Wikispaces Wiki Guide
(version 1, created by Tai Roe, October 2009)
Thank you for learning how to contribute to the new CCRMC wiki, at ccrmc.wikispaces.com. This manual is intended to help someone with basic internet skills (e.g. knowledge of what an internet “page” is, what it means to “link” pages, how to “upload” files) get up and running creating and editing wiki pages, using the tools offered at wikispaces.com. It does not discuss the many advanced features available.
Basic concepts
A “wiki”, from Hawaiian for “fast”, is a communal web site for sharing knowledge. The wiki is a collection of web pages linked together. Members of the wiki can create and edit pages (at wikispaces, only “moderators” can delete pages). The communal wiki is superior to a web site that is created by one or a few persons, since a community of people has vastly greater knowledge.
Members of the wiki can also monitor changes to any pages of the wiki. This makes the wiki community self-policing. It also allows members to take some “ownership” over particular topics. If, for instance, a member is an expert on ear wax removal, he/she can create an ear wax removal page, choose to monitor that page, and then see what contributions or changes other members make. If he/she disagrees with those changes, then the interested parties can discuss some mutually acceptable page.
Until the volume of editing exceeds my capacity, I will be monitoring all changes made to the entire wiki.
The wiki keeps track of changes made (this is called the “history”) and allows one to “revert” back to a previous version. Deleted pages cannot be restored, so that is why only moderators have the ability to delete pages.
We are using the services of a commercial wiki “farm”, called wikispaces. We currently are using a free account, with 2 GB of storage, but that means our pages will have Google ads. We may choose to pay money to eliminate the ads as well as gain some additional functionality and storage.
If you forget the URL (address) of the wiki, just do a Google search for “ccrmc” and “wiki”.
Anyone in the world can view the wiki. To edit pages, you need to be a member. Just email me if you would like to be a member, and I can send an electronic invitation.
Overview of a typical wiki page
Left Sidebar
Every page of the wiki has the navigation “side bar” on the left, for accessing commonly used pages or links and for giving an overall sense of the organization of the wiki. Sometimes, the side bar acts buggy and has problems with formatting (it spills over onto the main part of the page sometimes; to use a link, one has to click slightly above the text). This doesn’t happen in all browsers.
At the top of the side bar is a “button”, called “New Page” for creating a new page.
Next on the side bar is “Recent Changes” for taking a look at recent changes to the whole wiki.
Next is “Manage Wiki”, which generally you will not need to use for basic editing.
The wiki is searchable, using the white search box.
Top green title area
Each page has a “title” which is displayed near the top left, in the green top bar.
Next to the title is a button labeled “Page”. Generally, you will not need to use that button.
The “Discussion” button is for participating in publicly viewable discussions about that page (see “Page Discussions” below)
I describe the “History” and “Notify Me” buttons later.
Signing In
To create and edit pages, you need to sign in. If you are not signed in but are looking at the ccrmc wiki, then in the top right corner of one of the pages is the “Sign In” button.
You may also find yourself at the www.wikispaces.com start page, in which case, you need to click on where it says, “Already a member? Sign in.” in the upper right. That route takes you to a page to modify your account at wikispaces, but you probably don’t care about that. Just click on “ccrmc” under “Favorite Wikis”.
Creating a page
Creating a new page is easy:
1) Click on “New Page” in the side bar
2) Enter the name for the page. Please keep in mind that a good page name can help users find your content when searching.
3) Consider adding “tags”, which are keywords to describe the page’s content, but these keywords do not appear in the name.
4) Click on the “Create” button
5) You are then placed into an “edit” mode and can start creating/editing the new page.
To begin editing a page
You can begin to edit a page either by:
· Creating a new page, and then you end up in edit mode
· Clicking on “Edit” in the upper right corner (if “Edit” does not appear, that means a moderator has “locked” a page)
You then enter edit mode. There are actually two modes for editing a page, using the “Visual” editor or the “Text” editor. The “Visual” editor is the default and is easier to use, and I will not describe the “Text” editor here.
Visual editing
In visual edit mode, a floating “menu” of options appears near the top of the page. If you move the mouse cursor over the items and pause, the name of each item momentarily appears. Here is a description of each option, from left to right.
1) Bold (B): Select some text, then click on here to make it bold. Or click here, and as long as the “B" is highlighted, whatever you type will be in bold. To unbold something, select the text and click on the “B" to deselect it.
2) Italics (I): Similar to “bold”
3) Underline (U): Similar to “bold”
4) Color and Style (T with a color palette): Click here to access several options for modifying text, including changing color, changing alignment, choosing a font, or changing size. Generally, I do not use this menu option much
5) Header level (where it says “Normal”): This is a quick way to choose a paragraph and promote (or demote) it to a more prominent style, e.g. bold and bigger, using some predefined definitions of various “headers”. Whatever you select will apply to the entire paragraph.
6) Ordered List (1, 2, 3): Use this tool to create a list of numbered items. Each time you hit return, the editor will create a line with the next number. After you are done, hit return once more (to create an extra number that you do not need), and then click on the ordered list button to turn this off.
7) Unordered List: Use this tool to create a list of items whose order does not matter. This tool is very similar to “Ordered List” above, with one important exception. You can create any number of indented sublists by hitting the “tab” key to indent something further. Hitting shift-“Tab” will “un-indent” an item.
8) Horizontal Rule: To divide sections of a page with a horizontal line, use this tool.
