Difference between revisions of "Editing GammaWiki"

Latest revision as of 10:03, 19 March 2010

Creating and editing files in GammaWiki

This page contains basic instructions on creating, editing and formatting files / pages in the GammaWiki system. The most instructive way to use this page is probably to read the content and then take a look at the source code (using the edit tab) + by all means experiment.

Creating a new page

It is very simple to create a new page in Wiki. A good way is to refer to the new page from a page that is already existing like this:

[[new page|Title of new page]]

The file will get the name "new page" but the link will be displayed as "Title of new page".

You then save the page you are referring from and when you click on the link you just created, the wiki-system will automatically create the new page for you.

Example: E.g. information on estimation of uncertainties can be found at: Combined uncertainty calculations

The source code for this is:

[[uncertainties|Combined uncertainty calculations]]

You can use some familiar text formatting tools displayed at the top of this frame, like bold, italics, etc. First you select the text you want to change the attribute of, then you click the icon of the attribute you want to apply and the result is at once visible in the source code.

If you want to see how the text looks before it is saved, you can click the "Show preview" button at the bottom of the page.

Sections and automatic generation of Table of Index

A section header is defined by using an equal sign "=" on either side of the header. A header of level 1 uses "=", level 2 (like is used on this page) uses 2 equal signs and so on. The most convenient way of making a level 2 headline is to use the corresponding button above (shown as a big capital "A", visible when wiki is in the editing mode).

As soon as a page includes a few sections, a Table of Index for the page is generated automatically.

Paragraphs

In order to create a separation between paragraphs one simply insert a blank line.

Lists with bullets or numbers

It is very easy to create lists in Wiki. Each line must begin with a specific symbol, "*" for ordinary bullets, "#" for a numbered list. See the example below:

• This is a line with a bullet

1. This is a line preceded by a number

The source code for these two lines is:

*This is a line with a bullet
#This is a line preceded by a number

Creating links

The simplest way to link to a web page is to write the URL, without any formatting code, such as: http://www.nks.org/ The "http://" must be included.

Another example: GUM: Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement http://www.bipm.org/en/publications/guides/gum.html

If the information on the web site is the main thing, the URL itself being of minor importance (and possibly being long and obscure), then it is easy to let the Wiki show a label instead of the URL. One writes first the URL then a space and then the label (which can contain spaces), all included in square brackets []. See the following example in the source code: GammaSem web page at www.nks.org

Inserting images and other file types such as PDF files

Images and files (max size a few MBytes) can be uploaded to the Wiki system. The easiest process is similar as creating a new page. One simply creates a link to the image or file that is not yet registered in the system. When one clicks on the reference for the first time the system will offer to upload the missing file. The reference can be made by clicking the file link button at top of the editing box. This inserts the following source code:

[[Media:Example.ogg]]

The "Example.ogg" needs to be replaced by the file name with the appropriate file extension. A label can be used for the link. A vertical line, |, is placed after the file name and there after comes the label, e.g.

[[media:nks212_e.pdf|GammaSem abstract]]

Example: The abstract of the GammaSem report GammaSem abstract

Using Excel to create a table in Wiki

Creating a table in Wiki using the source code directly can be a bit complicated, especially if table is big. Fortunately there are various tools available to make this task easy.

• One method is simply to create the table in Excel (the cells can contain text as well as numbers).
• The Excel table is then copied and pasted into the input square in the program Copy & Paste Excel-to-Wiki Converter that can be found at the following web page
• http://excel2wiki.net/
• Press Submit Query and the resulting source code will be appear below, under a heading Result
• The resulting source code is then copied from this page and inserted into the Wiki page

Example

This table was made by selecting the first rows in the table at: http://www.nucleide.org/DDEP_WG/DDEPdata.htm (all of the rows could have been selected) Since the web based table was to be copied into Excel, Microsoft Internet Explorer was used to display the web page. Then it was easy to copy the information into Excel and from there into the converter. No adjustments or corrections were made in the example above. The choice of web browser is here important, Internet Explorer integrates better with Excel than e.g. Firefox.

References

Please do not be afraid to experiment. All saved versions of GammaWiki pages are saved in the history file and it is thus always possible to revert back to an earlier version

More detailed information can be obtained from the following

• http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki
• Help:Editing pages http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Editing_pages
• Help:Formatting http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting
• Help:Links http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Links
• Help:Images http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Images
• Creating tables using Excel, Copy & Paste Excel-to-Wiki Converter, http://excel2wiki.net/

If you have suggestions on how these GammaWiki instructions could be improved, please contact me. Sigurður Emil Pálsson, sep@gr.is