Help:Wiki syntax and markup

Tables
Tables should be used sparingly and only when necessary.

For more advanced table usage, read up on Mediawiki.org's page on tables.

IRC Logs
IRC logs can either be surrounded in  tags, or converted into MediaWiki pipe-tables with irclog2html and Ian's MediaWiki patch for irclog2html.

Notes, Tips, and Other Admonitions
These are collectively known as admonitions, and are used in DocBook. To make a paragraph into an admonition, use the special admonition template. A short title and a longer descriptive paragraph are recommended.

Indent the initial and second paragraph by one space, to ensure that the box aligns correctly.

These are the standard types of admonition:

Admonition examples
Examples showing context for using these admonitions:

Refer to the Fedora Documentation Guide for descriptions of the types of admonition: http://docs.fedoraproject.org/documentation-guide/en_US/sn-xml-admon.html

L10N review admonitions
These are admonitions to request translation updates:

URLs and links inside an admonition
If you need to put a URL with form data inside an admonition, you must use the wiki parameters to set it properly:

Writing Example Commands
Example commands are one or more commands set apart from the body of the explanation. Do not use prompt symbols or any other content that shows machine name, user, directory, etc. (which are details set in the $PS1 environment variable.)

Enclose any example command in  tags:

su -c "yum install awesome-application" &lt;/pre>

Enter the  password when prompted.

Which produces:

su -c "yum install awesome-application"

Enter the  password when prompted.

If the command requires elements to be quoted, nesting should be, with the single quote marks surrounded by one containing set of double quote marks. For example:

su -c "command -o 'Some Text' -file 'More text' foo/bar"

If you need to have a series of commands or  is not responding as expected, have the user switch to   and warn the user to return to a normal user shell afterward.

su - Password: service food stop cp /etc/foo.d/foo.conf /etc/foo.d/foo.conf.backup vi /etc/foo.d/foo.conf food --test-config ... service food start exit

Example command output
When the example shows a command as part of showing the output to the screen, you may use a command prompt to clarify commands and output.

$ su -c "ls -l /root" Password: total 148 -rw--- 1 root root 1961 2007-09-21 02:46 anaconda-ks.cfg -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 46725 2007-09-21 02:46 install.log -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6079 2007-09-21 02:42 install.log.syslog -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3699 2008-07-28 17:24 scsrun.log -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 45038 2008-01-10 10:21 upgrade.log -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1317 2008-01-10 10:20 upgrade.log.syslog

Structure of a Wiki Page
This section describes the common structure of a wiki page. Follow these guidelines for every wiki page. There are additional rules used for formal Fedora documentation, covered in Writing for DocBook using the wiki ; those rules are only required for content written to follow the procedures of the Fedora Documentation Project. Pages that are templates of standard content that are drawn into other pages may have a different structure.

The title of the page is a first-level header. It is created automatically from the page title. Sections are created using the equals symbols in pairs:

Don't do this, 5 levels of nesting means you need a new page or three
 The table of contents is automatically created and populated when the page grows big enough. Anchors to sections are automatically created, with specific symbols used in place of punctuation and spaces: This page ==> This_page This, that, and the other page ==> This%2C_that%2C_and_the_other_page 

Learn by Example
Among the better ways to learn how to edit the wiki is reviewing the code of existing pages. This is very easy to do:


 * 1) Find a page whose source you would like to view.
 * 2) Click on either the edit or view source tab at the top of the page.

The wiki will display the plaintext form of that page. This is particularly valuable for learning some of the clever tricks used by wiki editors ahead of you. Those 'clever tricks' are valuable, as they allow you to do unique, interesting, and powerful things you might not have thought were possible. You might try this on pages like Main Page (but please don't make drastic or unwanted edits to this page!).

Marking Technical Terms
Use the code markup (.

Use two single-quotes  to mark the names of menu items and other elements of the graphical interface. This displays the marked words in italic.

For example:

The  package installs the Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail application. To start Thunderbird, select: Applications > Internet > Thunderbird Email.

Which produces:

The  package installs the Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail application. To start Thunderbird, select: Applications > Internet > Thunderbird Email.