ArchWiki Tutorial

From ArchWiki

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This is a short tutorial on editing the ArchWiki. For more detail, please see Help:Editing. If you want to try out the editing information which is explained here, please use the Sandbox to play.

Registration

You can read pages without creating an account or logging in. To create an account (which is free), just click the Log in / create account link at the top right corner of any page. You only need a single login for all wiki documents.

Editing

Like all wikis, you can edit any non-protected page. Your changes will be visible immediately. Just click the edit link that appears at the top of every page.

Explain your edit in the Summary box between the edit window and the save and preview buttons (e.g. "typo" or "added info on xyz").

Use the Show preview button to check your edit and get the formatting right before saving. Remember to save your edits before moving on by clicking Save page.

If you are logged in, you can mark an edit as "minor" by checking the This is a minor edit box to let people know your edit is not something substantive.

To try editing, open a new window and go to the Sandbox (which is an editing test area), and then click the edit link. Add something and click save.

Reverting edits

If a page was edited incorrectly, the following procedure describes how to revert an article to a previous version.

1. In order to edit a wiki page, you must be logged in to your account on the Arch Wiki main page.
2. Navigate to the page you want to edit.
3. Click the history tab in towards the top of the page among the other tabs labeled article, discussion, edit, history, move, and watch.
4. By default, the current version of the wiki and the second most recent version are selected. Click the button labeled Compare selected versions.
5. Click the undo button under the title of the column on the right.
6. Click the save button at the bottom of the page.

The wiki page should now be back in its original state.

Adding a new page

Please read Article Naming Guidelines and Writing Short Article Names for more information.

To add a new page to some category (say "My New Page" to "Some Category") you need to:

1. Create a page with your new title by browsing to http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/My_New_Page
2. Add [[Category:Some Category]] to the top of your page

When naming page titles:

1. Titles should be capitalized appropriately: Title for New Page; not "Title for new page".
2. Do not include "Arch Linux" or variations in page titles. This is the Arch Linux wiki; it is assumed that articles will be related to Arch Linux. (e.g., "Installing Openbox"; not "Installing Openbox in Arch Linux").

Check out the Table of Contents to help choose an appropriate category.

Layout

Although the contents of wikis vary from topic to topic, a general outline is recommended to maintain consistency across all articles. The following is a good example of how to organize your articles:

• Introduction -- A summary of what the article is to cover
• Installation -- If applicable, the instructions on how to install the software
• Configuration -- If applicable, how the software is configured once installed
• Troubleshooting -- Frequently asked questions regarding the software
• Tips and tricks -- If applicable, advanced tips or examples of using the software
• More resources -- A good place to list additional references

Of course, individual subheadings can and should be used under each of these main headings. See #Headings and subheadings below.

Formatting

Most text formatting is usually done with wiki markup, so learning HTML is not necessary. Various templates are also available for common formatting tasks; see Help:Template for information about templates.

Bold and italics

Bold and italics are added by surrounding a word or phrase with multiple apostrophes ('):

• ''italics'' is rendered as italics (2 apostrophes on either side)
• '''bold''' is rendered as bold (3 apostrophes on either side)
• '''''bolded italics''''' is rendered as bolded italics (2 + 3 = 5 apostrophes on either side)

Headings and subheadings

Please read Effective Use of Headers HOWTO for more information.

Headings and subheadings are an easy way to improve the organization of an article. If you can see two or more distinct topics being discussed, you can break up your article by inserting a heading for each section.

Headings can be created like this:

• =Top level heading= (1 equal sign)
• ==Subheading== (2 equals signs)
• ===Another level down=== (3 equals signs)
• ====Another level down==== (4 equals signs)
• =====Another level down===== (5 equals signs)

If an article has at least three headings, a table of contents (TOC) will be automatically generated. If this is not desired, place __NOTOC__ in the article.

Try creating some headings in the Sandbox and see the effect on the TOC.

Indenting

To indent text, place a colon (:) at the beginning of a line. The more colons you put, the further indented the text will be. A newline (pressing Enter or Return) marks the end of the indented paragraph.

For example:

This is aligned all the way to the left.
:This is indented slightly.
::This is indented more.

...is shown as:

This is aligned all the way to the left.

This is indented slightly.

This is indented more.

Bullet points

To insert a bullet, use an asterisk (*). Similar to indentation, more asterisks in front of a paragraph means more indentation.

For example:

*First list item
*Second list item
**Sub-list item under second
*Isn't this fun?

...is shown as:

• First list item
• Second list item
  • Sub-list item under second
• Isn't this fun?

Numbered lists

You can also create numbered lists. For this, use the number sign or hash symbol (#). Using more #s will affect the level of indenting.

