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WhiteWallWiki User Manual - Draft Version
- NOTE: Some of the formatting examples given below are clearer to follow if read in the page editing window. You'll learn about that pretty quickly.*
Some brief notes on a very helpful new group tool from a user who starting using it just a few days ago. It's fun. It's easy. Its a great way to focus our creativity and save valuable time!
First up "Wiki Wiki" means "quick" in Hawaiian. (And something completely different in Darktongue). The name primarily refers to the FindPage search function, which is pretty neat, and which we're sure to use more often as the site expands.
OVERVIEW
OK, so you've just arrived at WhiteWallWiki. Welcome. :)
What you're looking at right now is a fairly basic web page, with text and links. No surprises so far.
But every sentence on this page, every sentence on this entire site, can be altered, added to, or commented on. BY YOU. Right now. Easily. And you don't need to know any fancy coding. Rather than generate long threads on a mailing list, in the sometimes vain hope that someone will eventually collate it all, we can comment directly on the topic on Wiki Wiki. And find it again, easily. And search. And crosslink.
And we can expand our categories... you can see examples of it on the site already. Somebody creates a page and a link (dead easy, I'll come to that soon). Say Lunar Army Units & Irregulars. Now Donald has already given us some great notes on types of troops. To expand the listing, someone else can add subcategories and even actual units... Dara Happan Spearmen, Pelorian Hoplites, Durulz Shock Units... whatever. Later someone else (quite possibly Stu) might want to add the Second Quackford Suicide Drakes as an example of Durulz Shock Troops. And when that's done, we all can help expand the new Quackford page by naming the leaders, officers, and cigarbearers.
Get the picture? Begin to see the possibilities?
DOING IT
To turn the standard page into an editable document, go to the bottom of the page (any page) and click on the "Edit" button.
Then text will come up in a window, very similar to the window you type into when you're writing web browser-based email.
Go on, try it.
This plain text page editing window is a good way to read the examples of links and formatting given below. Reading the page in the default web view, you'll see the effects created, but not the text that creates them.
There's also a SandBox page just for you to mess around in. You can access the SandBox from the menus at the bottom of the HomePage.
The first thing you should do on any new page is create a link back to the home page.
There are two ways you can do this.
Type:
Return to HomePage.
Note that there's no space between the final two words.
Its that simple! Wiki Wiki recognises any word or text string with inner capitals (SandBox, GrandTheoryOfLunarLiberation?) as a link!
In this case it knows that HomePage is, well, our front page. If you created a new link in this way... say
SecondQuackfordSuicideDrakes?
and the page doesn't exist, then when you save, Wiki Wiki creates a link with a question mark after it. (Please don't ruin this example by actually creating a page).
Click on that question mark and you're taken to a new, blank page where you can begin to make notes on the brave kamikazes of the Second Quackford.
There's a second, more elegant way of creating links. Any word or series of words you put square brackets [] around becomes a link. So you could type
Second Quackford Suicide Drakes?
and you'd get a link with spaces between a word. As you can see. Nick calls these 'Pretty Links'.
<Charles>Also very useful: type "[Tatius the Bright|Tatius] to have a link with an alternate name for a page that makes more sense in the context.
Or type
and you get a functioning external link to the Glorantha site. For a URL, you don't need brackets - Wiki Wiki will recognise them for you.
<Charles>And if you want to give a pretty or short name for the link, you may use the trick "[Issaries home page|http://www.issaries.com]" - 
Issaries home page
By the way, if a page doesn't have a navigation link included at the top and/or bottom, you can use your Browser's Back button to navigate, or click on the rune icon at the top of the page. This will return you to the HomePage.
SAVING YOUR CHANGES
When you've added your text, simply click on the Save button. You're done, and can see the results instantly. And so can everyone else. Instantly.
Then, if you're like me, you go back and fix your typos... <Charles>Or you could use the "Preview" button first (but I don't either...)
FORMATTING
Most of what you'll be doing on Wiki Wiki is using your wetware (thinking, creating) followed by typing - commenting on ideas, adding to lists.
For clarity, organisation and effect there are a few basic formatting tricks you can use.
All of these examples will be much clearer if you read them in the editing window, where you can see the actual markup. Do you remember how to open it?? Click on the link that says "Edit Text of this page" at the bottom of this page.
You get italics by surrounding words with underscores on either side: Dread secrets
You get bold text by using an asterisk on either side: King Broyan
<Charles>The new Wiki can be a bit painful about having an asterisk at the start of a line.
And bold italics by using both: Enter, The Bat
For monospace, use an equals sign: I am a ROBOT!
And big headings by typing an exclamation mark! (or two!! (or three!!!))) at the start of the line:
Disaster
Batblat
Orlanth is Dead
You get bullets by using an asterisk * at the start of the line, like this:
- Counterargument number thirty two.
And numbered lists using a hash/pound #
- point one
- point two
You can get horizontal rules by typing with four or more dashes like this:
If you have images that are already on the web, you can make them appear on your page by providing the hyperlink in square brackets like this:
Image URLs not in brackets will just appear as hyperlinks to the image.
http://lokarnos.com/images/topics/peloria.gif
(Same link, no square brackets).
That's about it. Everything I know and a few bits edited in that I just learned about myself!
It's harder reading this than actually doing it. You can save a page, see any mistakes, and fix it immediately.
You're here, so play around!
There are links to help pages at the bottom of your screen.
CONVENTIONS
No, not Tentacles. Stuff that's sensible and helps us run things proper.
We've only been at this a few days, so everyone is still learning. The following guidelines should help.
1. Start every page with a link to the front page, or to the next level up, to make navigation easier. Remember how?
Just type:
Return to HomePage.
or, perhaps...
Return to Lunar Army Units & Irregulars.
Whatever.
2. Please don't delete material: rather, add a comment on the next paragraph. Editors will tidy up down the track. (We haven't planned that far ahead yet. I guess we should call for volunteers.)
3. Sign every comment you make! Use triangular brackets:
<John>
Put your signature at the end of your entry.
If there's a running commentary, you can even use opening and closing brackets if you want too, like on a web document:
<John>Whose &%#$# idea was it to have duck suicide waders anyway?</John>
NB: If you put a space before a line of text, it comes out as an indented paragraph
<John>Whose &%#$# idea was it to have duck suicide waders anyway?</John>
4. Keep documents short, and use links. Editing a long document can be a real pain in these web form windows. And two people working on the same document at the same time can mean stuff gets lost.
5. Keep the editing window open for as short a time as possible. For any entry over a few words, get into the habit of reading a page, typing up your comments in an external editor like Word or Notepad, and then opening the edit window and copying your comments across. The less time you have the editing window open, the less chance there is of two people working on a doc at the same time.
6. If you're doing something substantial to a page, consider putting a quick note at the top of the page and saving. Something like, "John is editing this page right now."
And take it off when you're done.
7. Your browser may occasionally get confused and not show you your most recent changes. If that happens, Refresh the page. (Hitting F5 will do it in Internet Explorer).
A word of warning: on one of my pc setups (Win 98/IE6) I have to manually refresh pages constantly. Try the button a few times: if the pages change content when you refresh then you may need to start a F5 habit whenever you change screens or open a new editing window. Its a minor hassle, but it means you're reading the latest version. I've found it's also the way to stop editing lockouts.
That's it! We're all still learning. This day-one draft features comments from several users, thanks to Wiki Wiki. I'm sure we'll learn more as we go on. And update this doc.
Thankz again to Wikimaster Tim Blackler for making this all happen.
Think! List! Expand! Comment! Play! Have fun!
Cheers
John & Jane & Joerg & Nick and all the other editors of this draft.
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