Help:Wiki editor's reference

References for advanced users.

Color
MediaWiki understands color names as well as the hex codes. For example, you can use "WhiteSmoke" instead of " #F5F5F5; ".
 * Colors for web pages
 * Tango Icon Theme Guidelines
 * The palette used for the main wiki page. Pick colors from here.

Text Colors
The code inside "style=" can be used for tables.
 * Font color: text will display as text
 * Background color: text will display as text

HTML
The wiki understands HTML as well as wikitext. To use HTML, wrap tags around the code. While some may prefer HTML over wikitext, consider that other users may have difficulty working in HTML directly. Please use wikitext where possible.

HTML is very useful in some situations, such as embedding a YouTube.com video or inserting an RSS feed.

How to embed YouTube.com video in the wiki:
 * 1) Add first.
 * 2) Go to YouTube and copy-n-paste the video code into the next line.
 * 3) Add last.
 * 4) Select "Show preview" to confirm everything works, enter a "Summary" to document what you did, "Save page" when done.

Working YouTube.com example:
 *    
 *    


 * HTML Element, attributes, such as, , , and [b], [i]
 * HTML scripting
 * Cascaded Style Sheets, reference doc (Standard from W3C) for many HTML items
 * XML and HTML Character References
 * Want to know how to generate a non-break space, &#x00B1; &lt; &gt; &lambda; and about 252 more? Use this reference.
 * Web Building Tutorials
 * Tutorials with lots of examples to practice on live. HTML, CSS, XML, JavaScript, ASP, SQL, and more.

Images

 * Images, How to size and frame images
 * Force text to relocate after an image:  From MediaWiki image page.

Math
LaTEX not installed. Below is for reference only.
 * Math Formulas

Parameters, Parsing

 * Magic Words
 * Parser Functions, how to process parameters passed to templates

Tables

 * The basics: Tables
 * Comprehensive: WikiTable Markup Guide, lots of examples to do just about anything
 * Excel to Wiki Table Converter

Templates

 * Transclusion, the key to it all
 * Help:Templates, simple example to get started
 * Help:Template, covers parameters, substitution, parsing
 * Template Substitution, how it works, when you should use it, (more importantly) when you should not use it.
 * Advanced Templates, parameter passing

Admin

 * MediaWiki version info
 * MediaWiki:Common.js
 * MediaWiki:Common.css
 * MediaWiki:Sidebar
 * Sidebar Editing Manual

Namespaces

 * All about Namespaces

Page Cache (Refreshing)
Sometimes, the MediaWiki engine may fail to rebuild a page. The result is that the change appears to have no effect, despite the user reloading the page from their browser. This is not a normal occurrence. Updating a Google widget, such as Google Document may result in this problem.

The user needs to force a cache purge. Append "?action=purge" to the URL of the page in question.

Special Pages

 * Special:Version - Installed MediaWiki software and extensions
 * Special Page Help

Special:Allpages
The Special:Allpages works by displaying all categories starting with a character or phrase.
 * will display all categories starting with Main Page and go to the end
 * will display all categories starting with V and go to the end
 * will display all categories starting with V and go to the end

Widgets
Google Widgets are available.
 * Google Spreadsheet - for embedding spreadsheets
 * Google Document - for embedding documents
 * Google Form - for embedding spreadsheet forms
 * Google Presentation - for embedding presentations

Portals
Design guidelines used to create the Main Page portal.


 * Guidelines on Portal Content

Wikipedia Portal Listings

 * Portal Directory
 * Portal list by category
 * Featured Portals, highly rated

Main Page Candidates
The Main Page was based on a mixture of these portals:
 * Business and economics
 * Mathematics
 * Architecture