Summary & FAQs

The easiest way to create a new page on the wiki is to create an internal wiki link that points to the page you wish to create. When you follow a red link (indicating that a page does not yet exist), you can add content to it, thus creating the page.

Tip: If you want to create a new page but are not sure where it will eventually go in the scheme of your larger content, use your User page or Sandbox as a kind of holding space for the link to new content; later you add this link into your project to point to this page. Remember if there is no link from an existing page to your new page, you may have difficulty finding it again.

Summary

There are two categories of links, each with a range of options for displaying the hyperlink-text to the reader: Internal page links always use two square brackets ([[...]]) The Wiki software will search for the page in the data base and if it exists in WikiEducator, the link will automatically appear as a blue hyperlink in the published view; If this is a new page, the link will appear in red in the published view, alerting users that content must still be generated for this new page in the wiki When you want to display a different text to the actual name of the page in the wiki, use the piped "|" divider (SHIFT + BACKSLASH on English-layout and other keyboards), for example: [[Name_of_page_in_Wikieducator|Enter user-display text here]]. We call this a piped link. External page links always use single square brackets ([...]) to distinguish them from internal links. If you want the external link to appear as a numbered reference, you simply enter the url for the external page like this: [http://col.org] which will show the link to the homepage of the Commonwealth of Learning like this [1]. If you want to display a different text (piped link)rather than a numbered reference, we use a space (instead of the "|" divider), for example [http://col.org Commonwealth of Learning] which will appear like this: Commonwealth of Learning

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

How do I find the pages I created?

A wiki uses a flat structure, and may contain thousands of pages. WikiEducator currently has 157,346 pages, and you wouldn't be the first person who has lost a page! You should be able to find your page with a little investigative work.

1. Once you are logged in, go to the "my contributions" link which appears above the content area of the screen. This lists all the edits you have made, and searching through your contributions list will help trace the page you are looking for. If you've contributed thousands of edits - this may take some time.
2. If you can remember the name of your page, try using the search function on the left-hand side of your screen.
3. From the "Special pages" link listed in the toolbox on the left, go to the all pages link (or Directly from here). There is a limited search function. Try and remember the first letter of your page to help find the missing culprit.

They say that prevention is better than cure and there are a number of things you can do to minimise the risk of not finding your creative works in WikiEducator.

1. While working on draft pages before you are sure where best to link these from, create the link to the new page from your own User page. This way you can return to your homepage to find the link. Once the page is created, it is easy to insert the link from another page, using the following syntax: [[Name_of_your_page]].
2. When you create a new page, before saving it, mark the check box Watch this page. This will automatically add the page to your watchlist, which you can access after logging in by clicking on the "my watchlist" link above the content area.
3. You can also set your preferences to automatically add every page you create to your watchlist. Go to "my preferences" once you have logged in and select the edit tab. Mark the checkbox "Add pages I create to my watchlist".

I created a new page from another page - and worked on this new page, how do I move back to my first page?

1. The easiest way to move back from any page is to go to your toolbox on the left-hand side of the page and 'Click on the "What links here link". This will list all the pages that link to the current page you are viewing.
2. There are more sophisticated techniques you can use by adding your own navigation to the respective page, for instance:
   • inserting an internal link referring back to the "parent" page.
   • inserting a navigation template which we deal with later in the tutorials. We recommend that you tackle this alternative once you have gained confidence with internal and external links.
   • using the slash argument when creating subordinate pages, which we also cover later in the tutorials.

Do internal links follow a directory structure? In other words is it only possible to link to page2 from page1 internally if page2 was created initially from page1? If not, is it only possible for one page called page2 to exist within WikiEducator?

No - you can link to page2 anywhere from the Wiki by using the syntax [[page2]] in this example. Yes it is possble for page2 to exist independently in the wiki - while not advised for Newbies, a new page can be created simply by inserting the name of the new page after the main wikieduactor url (for example http://www.wikieducator.org/newpage2) and then pressing the <enter> key. We don't recommend this approach for beginners because the new page is not linked to any other page in the wiki and may be difficult to find again!

The wiki does not have a native hierarchical structure. A wiki is a collection of pages which can be linked with each other by inserting an internal link. So if you insert an internal link on Page 1 to Page 2, the wiki does not assume a hierarchy (for example that Page 2 is a sub-page of the previous page). If you want to create a new page which is a sub-page you should take a look at creating sub-pages.

I'm repeating a question above because I feel the explanation wasn't too clear.

1. Can two pages have the same name?
2. How does the wiki differentiate a page titled "introduction" for several different pages with the same name? It's difficult to understand how pages that have been created can be linked later...

No, two different pages can't have the same name. However, page names are case sensitive so "Introduction" and "introduction" are unique pages.

How to open a wiki page in a new window so we don't have to keep hitting back button to get to the tutorial?

You can open a new page automatically if you hold the shift button down, then click the link. This will keep the original page you were on in one window and pop up the link you clicked in a new one.

It helps having two screens that are linked, use one to read the tutorial and the other to do the exercises in your sandbox. (You'll need to open the WikiEducator webpage twice to do this).

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