Help:Editing

Basic wiki markup is so easy that you have no excuse not to use it. It's pretty similar to what you use in text-only email. A tool bar is provided at the top to help with the editing. It is designed to supplement the main Help page.

Paragraph formatting

• Single newlines are ignored.
• Blank lines start a new paragraph.
• To indent a full paragraph start it with :
• Lines that start with one or more spaces are displayed

 like this

Links

• Use brackets to link to other wiki pages [[Some Random Page]]. This is better than using an external link to reference a different page in this wiki.
• The link will automatically convert spaces to underscores (_) so you do not need to use underscores.
• External URLs are linked automatically: http://www.google.com
• External links can also have different displayed text by enclosing it in single brackets [ and ]. Everything past the first space will be displayed.
• Use | to provide a different link name and display name for wiki pages: [[Link name|Display name]]
• The # sign can be used to directly reference a section within a page. It can be appended to a link name, a redirect, or by itself to reference a section on the page you are viewing.

Hover text is the text that shows up when you place the cursor over a linked word. Normally it will the the link name but you can make it any text you wish with syntax that looks like the example below taken from the home page:

[[Mobile devices|<span title="Handheld devices that can display eBooks among other functions">Mobile Devices</span>]]

Redirect

It is a good idea to redirect alternate spellings and abbreviations that people are likely to use. Build a page with the alternate name to point to the original name containing the data. It should contain one line on it like this:

#REDIRECT [[Original name]]

Redirects can also zero in on a topic within a page so long as it has a heading. The syntax is similar to a jump within a page in html. It should contain one line like this:

#REDIRECT [[Page name#heading name]]

A category can also be added to a redirect page. Use this when an alternate name is being redirected that users are likely to use and they are unlikely to realize that the real name is the one they want. Don't use category for spelling changes.

Normally redirects are transparent. They will be indicated just under the title on the page after the redirect completes. Tapping this link will bring up the redirect itself which is useful if you need to edit it.

Lists

• Lines beginning with one or more * characters are unnumbered lists

1. Use # characters for numbered lists.
   1. Go deeper with more #'s or *'s

• Mixing even one line without a # or * resets the count to 1.

Sections

• Text like ==A Section== is a section heading. They automatically appear in the Contents box.
• Use more = characters for subsections.

The contents box appears if there are more than 3 sections on a page. Placing __TOC__ in the text will force the contents box. It will appear at the location specified.

Images

Here is an example Image format taken from the hardware template format.

[[Image:reader1.jpg|thumb|right|320px|Dan Brown's ''Da Vinci Code'' on the Sony Reader.]]

The word Image or File can be used to specify images.

Only the original entry is required. The options are separated with a | and mean:

• thumb - The image is a thumbnail of the full image. Causes the box around the image and provides a place for the caption.
• right (or left) the image can be justified within the text and it will flow around the image.
• center is also an option.
• for inline images the surrounding text will be centered on the side of the image. Use top or bottom to force the image to align with the text.
• width can be specified. The image will be display no larger than the width specific and will be scaled to keep the aspect ratio. Clicking the image will display it larger.
• A caption can be added which will appear at the bottom of the image.

If the image does not exist it will be replaced with a box with text in it. Tapping the text will direct you to a page where you can upload the image. This is the best way to include an image as the name will automatically be renamed if needed to match the image on the target page.

Media link

In addition to images you can have links to other media items for the reader to choose. Tap the media link above the editing box to produce: [[Media:Example.ogg]]. Change the text to what you need. This is a great way to provide downloads within the wiki.

Category

Collecting pages into categories makes it easier to find related items.

[[category:Help]]

Multiple entries may be used. Should always be placed at the bottom of the file to make it easy to find if you need to edit it. If it is earlier in the file it will be displayed at the bottom anyway. If you want the category to appear inline instead of at the bottom precede the word category with a colon.

[[:category:Help]]

Existing categories include Category list. Use existing ones if you can but you can make new ones.