9) Insert Link (a link of a chain): This is described below under “Creating Links”.
10) Remove link (a broken link of a chain): Select text that is linked elsewhere and then click on this tool to break, i.e. get rid of, that link
11) Insert Images and Files (little picture): This is described below under “Inserting Images and Files”
12) Embed Widget (little TV): This is an advanced feature, for including things like video, audio, calendars, slide shows, etc., on a page. I do not describe this further. Please note that in order to use these functionalities, often you need to first upload a file to another web site, such as YouTube, and since the county blocks access to such sites, these functions do not work. There are probably workarounds for many of these problems, however.
13) Insert Table: This is described below under “Creating Tables”
14) Insert Special Character: Use this tool if you need to include a special character not obviously available on your keyboard
15) Insert code: This is an advanced tool that I do not know how to use yet. It is for writing actual web-based programs.
You can preview your work by clicking on “Preview”.
Click on “Save” to save your work. Click on “Cancel” to throw away the changes you were doing.
Creating Links
Multiple pages are more useful if they are linked together (hopefully in a logical way). If you create a beautiful page on your favorite subject, people are less likely to find it if nothing links to it. The “Insert Link” button in the Editor menu bar helps you link pages together (for linking to files, see “Inserting Images and Files” below).
You can create links to other pages within the ccrmc wiki, which is a “Wiki” link, or you can create links to pages outside the ccrmc wiki, which is an “external” link.
For both internal and external links, the basic concept is the same. You type the text that you want the user to click on to go to the other page, select that text, and then click on “Insert Link”. A new window appears that gives three options for the kind of link to create:
- Wiki link: The text you selected appears as the “Link Text”. You can change that here. By default, it is assumed you wish to link to another page in the ccrmc wiki (you could link to another wiki at wikispaces.com, if you know its name). Then you choose the name of the page to link to. If the “Link Text” equals the name of an existing page at ccrmc, by default, it will choose that name. Click on the little down arrow to the right to choose a different page. If the “Link Text” does not equal the name of an existing page, it assumes you will want to create a new page with that name (don’t worry for now that you haven’t created that other page; you can always create it later), but you can still choose to link to an existing page by clicking on “Choose an existing page”.
- External Link: The text you selected appears at the Link Text. You can change that here. In “Address”, you need to type (or paste) the URL (address) of the outside web page. For instance, you can create a link to gmail by typing there “gmail.com”. Please note, you don’t need to type the “http://” or initial “www.”, since it puts or knows that by default. External links will appear on the page with a little green arrow pointing up and to the right.
For both “Wiki” and “external” links, you also have the option of checking the “New Window” box. That means a new browser window will open up when the user clicks on the link.
There is a third type of link, called an “Anchor”, that is somewhat advanced, so it is not described further here, except to say that anchors can be used to create links within a page, which can be useful for complicated, long pages, e.g. you can create a table of contents for a big page at the top.
Inserting Images or Files
When in “edit” mode, the button that looks like a little square picture with a green background and red dot is for uploading and creating links to documents, e.g. a PDF file, Word document. First, you will need to “upload” the file, i.e. have a copy placed on the wiki server. Then you will need to can create a link to that file. Please note, with our free plan, files can be no bigger than 10 MB.
Before uploading a file, please keep in mind that the name of the file should be as descriptive as possible about the content, so that years later, someone can determine the contents from just from the name of the file. I also suggest putting the date of the file (i.e. when it was last updated) into the name. For instance, if I created a document about ear wax removal now, I might call it “Ear Wax Removal per Tai Roe 2009 10”.
Clicking on the “Insert Images or Files” button brings up a new window with two main options (I have not yet used “External Image”, so it will not be explained further here):
1) First, you will want to upload your file, so click on “Upload Files” (there are apparently two ways at this point to upload files, but I do not find a significant difference, so I describe just one). Click on “Upload” to bring up a window to search for your file (on your local disk). Select the file and click “OK” or double-click on the file. It should start uploading. When it is done uploading, an icon of the file, with part of the name, should appear below.
2) Second, you must insert a link to this newly uploaded file. Click on “Insert Files”. Then, by default, a drop-down menu on the right will say, “Embed File”. Click there and choose “Link to File” instead (embedding a file is very similar and a little easier, but the final result is not how web pages typically look, takes up more space on the page, and is less flexible, ultimately). You need to select the file, by typing its name in the box that says, “Begin Typing a File Name…”. As you type, only the files that begin with what you type will appear below. Choose the file you want by clicking on it.
You are mostly done. Your page will now show the name of the file, and the name will be underlined, indicating that it is a link. Save the page (and test the link to convince yourself it is working).
I said “mostly done”, because the final link may have a complicated name, like “Ear Wax Removal per Tai Roe 2009 10.docx”, when you might want the user to see simply something like “Ear Wax Removal” that, when clicked, goes to the document. This is easy to change. First, I recommend that you save your page and then edit it, because this process seems a little buggy in wikispaces. Go ahead and edit the link text, but do not delete stuff from the end of the text: wikispaces stupidly interprets that as meaning you wish to break (get rid of) the link. If you really need to delete something from the end, click in front of what you want to delete and use the “delete” key on your keyboard, not the “backspace” key. This is an annoying feature of wikispaces, but you can work around it.
A final word about inserting files: if the link is to a text document (e.g. a Microsoft Word document) with little special formatting, you might consider linking instead to a new page that contains the text, rather than forcing the user to have to download a file and start up another piece of software to look at it.