(Notice: ALL instructions given in these "Help" notes are only for "IBM type" of PC computers -generally just referred to as a "PC"- running Microsoft software and third-party software: in particular, I use MS Internet Explorer and Windows Vista Premium on my laptop PC; I know nothing about Macs, or other types of computers that are widely in use nor their software. Instructions given below probably are similar to other types of software, so hopefully you'll be able to follow along with just minor adjustments.)
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Wiki Page: Editing, HELP, Notes
Below are some things that I've discovered that work, or do not work. And other things to look out for, as you work on wiki pages, as you edit and change what is on screen.
Page Title Name
All this applies to making a future wiki page Link to a page not yet made so far, but will be made after you save the wiki page you are working on, and then clicking on that link; now the wiki page will be made.
(Regular Links can contain almost anything, which goes to other websites, or documents.)
Can only have Letters and Numbers in name.
Commas (,) seem to be OK in a page name.
Cannot have a period (.) nor a slash (/) in the name; gives error and page is not made.
"-23": Cannot have a dash (-) in name; that part is ignored and page is made; "Contact Person -3" = just "Contact Person". So make it "Contact Person 3".
Cannot have quote marks ("_") around any word; page is made and named up to the quote mark, quote mark & beyond is ignored.
Editing a wiki page
(1) Before you edit a wiki page, look it over to see how it looks, and remember how the wiki page looks.
(2) After you press "Edit" to edit that page, look it over again to remember if it still looks like it was before you pressed "Edit", inspect to see if the wiki page generally looks right.
(3) IF it looks DIFFERENT, if it looks wrong, if it does NOT look just right, or parts of the original page are missing, Press the "Cancel" button immediately at bottom of page beside the "Save" button. If it looks different, it is messing up, so cancel out of it, or your page may, will loose some of the text that was on it, etc.
(4) After you press "Cancel", to get back to the original page, make sure you are actually back at the original page by remembering how it did look like before you pressed "Edit" in step (1).
(5) Now start all over again, and press "Edit" to edit the page again. Make sure it still looks right before you continue to edit it. If it still looks wrong, "Cancel" out again.
(6) This is one of the frustrating things of the beta version so far (and of the original PBwiki 1.0). Sometimes lines and words disappear from the body of the wiki page and is mysteriously placed at the bottom of the wiki page; other times it evaporates into thin air, - is lost forever- UNLESS you are writing your thoughts down in another program first (I like AOL e-mail service and sending that e-mail to myself), saving it, and then copying & pasting it into a wiki page. Other times your formatting (text size, color & line spacing) gets all messed up after you "Save" a wiki page, and you have to go back and edit it again to fix it. Many things will and do go wrong, so always inspect, look over a wiki page before editing, during editing, and after saving the wiki page you were working on. And of course, SAVE your work very often, in case of some mishap that may happen all too often with computers and their programs, etc. Just experiment, and try again and again until it is as near as possible the way you want it to appear on screen. Some things do NOT do as normally expected of them, so you have to keep on trying until it looks the best you can do at the moment, with what knowledge you have of editing a wiki page.
(7) Right now, I'm having trouble with the font text size; the pull down menu presently goes from 75% to 200%. In PBwiki 1.0, the older wiki, it was "xx-small" to "XX-Large". In my AOL e-mail program it is 8 to 36. In MS FrontPage 2003, that I use for my church website, it is "1 (8 pt)" to "7 (36 pt)" which is similar to AOL e-mail program. Basically the Internet web browsers can only handle size 8 (smallest size) to size 36 (largest size), which are only 7 different text sizes. This is in contrast to a work processor, etc that can handle hundreds of fonts and their sizes. That is why a document on screen can look so much better than a webpage or wiki page, which is limited to just a few fonts and 7 sizes.
(8) So, all of this (these preceding problems, etc.) is one reason why I like to write down things into a separate program and save the work, and concentrate on what I'm writing, and then later on work with the machanics of putting and formatting the work, document, onto a wiki page. I have multiple windows open so as to write, copy, paste, test, inspect, etc. And I'm always making minor changes to wiki pages.
(9) I spend a lot of time working on this wiki site, but it is fun and rewarding since I'm learning how to do things too, and in the process am communicating ideas for others to view, consider, put into action, etc. Basically, a wiki site in an ideal world is a "team effort" of all participating in the process of gathering information and making it available for all to view, with the idea of improving upon what you read (by editing a wiki page, making changes, making things clearer, etc.), with online live feedback by all involved. It's a great place to put down notes, incomplete thoughts to which to come back to later, things to remember, etc. The possible uses of a wiki site are limitless, really. Have fun!
