Half-Life Wiki:Editing

Before editing

First, register. It's fast, easy and free. If you are registered, it is easier to communicate with you and therefore improve this wiki. It will also limit the ads to the main page.

Begin editing

To begin editing a page, click on "Edit this page" or "edit" at the top. To edit an individual section, look at the section header for "[edit]".

Then enter your Wikitext into it, whatever that may be. To see what your page looks like before you save it, press "Show Preview." If that all looks good, enter a Summary (see below), mark whether it's a minor edit, and if you want to watch the page. Then, when you're finished, press "Save Page." Your changes will be visible immediately.

Dummy edit

If the Wikitext originally in the document is not changed, no edit will be recorded, and the edit summary is discarded. That is called a Dummy edit, where the page rendered is not changed.

Minor edits

When editing a page, a logged in user has the option of flagging the edit as a "minor edit". When to use this is somewhat a matter of personal preference. The rule of thumb is that an edit of a page that is spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearranging of text should be flagged as a "minor edit". A major edit is basically something that makes the entry worth relooking at for somebody who wants to watch the article rather closely, so any "real" change, even if it is a single word. This feature is important, because users can choose to hide minor edits in their view of the recent changes to keep the volume of edits down to a manageable level.

The reason for not allowing a user who is not logged in to mark an edit as minor is that vandalism could then be marked as a minor edit, in which case it would stay unnoticed longer. This limitation is another reason to log in.

Summary

The Summary is a summary of what you've done to change the page. Whether it be creating the page or fixing a spelling error, you should always fill out the summary, so administrators know what you've done.

The wiki markup

In this section, we will show everything about how to make a good Wiki page--formatting, links, and more.

You may want to keep this page open in a separate browser window for reference. If you want to try out things without danger of doing any harm, you can do so in the Sandbox.

Sections, paragraphs, lists, and lines

What You See	What You Type
Section headings look like this: New section Subsection Sub-subsection	Section headings look like this: == New section == === Subsection === ==== Sub-subsection ====
New line: A single new line has no effect on the layout. But an empty line starts a new paragraph.	New line: A single new line has no effect on the layout. But an empty line starts a new paragraph.
You can break lines without starting a new paragraph.	You can break lines<br> without starting a new paragraph.
Bulleted lists are easy; Just start every line with a star more stars means deeper levels	* Bulleted lists are easy; ** Just start every line with a star *** more stars means deeper levels
Numbered lists are also good very organized easy to follow A newline in a list marks the end of the list. New numbering starts with 1.	<nowiki> # Numbered lists are also good ## very organized ## easy to follow #A newline #in a list marks the end of the list. #New numbering starts #with 1. </nowiki>
You can even do mixed lists and nest them like this or have newlines inside lists	* You can even do mixed lists *# and nest them *#* like this<br>or have newlines<br>inside lists
You can also break lines inside lists like this	* You can also **break lines<br>inside lists<br>like this
Definition list list of definitions item the item's definition	; Definition list : list of definitions ; item : the item's definition
IF a line of plain text starts with a space THEN it will be formatted exactly as typed; in a fixed-width font; lines won't wrap; ENDIF this is useful for: * pasting preformatted text; * algorithm descriptions; * program source code * ASCII art; * chemical structures; WARNING: if you make the text wide, it won't wrap, and force the whole page to be wide and hence less readable.	IF a line of plain text starts with a space THEN it will be formatted exactly as typed; in a fixed-width font; lines won't wrap; ENDIF this is useful for: * pasting preformatted text; * algorithm descriptions; * program source code * ASCII art; * chemical structures;
Centered text.	<center>Centered text.</center>
Column 1 Column 2	{{col-begin}} {{col-2}} ==Column 1== {{col-2}} ==Column 2== {{col-end}}

Character formatting

Joe is playing Half-Life 2. Jane is playing Episode One. Spaces are treated like underscores (typing an underscore is the same as typing a space, but is not recommended).	Joe is playing [[Half-Life 2]].<br> Jane is playing [[Half-Life 2: Episode One|Episode One]].
When adding a comment to a Talk page, you should sign it. You can do this by adding three tildes for your user name: Donut THX 1138 or four for user name plus date/time: Donut THX 1138 01:49, 3 Jan 2005 (Eastern Standard Time)	When adding a comment to a Talk page, you should sign it. You can do this by adding three tildes for your user name: : ~~~ or four for user name plus date/time: : ~~~~
Redirect one article title to another by putting text like this in its first line.	#REDIRECT [[Combine]]
External links: Wikipedia, [1]	External links: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Wikipedia], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page]
Or just give the URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page	Or just give the URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
To connect in between Wikis use the Interwiki code Half-Life on Wikipedia	[[Wikipedia:Half-Life|Half-Life on Wikipedia]]
If you are linking from another wikia to Half-Life Wiki then use the following code:	[[Wikia:c:en.Half-Life]]

Emphasize, strongly, very strongly. These are double and triple apostrophes, not double quotes.	''Emphasize'', '''strongly''', '''''very strongly'''''.
A typewriter font for technical terms.	A typewriter font for <tt>technical terms</tt>.
You can use small text for captions.	You can use <small>small text</small> for captions.
You can strike out deleted material and underline new material.	You can <strike>strike out deleted material</strike> and <u>underline new material</u>.
Umlauts and accents: è é ê ë ì í À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ Ç È É Ê Ë Ì Í Î Ï Ñ Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö Ø Ù Ú Û Ü ß à á â ã ä å æ ç è é ê ë ì í î ï ñ ò ó ô œ õ ö ø ù ú û ü ÿ	è é ê ë ì í À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ Ç È É Ê Ë Ì Í Î Ï Ñ Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö Ø Ù Ú Û Ü ß à á â ã ä å æ ç è é ê ë ì í î ï ñ ò ó ô œ õ ö ø ù ú û ü ÿ
Commenting page source: not shown in page Used to leave comments in a page for future edits.	<!-- comment here -->

Colored text

Using colored text is highly discouraged but in some cases useful. To color your text enter the following code. So for example:

<span style="color: purple">purple</span>
<span style="color: green">green</span>
<span style="color: red">red</span>
<span style="color: grey">grey</span>
<span style="color: black">black</span>
<span style="color: pink">pink</span>
<span style="color: orange">orange</span>
<span style="color: yellow">yellow</span>
<span style="color: blue">blue</span>
<span style="color: silver">silver</span>

Will output:purple green red grey black pink orange yellow blue silver