View source for Help:Editing

See also [[Helpful:About]], and the [[Main Page]].




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===Conventions===
Not many.

Mainly 'Minimize visual clutter' 



Sections are good, particularly where they aid someone to the right bit of content. A simple summary, 'usually this amounts to', and 'crazy details' can coexist this way. 

Or just if you have a page full of text.


Linking to software's project page, (interesting parts of) manuals, datasheets, and such (whatever you're augmenting or drawing together) is nice.
The wikipedia page may be a lazy way as it usually links to those things well enough.


When adding web links, try to mention the title of the linked content to make them recognizable as well as easier to fix when they 404.



I have the habit of keeping half-arsed content in <tt>&lt;-- --&gt;</tt> style comments, when I want to do some more polishing before it becomes visible. 
You may want to look for that if you suspect there's some reason for that empty section.

===Wiki syntax, templates, and such===

See [[Markup_language_notes#mediawiki]] for some syntax notes.

====Basic templates in here====
There are some defined templates you can use if you wish, currently including:

In-text:
* '''<nowiki>{{verify}}</nowiki>''' puts a bracketed 'verify me'. Useful when you're not entirely sure of what you or someone else states. Looks like {{verify}}. Partially made so that people who want to polish stuff can [http://helpful.knobs-dials.com/index.php/Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Verify look for uses of this template].

* '''<nowiki>{{comment}}</nowiki>''' make parenthetical text subtler in-page, and consistently style in the wiki, and easy to change in style later. '''&#123;&#123;comment|this syntax&#125;&#125;''' currently gives {{comment|this effect}}. Useful for things, such as {{comment|(This is not guaranteed to be thread-safe on all systems.)}}.

* '''<nowiki>{{inlinecode}}</nowiki>''' can be used in paragraph text to get a style that imitates text blocks (constant-width font, background color). '''&#123;&#123;inlinecode|this syntax&#125;&#125;''' currently gives {{inlinecode|this effect}}
:: there is also '''<nowiki>{{tag}}</nowiki>''' for {{tag|tag}}
:: for code blocks, see below


Page/section markers {{comment|(see next section)}}
* '''<nowiki>{{stub}}</nowiki>''' - nice whenever you dump in a few links and sentences in preparation, so for pages that haven't received real attention from writers/editors. In some cases it can make way for one of the other templates, in other cases it can fall away once the text is decent. [http://helpful.knobs-dials.com/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Template%3AStub look for uses of this template]
: {{stub}}

* '''<nowiki>{{notes}}</nowiki>''' looks like
: {{notes}}

* '''<nowiki>{{old}}</nowiki>''' looks like
: {{old}}


* '''<nowiki>{{info|this}}</nowiki>''' looks like {{info|this}}

* '''<nowiki>{{warning|this}}</nowiki>''' looks like {{warning|this}}

* '''<nowiki>{{zzz|this}}</nowiki>''' is meant for side-information that is easy to skip, and looks like {{zzz|this}}

* '''<nowiki>{{ELI5|this}}</nowiki>''' looks like {{ELI5|this}}


Style:


* '''<nowiki>{{key}}</nowiki>''' {{key|c}}


* '''<nowiki>{{keyhold}}</nowiki>''' {{keyhold|Ctrl}}

====Other templates====

* '''<nowiki>{{search|query}}</nowiki>''' - a web search (currently google) for the first argument.  Link text is the same string, or the second argument if there is one.
* '''<nowiki>{{imagesearch|query}}</nowiki>''' - an image-search variant of the last

* '''<nowiki>{{luckysearch|query}}</nowiki>''' - first hit for a web search for the first argument (google's feeling lucky)


* various subject-related TOC-like things to navigate to related pages
<!--Hosting stuff, Database related, Networking stuff -->

====Code====

Aside from above-mentioned {{inlinecode|inlinecode}}, 
you can use space-indented text (and/or {{tag|pre}}), possibly with {{tag|nowiki}} to avoid parsing some mediawiki-ish text patterns, to get monospaced blocks:
 <nowiki>
def yay():
  for i in range(10):
    print "thing %d"%i
</nowiki>


...but ''code'' tends to be a lot more readable with some [[syntax higlighting]]. There's an extension that means that 
 <nowiki>
<syntaxhighlight lang="python">
def yay():
  for i in range(10):
    print( "thing %d"%i )
</syntaxhighlight></nowiki>
gives you:
<syntaxhighlight lang="python">
def yay():
  for i in range(10):
    print( "thing %d"%i )
</syntaxhighlight>

See [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SyntaxHighlight/en#Supported_languages this list for supported languages/syntaxes]

<!--
===More notes to potential editors===
Anyone can contribute. Really, feel free. <small>(Just know it might get reformatted:)</small>


There are no real policies you are bound to. If you want some guidelines, take a look at wikipedia's editing policies and rules, they're mostly useful and/or sane.


When you write new pages, add an introduction, but avoid parts that are probably unnecessary. For exameple, consider that someone who searches for something like [[SSH tunneling]] probably knows basics about computer networking, so you  can give the lowdown on how the tunneling works and what the most likely setups are. 

A lot of web(log) articles out there have the tendency to explain so much background they feel they need to quickly skim over a few commands that, yes, work, but don't give the reader any idea of how or why. 

In this example, if you feel like elaborating on networking details, you'ld probably want to add that to some networking-related page and reference that instead, so that you can avoid duplicate information (that could also be in places where it is harder to find).


Also, try to be minimal. There are often many side notes you can make that are correct and complete, but don't contribute to general understanding. Consider moving such details to a 'detailed considerations' section, removing it, or even moving it to its own article.


'''Things to avoid'''

Nothing here should consist for a noticable part of copy-pasted summaries. Things that are clearly rehashed rather than really understood will probably be commented out or removed until someone gets to writing it up well. Overly formal definitions, dry references consisting mostly of options only the very technical type of person (who can find them anyway) would be interested in.

See also [[Contributing and editing]]. 

Note that the content is FDL'd, which rougly means "don't add copyrighted text, and note that the content is freely copyable" (see also [[License comparison]])
-->

[[Category:Meta-wiki]]