For example:

#First item 
#Second item 
##Sub-item under second item 
#Third item 

...is shown as:

1. First item
2. Second item
   1. Sub-item under second item
3. Third item

Code

To add code to the wiki, simply start each line with a single whitespace character. However, be careful of the length of your text lines as the text will not automatically wrap to fit the screen.

Alternatively, use <pre> tags, or one of the available code formatting templates.

For example:

<pre>
#!/bin/bash
# sample code
</pre>

...is shown as:

#!/bin/bash
# sample code

Links

Links are important on wikis to help readers navigate the site.

Internal links

You can extensively cross-reference wiki pages using internal links. You can add links to existing titles, and also to titles you think ought to exist in future.

To make a link to another page on the same wiki, just put the title in double square brackets.

For example, if you want to make a link to, say, the Wikia page, use:

[[Wikia]]

If you want to use words other than the article title as the text of the link, you can add an alternative name after the pipe "|" divider (Shift + \ on English-layout and similar keyboards).

For example:

View the [[Arch Linux|home page]]...

...is shown as:

View the home page...

When you want to use the plural of an article title (or add any other suffix) for your link, you can add the extra letters directly outside the double square brackets.

For example:

makepkg is used in conjunction with [[PKGBUILD]]s.

...is shown as:

makepkg is used in conjunction with PKGBUILDs.

Links to sections of a document

To create a link to a section of a document, simply add a # followed by the section's heading.

For example:

[[ArchWiki Tutorial#Links to sections of a document]]

...is shown as:

ArchWiki Tutorial#Links to sections of a document

Interlanguage links

The ArchWiki is international; articles may be written in multiple languages. If an article exists in more than one language, Template:i18n may be added to the article to display links to available translations.

To use this template in an article, add at the beginning of the article:

{{i18n|Title in English}}

See Help:i18n for detailed information about ArchWiki internationalization and localization.

Interwiki links

So-called interwiki links can be used to easily link to articles in other external Wikis, like Wikipedia for example. The syntax for for this link type is the wiki name followed by a colon and the article you want to link to enclosed in double square brackets.

If you want to link to the Wikipedia:Arch Linux article you can use the following:

[[Wikipedia:Arch Linux]]

Or you can create a piped link with an alternate link label to the Arch Linux Wikipedia article:

[[Wikipedia:Arch Linux|Arch Linux Wikipedia article]]

See: Wikipedia:InterWikimedia links

External links

If you want to link to an external site, just type the full URL for the page you want to link to.

http://www.google.com/

It is often more useful to make the link display something other than the URL, so use one square bracket at each end, with the alternative title after the address separated by a space (not a pipe). So if you want the link to appear as Google search engine, just type:

[http://www.google.com/ Google search engine]

Redirects

To redirect automatically from one page to another, type #REDIRECT and then put in brackets the name of the page to be redirected to.

For example, you could redirect from "Cats" to "Cat":

#REDIRECT [[Cat]]

That way, anyone typing either version in the search box will automatically go to "Cat".

Wiki variables, magic words, and templates

MediaWiki recognizes certain special strings within an article to aid in formatting and alter standard behaviors. For example, use {{SITENAME}} to display the wiki's site name (which, on this wiki, is: ArchWiki). See Help:Magic words for details.

You can also create your own templates. After you create the page Template:XXX, using the command {{XXX}} will include that content in your current page. So, if you have something that needs to be included on many other pages, you might want to use a template.

See Help:Template for more information.

Discussion pages

Discussion or "talk" pages are for communicating with other ArchWiki users.

To discuss any page, go to that page and then click the "discussion" tab at the top of the page. Add a new comment at the end of the page or reply below an existing comment. Use indenting to format your discussion. Standard practice is to indent your reply one more level deep than the person to whom you are replying. Further, you should insert your comment beneath the one to which you are replying, but below others who are doing the same.

Sign comments by typing ~~~~ to insert your username and a timestamp. Avoid editing another user's commments.

Experiment by editing the talk page of the Sandbox.

User talk pages

Note the difference between a user page, and a user talk page. Everyone may have a user talk page on which other people can leave public messages. If one does not exist for a particular user, you may create it so that you can leave a comment. If someone has left you a message on yours, you will see a note saying "You have new messages" with a link to your own user talk page.

You can add comments on the user talk page of the person you're replying to or on your own talk page beneath the original message with appropriate indentation. If you reply on their talk page, they will receive notification of it.

Do not edit a user's own page without permission (i.e. [[User:Name]]); these serve as personal user spaces. The "user talk page" is the correct place for communicating (other than sending private email if the address is published).

Requests and special categories

Requests for specific articles or improvements to existing articles can be added to the Requests wiki page.

There also exist several special request categories to facilitate ArchWiki maintenance:

• Category:Request:Correction
• Category:Request:Deletion
• Category:Request:Expansion
• Category:Request:Merge
• Category:Request:Move
• Category:Request:Translation
• Category:Stub

Visit these category pages for details.

See also

• Sandbox