Editing

From Brain.aacnwiki.org

Background Information

Nearly all pages in brain.aacnwiki.org can be edited by BRAIN members once they have logged in Before one may log in, an account must be created. Please contact Dean Beebe or Rob Davis to request account creation. Everyone on the web can see all pages, so please be professional in your edits. Also, don't get too attached to your words, as other BRAIN members may very well change them. That's the heart and soul of brain.aacnwiki.org, and how it continues to grow and evolve. If you have questions about whether content is appropriate to post, please consult the BRAIN and brain.aacnwiki.org rules and terms of use.

Creating a New Page

BRAIN members can add new pages of study materials, such as study schedules, written exam notes, etcetera. New pages can be written entirely from scratch within brain.aacnwiki.org or you can cut and paste text from word processing software. Be aware that most word-processing software uses hidden "smart" codes (e.g., apostrophes that curve left or right, bold or italicized text, autoformatted bullets or lists, tables, images, line justification) that do not translate seamlessly into the wiki formatting. Ultimately, the final text will need to be written in Wiki metatext, so you should read the section on that below. For now, we’ll focus on the process of creating a new page.

Here are two of several ways to create a new page:

1. Option 1: Go to the search box in the left-hand menu and type in the name you want to call your new page
   1. Hit the Go (not Search) button.
   2. Assuming that this really is a new page, you will be told that the page was not found. Click Create This Page. This will automatically launch your new page and an edit window in which you can paste or write text.
   3. Once you are done editing (or periodically as you go), hit the Save Page button.
   4. Create a link to your new page from an older page. This is easiest if you have a second window open with the page you’re trying to have link to yours.
      1. Highlight the entire web address for your saved new page (the address in the box at the top of your browser that starts with http://brain.aacnwiki.org/ ...)
      2. Hit ctrl-C to copy that address to your computer's clipboard
      3. Go over to the old page that you want to have link to yours
      4. Click the Edit tab on that old page to open the editing window.
      5. Find the place you want to insert your link and hit ctrl-V. This will paste in your new page’s web address.
      6. Add one space, and then type the text that you want to use to refer to the new page.
      7. Finally, enclose the web address and related text in square brackets.
      8. For example, typing

         The final step is to  [http://brain.aacnwiki.org/Step_10_Regaining_Your_Life regain your life]

         will look like this: The final step is to regain your life
2. Option 2: Insert the link in an old page before you create the new one (Warning: for some reason, this stopped working in August 2009). Within the old page:
   1. click the edit tab to open the editing window.
   2. find the place you want to insert your link
   3. create the link. Within square brackets, type the full web address for the new web page, followed by a space and then the text you want to use to refer to the new page. For example, typing

      The final step is to  [http://brain.aacnwiki.org/Step_10_Regaining_Your_Life regain your life]

      will look like this: The final step is to regain your life
   4. The link should be listed in red if the new page doesn't yet exist. Once you click the new link, though, it will open the new page for you to Create or Edit.

You may find other ways to do this on various wiki support sites, but be aware that not all of these seem to work with brain.aacnwiki.org.

Editing A Page

Click the Edit tab at the top of the page or to the right of each new section. This will open an editing box, in which you can make your changes. Whenever you are editing, it is a good idea to hit the Preview page button towards the button to see how your edits will look. That way, you can make additional changes as needed before you hit Save page.

You’ll notice that the editing box is written in Wiki markup, which is a bit different from what you’re used to seeing. You’ll need to use Wiki markup, too, as you edit the page. Below are some of the most common markup features. You can also select one of the following for examples:

• Sample Page the Way It Looks On Screen
• Sample Page the Way It Looks in Wiki Markup

Please note that the preferred style for brain.aacnwiki.org is to use headings!. Using headings instead of other styles (e.g., numbering), allows for

• easier editing (headings break a page into sections that can be edited individually)
• automatic creation and updating of a Table of Contents (if there are four or more headings)
• a uniform appearance, which aids navigation.