Tables

Tables may be included using a special wiki format or standard html format. An introduction to the wiki format is included here. For more information on tables see Advanced Table Editing

On the Advanced toolbar there is a table icon near the right end. Tap on it to bring up a template you can use to build a table. Select the size and tap ok to enter the structure of a table. You can just fill in the amounts and titles. The lines below explain what you will see.

• A table starts with the words {| class="wikitable" followed with a line containing |-
• The table ends with |} on a line by itself
• each row entry in the table begins on a new line with a | and can be separated from other entries on the line with || or the other entries can be placed on a new line preceded with a | (this behavior emulates the <td> tags in html)
• each row of the table is ended using a |- on a line by itself. (behaves like the <tr> tags in html)
• Headings can be shown by using a ! character instead of the |
• place colspan=2| at beginning to span two columns

Another way to make a table is to build a spreadsheet and then paste the contents into this wiki page.

Ignore wiki formatting

To ignore wiki formating place <nowiki> and </nowiki> around the text. This can also be achieved by tapping the no wiki icon just above the editing box.

Comments

The symbols <!-- and --> can be used to surround comments that you want to show only during editing but not in the final page.

Footnotes

This wiki now supports footnotes. The syntax and tags are <ref[ name=id]> and <references/>. The data inside the [ and ] is optional (Don't enter the brackets) and used to provide a name which can be referenced. These may be used for explanations or citations. The <ref> tag needs a closing </ref> tag with the reference data in between. If a reference is named it can be used additional times without reentering the data.

The <references/> tag is required and should be placed at the point where you want all the information to be displayed (usually a section titled references or footnotes. Both forward and back links will be built automatically. For more information see: Cite extension

Styles for text

To show colored text: <span style="color:red">red</span>

To select a font: <span style="font-family:verdana">verdana</span>

note that generic names such as: serif, sans-serif, monofont, and smallfont can be used.

To center some text: {{center|text to be centered}}

Syntax Highlighting

This wiki nows supports syntax highlighting. See SyntaxHighlight GeShi for more details. Adding syntax tags is like the pre tag in that the font will be changed to courier (fixed width) and lines will not be wrapped. To add syntax you should enter <syntaxhighlight lang="xxx"> and end with </syntaxhighlight> The lang should be set to one of the many choices outlined on the details page. For MobileRead use these are likely to be:

• css
• xml (this will also work for html)
• html4strict
• perl
• text

There are other options as well. line start="xx" would add line numbers beginning with xx. Adding highlight="yy" would darken line number yy. the option enclose="div" would allow the line to wrap.

Using Templates

Standardize templates can help make the look of pages more uniform. They can also be used to do things that are hard to enter using regular techniques. They can also be placed on a page to show work in progress or more information is needed. The page MobileRead:Community Portal#Useful Templates provides a list of some of the most used templates in this wiki. A template can be referenced by its name surrounded by double braces { and }. The main template for a new hardware reader is best used by simply looking at the template and then cut/paste the contents on a new page. The template looks like:

 [[Image:ReaderImage.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Description of Reader]]
 {{HardwareReader
 |Name=
 |Company=
 |ReleaseDate=
 |Parent=
 |Lang=
 |FileTypes=
 |Overview=
 |Specifications=
 |History=
 |SeeAlso=
 }}  

Once you have the template on a page you can just fill in the items requested. Additional items can be added after the template or even within the entries in the template.

Another simple template is designed to help you center text on the screen You would use it like this:

{{Center|The text you want to center}}. There results would look like:

The text you want to center

HTML

The Wiki server converts the wiki commands to HTML to display in your browser. It is also possible to use HTML coding in a wiki file and it will be passed unchanged so it will also display as expected in your browser. It is possible to mix wiki tags and HTML tags so if you want to do something more complicated you can use HTML for that. Note that this means any HTML text must be escaped with nowiki tags if you wanted to just display it.

Examples:

<span style="color:red">This is red</span> looks like: This is red

<br/> is also useful to force a break in the line without a blank line in between.

<strike>link no longer works</strike> looks like: link no longer works

<u>This line is underlined</u> looks like: This line is underlined