help page

This is the quick help page for Wiki.

What is this ?

This section of the site is a wiki, a kind of collaborative website, running the Zwiki wiki software.

Wikis try to make it as simple as possible to write and share useful content, using intuitive page naming and text formatting conventions. Wikis are usually (but not always) wide open and assume a cooperating community. Anyone can edit, add comments, and make new pages on the spot. It is often possible to upload files and pictures and get email notifications as well.

Basic features

Each page in a wiki has a unique name, most often a WikiName - two or more capitalized words joined together. Free-form names - any word or phrase enclosed in brackets - may also be used here. Wiki page names which appear in text automatically link to that page. Click "backlinks" or the page title or use the "b" access key to see which pages link to this one.

Page hierarchy

The wiki keeps pages in a hierarchy, like an outliner, which helps to organize large amounts of content.

see the overall wiki outline, by clicking "contents" or using the "c" access key
see a page's subtopics, if any, linked just below the main text
go to the next page, the previous page, or up, using the "n", "p", and "u" access keys
reparent the current page to move it (with subtopics) to a new place in the hierarchy, using the backlinks screen or the page management form at the bottom of the page

Subscribing

Using the "subscribe" link, you can subscribe to receive comments (or all edits) by email. You can subscribe to individual pages, or to the whole wiki.

Click "subscribe"
if needed, enter your email address and click "Change"
click the button to toggle your page or wiki subscription status

If the site administrator has configured it, subscribers may also send comments by mail. Just reply to a mail from the wiki, or send mail to the wiki's mail-in address. Your mail will go to the page named in brackets in the subject (or to a default page).

Editing

You will be able to create, edit, rename, or reparent any page. Tips:

Add a comment using the form at the bottom of the page. Note this may be received by many subscribers - to avoid this, use the SandBox page for tests.
Click "edit" to change the page's text. You may also be able to rename the page. It's useful to enter a short "change note" as well.
When you write a wiki page name in wiki text, it automatically forms a link to that page (remember, free-form names, i.e., names to pages which contain spaces, must be enclosed in square brackets).
If the named page does not yet exist, a ? link will appear; click that when you are ready to create it.

Formatting rules

When you save a page, Zwiki formats and links your text according to some standard markup rules. Different rules are applied depending on the page type; they are described at ZWiki:TextFormattingRules. Here is a quick primer for ZWiki:StructuredText (but zwikis increasingly use ZWiki:RestructuredText which has some differences..).

non-blank lines are run together to form a paragraph; paragraphs are separated by blank lines
a one-line "paragraph" followed by a more-indented paragraph makes a heading. Tip: you need only indent the first line.
a paragraph beginning with - or a number followed by a space makes a bullet or numbered list item; a more-indented list item starts a sub-list
short text enclosed in *...* , **...** , _..._ or '...' is italic, bold, underlined or monospaced respectively
WikiNames, [Free-form name]s enclosed in brackets , http://bare/urls , and !Structured Text links are made into hyperlinks
short text enclosed in single quotes is quoted, ie displayed in monospace font and protected from some of the above formatting. For reliable quoting of a body of text, indent it after a paragraph ending with a double colon :
```
       Like this (edit this page to see source).
       This is the surest way to prevent WikiLinks, <HTML tags> and &dtml-tags;
        and preserve
         fixed-width formatting.
```
don't worry about learning all the rules and their interactions - just mimic the text around you; when it does something unexpected, try some tweaks; go to the docs or ask for help when you get really stuck or curious about why it's doing something.

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