Internal links

A link connecting one WikiEducator page with another WikiEducator page is called an internal link, because the link directs the user to a page "internal" to WikiEducator. Creating an internal link is quite similar to creating an external link. The difference being the web address included in the link. Internal links use only part of the full URL.

Determining the page name for an internal wiki page

To create internal links, you will need to know the naming convention for wiki pages. There is an easy way to establish the name of a wiki page in WikiEducator using two simple steps:

1. Open the page you want to link to in a new browser window.
2. Identify the text that appears after the "http://www.wikieducator.org/" portion of the URL you see in the address bar of your browser at the top of your screen.

This is the name of the WikiEducator page.

Tip: Remember that page names in the wiki are case sensitive so you must copy capitals and lowercase letters exactly as they appear in the page name of the page you want to link to.

Here are a few examples of WikiEducator page names:

Full URL of the wiki page	Page name you will use for the internal link	Explanation
http://wikieducator.org/Learning4content	Learning4Content	Use a capital "L" and a capital "C". Note that there are no spaces between the words. "Learning4Content" is the text which appears after the "http://www.wikieducator.org/" portion of the full URL.
http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Registration	Learning4Content/Registration	In this example, "Registration" is a sub-page of the "Learning4Content" page so you need to include the name of the parent page (i.e. Learning4Content/Registration) in the link reference. More about subpages in the subpage tutorial.
http://wikieducator.org/Main_Page	Main_Page	Main_Page links to the WikiEducator home page. Note the use of an uppercase "M" and "P", and the underscore ("_") between the words "Main" and "Page". However, a space (" ") can be used in place of an underscore; the wiki software substitutes underscores for spaces in internal page references.
http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg	User:Mackiwg	This is an example of the user page for Wayne Mackintosh. There are dedicated areas in the wiki for certain categories of pages. For example, all User pages are saved in an area we call the "user namespace". This is indicated by the prefix User:followed_by_the_username.

Creating an internal link

Creating an internal link to an existing page in WikiEducator, is very similar to creating an external link which we discussed in the previous section. To create an internal link, we again use the Insert/Edit Link button, highlighted below.

Highlighted Insert/Edit Link button, in the second row on the right

Activity

Creating an internal link Go to your user page and navigate to your sandbox page. Click on the edit tab (and select the Rich Editor link if it is disabled). Click on the Insert/Edit Link button on the Rich Editor toolbar. The Link dialog box The Link dialog box displays. Type "Learning4Content" in the Link text field of the Link dialog box. As you type, several pages appear in the Automatic search results window, as shown in the figure at right. Remember that the page name is case sensitive, so copy uppercase and lowercase letters exactly. When the page name is correctly entered, click the OK button at the bottom of the dialog box. After the dialog box closes, the text "Learning4Content" displays in blue and underlined in the editing window. This is the internal link with the automatic title being the wiki page name. Click on the Show preview button. The internal link displays as Learning4Content in the preview area. (If this appears as a red link in the preview or published view, you have made a typing error. Click on the Insert/Edit Link button again to correct your mistake.) When you are satisfied, click the Save page button. Test to see if your link is working properly. (Use your browser's Back button to return to this screen.) Need more help? Let us show you how.

Tip: Remember page links are case sensitive

• New wiki editors often make the mistake of using capitals and lowercase letters inconsistently when referring to the same page. If you do not see the page you are linking to in the automatic search results, it probably means that you have not used the correct case when typing the page name. You may end up creating a new page when intending to link to an existing page because the case (upper and lower case) configuration do not match.

Editing the words displayed for the internal link

On some occasions a better description than the actual page name of the internal link is needed, especially when the internal page title is a long and confusing name. To create a descriptive internal link, start in edit mode by typing the descriptive text, for example, "The largest wiki training program in the world". Highlight the text and then click on the Insert/Edit Link button as shown in the Rich Editor toolbar above.

When the Link dialog box appears, enter a wiki page name in the Link text field, like "Learning4Content". (The Link dialog box figure in the previous activity shows the "Learning4Content" wiki page in the Link text field.) The result is a link that is coloured blue and underlined in the edit window. When you preview or save the page the link to the "Learning4Content" page displays using the descriptive text rather than the page name, like this:

The largest wiki training program in the world

Activity

Creating a descriptive internal link Click on the link to your user page and navigate to your sandbox page. Use the description above to add descriptive internal links to your country's home page or your favourite WikiEducator page into your sandbox.

Summary

To create an internal link which displays a different title or description than the actual page name in the wiki you should first type the description in the editing window. To create the link, highlight the descriptive text, click on the Insert/Edit Link button and add the page name in the Link text field in the dialog box.

Once you are comfortable with inserting internal links using the Rich Editor toolbar, click on the Wikitext button (located on the top left in the Rich Editor toolbar) to see what the wikitext looks like. You may find it quicker to add internal links using wikitext once you are more comfortable working in the wiki. For information on the wikitext method for adding internal links to your content, see the WikiEducator tutorial on internal links.

|