Edit help

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[edit] Editing with Media Wiki

MediaWiki (the software used with Wikipedia and here at Palaeos org) is pretty easy to use.

If you want to alter a page you click the edit tab at the top of the page. You will notice a blank text window and above that a row of blue buttons.

You can type or copy text into the blank section the same as into a word processor.

You can also use standard html tags

The "Sandbox" page has been set up so that people can play around with media wiki markup (the "code") without wreaking any of the official pages.

With the edit screen, the blue buttons cover most of the basic Media Wiki formatting requirements. Some of these buttons aren't even necessary to begin with; only the first five or six (on the left hand side) are necessary to begin with.

• The B makes everything in the selection bold text ('''three apostraphes''' on each side of the selected text)
• The I makes everything in the selection italics (''two apostraphes'' on each side)
• The Ab provides a link to another Wiki page on this site ([[double square brackets]] on each side)
• The little globe and web page provides a link to a page elsewhere on the web (single square bracket on each side, there has to be a space separating the url from the name it is given here)
• The big A creates headline text (==two equal signs== on each side of the selected text).
• The picture icon enables a graphic file to be inserted (double square brackets on each side, then Image: (semicolon) then the name of the image file). Note that graphics have to be uploaded first, that is done by going to the "Upload file" page (listed in the lower left vertical menu, under the search box) and selecting the image you wnat to upload.
• The "W" with the red line through it means ignore wiki formatting. e.g. if you want to mark type species with an asterisk, but not have it appear as a bullet point. The code for this is <nowiki>text here</nowiki>

In addition to the above:

• To draw a cladogram remember that even the top left root clade should be separated from the left margin by a space, that creates a sort of box and ensures monospacing.
• To make a bulleted list use asterixes down the left margin.
• To indent use a semicolon
• two or more asterixes or semicolons provide further indenting
• For different sized headings, two equal signs on each side of the selected text givces the biggest heading, three equal signs on each side is the next smaller, and four equal signs is smaller again.
• to make text appear as superscript, use the html tag . (for those not familiar with html, the text goes between the opening and closing tags)
• for a link to a page with has a different name to the selected text, within the double square brackets, put the page's actual title first, then use the "pipe" symbol (the vertical line "|", usually on the right of the keyboard, above the enter key and below the backspace key) then have the name used in the text after that. So, opening double square brackets, then page title, then "pipe", then linking words on the page you are editing, then closing double square brackets.