Wiki Team/Guide/Page Creation

Introduction

This section deals with how to create pages on the Sugar Labs wiki.

Search and Integrate. Don't Duplicate.

Before adding a page to the wiki, make sure you do a comprehensive search.

Search

• Recent Changes - See where people are currently working.
• Search - Search or browse the database in various ways.
• All Pages - A list of all pages in the wiki.

Integrate

• Don't add another page if a guide, article, or document already exists on a particular subject.
• If you think the existing document could be better, is out of date, or missing something, then improve it!
• Either add or integrate the material with the existing page in the appropriate place.

Create the Page

There are several ways to create a new page but all of them require that you first Log-in

By attempting to visit the page

1. Type the address for the new page into the address bar of your browser. Since the page does not exists, MediaWiki will offer a link to search for it or to to create it.
2. After entering your page content in the main text entry box of the pending page,
3. Click the [Show preview] button to review the pending page addition.
4. Click the [Save page] button to save the page into the wiki.
5. Continue the edit, preview, & save actions as needed to complete your contribution.

Experiment in your 'User_talk:' pages

For tentative work, you can try things out of the 'limelight' on your 'User_talk:' page and subpages:

1. Click on the 'talk' link next to your user name at the top right of any page,
2. Enter content there, or
3. Click in the address bar of your browser, and add '/<new subpage name>' to the end of the address string that's already in your address bar. For example,

   http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User_talk:[UserName]

   becomes

   http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User_talk:[UserName]/<new subpage name>

4. Then press the <Enter> keyboard key and you will be presented with a pending new page that offers an 'edit this page' link at the end of the line:
   There is currently no text in this page. You can search for this page title in other pages, search the related logs, or edit this page.
5. Click this link or the 'create' tab button and you will be presented with an empty page to edit.
6. Proceed with entering information in the main entry box
7. Click the [Show preview] button to review your pending page
8. Click the [Save page] button to save the page
9. Continue to Edit, Preview, & Save as needed to complete your contribution.

Special subpage series

On occasions, you may be advised to edit the address line for a pending page to adjust its title. Then you should examine closely the URI in the address bar of your browser for the pending new page. Here is an example:

On the Sugar on a Stick/Getting Involved/Testing page, after clicking the [create a new page for an unlisted version] link, the pending page shows this, or a similar URI: http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/index.php?title=Index.php&title=Sugar_on_a_Stick/Getting_Involved/Testing/Soas-beta_2009MMDD&action=edit

The &title=Sugar_on_a_Stick/Getting_Involved/Testing/Soas-beta_2009MMDD section is the new page title that will be created if the [Save page] button is clicked.

1. In your browser's address bar (make sure that it is made visible, if not available), click in the address line and modify the text after .../Testing/ to the page version title you want to create. Note that the URI in this case is a line with no spaces with embedded instructions to the wiki processor. The &title=XXXXXX section will be the new page title; &action=edit tells the processor to open the new page in edit mode. So just make sure your new title is entered as a continuous line of text with no spaces and followed by the &action=edit segment. The line may scroll beyond the end of your address text bar, so you may need to scroll the text by pressing the left or right arrow keys on your keyboard.
2. Press the <Enter>/<Return> key on your keyboard and you should get a new pending page ready to edit with your proposed title.
3. Proceed with entering information in the main entry box
4. Click the [Show preview] button to review your pending page
5. Click the [Save page] button to save the page
6. Continue to Edit, Preview, & Save as needed to complete your contribution.

If the version of SoaS is shown as an existing subpage, you may go to that page and enter a new section within the page. A new section title is created when you enter some text between a pair of matching double equal signs, such as, ==New Section Header==.

Our wiki installation does not have the processing extensions necessary to provide easier form entry of new page titles, so the instructions above provide the direct, less friendly method.

Don't be afraid of experimenting a bit. A page can also be moved from one title to another, if necessary, and previous versions are pretty much always available in the history of the page.

Thanks again for taking the time to test and report on your efforts!

Add a link on another page

1. Edit another page
2. Add a link to the new page as [[Name With Spaces]]
3. Save the page and click the new link
4. Click one of the template names
5. Edit your new page and save it

Page structure

Consistency

Try to reuse the markup from a sibling page or another page at the same level.

Categorize

We make extensive use of category tags in the wiki. Please add an appropriate tag to any new page you create. It is simply a matter of adding a category at the end of the page, e.g., [[Category:Wiki]] will add the Wiki category to a page. See Special:Categories for all categories.