Wiki Team/Guide/Formatting

For a quick overview of wiki markup see the Wiki Team/Guide/Overview!

Text will show up just as you type it (provided you begin it in the first column). Multiple spaces are compressed, and line endings are ignored (except blank lines).

Use a blank line to start a new paragraph. Multiple blank lines add more vertical space.

Wiki markup code is supposed to be simple and easy to learn. You can also use most HTML markup, if you prefer it, except for links.

Fonts
Use these to change fonts:

Sections
It is often useful to divide articles into sections and subsections. The following markup can be used. You must begin these on a new line.

An article with four or more headings will automatically create a table of contents. Using HTML heading tags also creates proper section headings and a table of contents entry.

Lists
Wiki markup makes lists fairly easy:
 * See also Template:Definition table
 * HTML lists are also allowed
 * Blank lines should be avoided, they break list numbering and sub-list. Use  instead.

Linking
Linking is covered in a separate page: Wiki Team/Guide/Links

Preformatted text
Text which does not begin in the first column of the wiki editing box will be shown indented, in a fixed width font. For example, this line was preceded by a single space. It preserves whitespace formatting:   A     B     C     D     E     F     G     H     I

A single paragraph of text can be entered with a space in column 1 (the first character position in the wiki editing box) of every line to preserve the raw text format of the entry. For example, this block of lines was entered with 4 spaces before each line. A   B    C    D    E    F    G    H    I

The parser tags and may be entered before and after blocks of preformatted text to preserve the raw format of the text. This is suitable for chat transcripts such as Design_Team/Meetings/2009-03-01.

Line wrapping
Line wrapping can be adjusted with the style property white-space (See http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/pr_text_white-space.asp)
 * With this tag and style, , whitespace is preserved by the browser. Text will wrap when necessary, and on line breaks.

Code Examples
Raw text is appropriate for showing computer code or command examples, such as this famous little program:

main{ printf("Hello, World!\n"); }


 * Coding format may be embedded in a line of regular text with the wiki syntax.

class DatastoreResultSet(BaseResultSet): """Encapsulates the result of a query on the datastore   """ def __init__(self, query, page_size):
 * Blocks of pre-existing code (often with structured linebreaks) may be preserved by entering a space before  in the first wiki page column as in this example:

if query.get('query', ) and not query['query'].startswith('"'):           query_text =             words = query['query'].split(' ')            for word in words:                if word:                    if query_text:                        query_text += ' '                    query_text += word + '*'

query['query'] = query_text

BaseResultSet.__init__(self, query, page_size)

def find(self, query): entries, total_count = _get_datastore.find(query, PROPERTIES,                                                    byte_arrays=True)

for entry in entries: entry['mountpoint'] = '/'

return entries, total_count The result looks like the following: class DatastoreResultSet(BaseResultSet): """Encapsulates the result of a query on the datastore   """ def __init__(self, query, page_size):

if query.get('query', ) and not query['query'].startswith('"'):           query_text =             words = query['query'].split(' ')            for word in words:                if word:                    if query_text:                        query_text += ' '                    query_text += word + '*'

query['query'] = query_text

BaseResultSet.__init__(self, query, page_size)

def find(self, query): entries, total_count = _get_datastore.find(query, PROPERTIES,                                                    byte_arrays=True)

for entry in entries: entry['mountpoint'] = '/'

return entries, total_count

Stopping Text flow
See mediawikiwiki:Help:Images.

Tables
Tables are covered in a separate page: Help:Tables

nowiki
Use  to insert text that is not parsed by the wiki, e.g.,


 * &lt;nowiki>====Heading 4====</nowiki&gt;

will result in ====Heading 4====, rather than the creation of an actual heading, Heading 4

Categories
An important navigational tool in the wiki is the use of categories. It is customary to include one or more category tags to the end of a page to indicate in what topical area the page belongs. For example, this page should be listed under the and  categories. You can create a new category, if really necessary, simply by including a new category tag, e.g.,.

Templates
Another tool that helps make the wiki more readily navigable is the use of templates (Please select the Template namespace in the pull-down menu on the Special:Allpages page to view the current list of available templates). Templates provide a consistent look to pages as well as a shorthand for communicating things like and. Feel free to ask for help (here) regarding creating new templates you may need.

Translation
We have a mechanism for maintaining multilingual versions of pages in the wiki. Please see Translation Team/Wiki Translation for more information about translations. We also recommend the use of the Google machine translation for pages that have yet to be translated by a human expert. To see a Google translation, simply use the dropdown selector in the sidebar.