Use blank space liberally. You generally need extra blank lines in the wiki markup (edit view) to get nice spacing in your final product. For example, try putting 2-3 blank lines before each new main heading.

Most frequent Wiki markup explained

Here are the most frequently used types of wiki markup. Consult the User's Guide for more information on using the wiki software.

Bold, Italics, and Centering Text

You can ''italicize text'' by putting 2 
apostrophes on each side. 

3 apostrophes will embolden '''the text'''. 

5 apostrophes will embolden and italicize 
'''''the text'''''.

(4 apostrophes don't do anything
special -- there's just ''''one left
over''''.)

<center>Some commands are placed in brackets and need to be turned on and off.
For example, you can turn on and off center-justification.</center>

== Section headings ==

''Headings'' organize your writing into sections.
The Wiki software can automatically generate
a table of contents from them.

=== Subsection ===

Using more equals signs creates a subsection.

==== A smaller subsection ====
Don't skip levels, 
like from two to four equals signs.

Start with 2 equals signs not 1 
because 1 creates H1 tags
which should be reserved for page title.

* ''Unordered lists'' are easy to do:
** Start every line with a star.
*** More stars indicate a deeper level.
* Previous item continues.
** A new line
* in a list  
marks the end of the list.
* Of course you can start again.

# ''Numbered lists'' are:
## Very organized
## Easy to follow
# Previous item continues
A new line marks the end of the list.
# New numbering starts with 1.

: A colon (:) indents a line or paragraph.
A newline starts a new paragraph. <br>
Often used for discussion on talk pages.
: We use 1 colon to indent once.
:: We use 2 colons to indent twice.
::: 3 colons to indent 3 times, and so on.

Here's a link to the [http://brain.aacnwiki.org/index.php?title=Main_Page Main Page].

[[Intentionally permanent red link]] is 
a page that doesn't exist
yet. You could create it by 
clicking on the link.

You can link to a page section by its title:

* [[Help:Contents#For editors]].

If multiple sections have the same title, add
a number. [[#Example section 3]] goes to the
third section named "Example section".

Tables

Tables should be planned ahead, and are built using three main sets of commands:

<table> starts a new table; </table> ends it.  You can adjust characteristics of the table, as in the below example.
<tr> starts a new row; </tr> ends it.
<td> starts a new cell within a row; </td> ends it.

For example... 

<table border="2" cellpadding="5"> 
<tr><td></td><td>'''Heading 1'''</td><td>'''Heading 2'''</td><td>'''Heading 3'''</td></tr>
<tr><td>'''Column Label A'''</td><td>Cell A1</td><td>Cell A2</td><td>Cell A3</td></tr>
<tr><td>'''Column Label B'''</td><td>Cell B1</td><td>Cell B2</td><td>Cell B3</td></tr>
</table>

...will look like this:

Providing a Fall-Back Link

It is usually a good idea to include some fall-back link or links that allow the user to return to a useful place in their browsing. For example, the Return to Main Table of Contents link at the bottom of this page was created with the following meta-text:

----

<center><big>[http://brain.aacnwiki.org/index.php?title=Main_Page Return to the Main Table of Contents]</big></center>

Restrictions

Some pages cannot be edited by everyone. A special function known as protection can be applied to a page by administrators, making the said page uneditable to certain classes of users. There are several degrees of protection:

• If a page is semiprotected, it can be edited by everyone except IPs and accounts that have not yet been confirmed.
• If a page is fully protected, only other admins can make edits to the page.
• A page can also be protected so that it cannot be moved.
• In some cases, an admin might see fit to protect a page from being created.
• For very rare pages, such as the Main Page, "cascading" protection is applied, wherein every page that is transcluded onto a page is protected too.
• In any case, everyone can view the source of any page, irrespective of its level of protection.

Additional Information on Editing from MediaWiki

Note: these link away from brain.aacnwiki.org

• More Help on Editing Pages
• More Commonly-Used Markup Code
• MediaWiki Help Table of Contents
• Configuration settings list
• MediaWiki FAQ