Editing words on a wiki page
Sometimes when you change a word's font, or size, or make it Bold, etc. and then you change your mind and want to make that word not Bold, it does not happen on screen. The word is still Bold.
When this happens, just "Save" the page, Press "Save" button. Then press the "Edit" tab again to start editing again. Now this time you can change that word back to not bold. [I guess this works most of the time.]
Maybe this applies to other changes you make to the words on screen. You see, this is the "formatting" part of putting words, text on a wiki page, as opposed to, "composing your thoughts" writing down your ideas in a document without worrying about HOW it looks on screen yet, which distracts you from writing down your thoughts, makes you loose your train of thinking, etc After you have all your thoughts and ideas written down in a document, then you can copy and paste it into a wiki page and "worry" about the formatting, how it looks on screen, change the formatting so it is how you want it to appear on screen.
Shortcuts to various functions when working with a wiki page
Some times these shortcuts work, other times they don't, so you have to actually press the button, click the link, or use the mouse functions instead of using the keyboard functions which does not work all the time. Most of the time, click or press means the same thing. The first part of each item listed below always work; the keyboard shortcut might not work, or only work sometimes (maybe under certain conditions, which I do not know about yet).
(01) Save a wiki page after editing it: Click the "Save" button at bottom of wiki page, OR Press CTRL-S on keyboard
(02) Scroll up or down on a wiki page to see parts not shown presently on screen: Use the "Scroll Wheel" on Mouse, or click in the Scroll Bar on screen, OR Press "Page UP" key, or "Page Down" key on keyboard
(03) When editing a wiki page, the "Insert a link to a new page" link in the SideBar area can bring up either one of two ways of doing this, that is, either one of two different pop-up dialog box windows can appear, and they both act differently. Instructions on how to fill out each one is given below.
When you want make a new wiki page, an easy way to do it is to Edit the wiki page you want that Link to be on; type the "Name" of the new wiki page, Highlight or select the new name, then click on the "Insert a link to a new page" link in the SideBar area, Now follow either one of the following ways of doing it depending upon what happens when you click on that link. I don't know why either one or the other might be the way at the moment that is the way it has to be done; maybe because this wiki is still in beta stages and what happens depends on how the programmers has set the program to behave at that given moment in time when they are working on the program getting the bugs out and testing new features and getting the program ready to be a finished product.
(A) The first way: If you hear a beep, and a yellow horizontal line appears at the top of the wiki page in your browser under the last set of ToolBars, then do this: Click in the yellow line and choose "Allow pop-ups to appear", or what ever it says. [Right now it is not doing this so I have to remember how to do this, so some of the wording may not be accurate as of now.] The yellow line will then go away. Now click on the "Insert a link to a new page" link in the SideBar area again. Now a pop-up window box appears at top left-hand side of screen. Since you already had the name of the new wiki page selected or highlighted, and then pressed CTRL-C to copy the name, before you clicked on the "Insert a link to a new page" link, which new "Name" of a wiki page should already be filled in. If it is not filled in yet, select that new name, press CTRL-C to copy it, then put cursor in line box and select, or highlight the default name and press CTRL-V to paste the new name into that line. Now press OK. Your new link to a new wiki page is made. Now "Save" the present wiki page. Now go to (C) below.
(B) The second way: If an "Insert Link" pop-up dialog window box appears, do this. This is also similar to adding a link to a wiki page, but you have to fill in the 3 line boxes differently. An "Insert Link" pop-up dialog window box appears. Since you are making a new wiki page, and since the name of the new wiki page is already highlighted, all 3 line boxes are filled in for you in the correct manner; just press OK. Now what you selected as the name for a new wiki page is an underlined Link. Now "Save" the present wiki page. Now go to (C) below.
(C) Now when you click on that new link, a "Name your new page:" wiki dialog page comes up with the new wiki page name already fill in, and then says, "Would you like to apply a template?" It then has a list of Templates to choose from. Most of the time you probably will choose the default of "No template". Then click on "Create new page". Now your new page appears with the "Edit" tab already chosen, ready for you to edit the page, add to it what you want; at this point you must add something to that new wiki page or it will not be made yet. so Add something such as one space and click on Insert Horizontal Line, then "Save" it. Now, since you have a link to it on another wiki page, you can always some back to that new wiki page to edit it some more, and to put other links on that new wiki page to get back to the original wiki page you make the link on first.
When Things Go Wrong (Does not act as it normally should do)
(1) You press "Enter" key at end of a line to make another line... instead of entering a blank line below that current line, the mouse cursor jumps to the end of the wiki page.
NOT suppose to do that; press "Save", then press "Edit" to get back to the point where you were. Do as above again. Should work ok now.
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