Advanced Editing
Advanced Editing encompasses some of the more challenging aspects of wiki content such as embedding a YouTube video or images in your article.
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Images
Picture really do speak a thousand words and serve a great tool to enhance the feel and impact of your article. Including images in your page is simple!
- Step 1: Select the "upload file" option from the toolbox on the left hand side of the screen. This will lead to a prompt to upload your image.
- Step 2: Once the image is uploaded, it creates an "article" just for that image.
- Step 3: Copy the image name so that it can be pasted in the wiki markup in your article. This will usually look like: "session.jpg" or "session.gif"
- Step 4: To embed in an article se the wiki markup [[image:nameofimage.jpg]]
For example:
Lets say we wanted to include a photo of the Kentucky General Assembly in our article...
After finding our image, we would upload it using the upload function in the toolbox on the left hand side of the screen...
We would copy the image name: session.jpg...
Next, find the place where the image is supposed to be in the article...
And type: [[image:session.jpg]]
And finally you have!
Thumbnail
Adding a thumbnail to a pic is a great way to include information about the pic in the article without breaking the continuity of your writing. To do this you would use the same image embed code above but with a twist...
For example, lets use the same image of the Kentucky General Assembly:
Type this: [[image:session.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Kentucky General Assembly]]
And it appears as:
Because we are making the image a "thumbnail", there is some additional information that needs to be supplied in the wiki markup in order for the image to be properly placed in the article. Lets take a closer look at the code that made the image look the way it did.
- The [[image:session.jpg]] is the same embed code we used to simply embed the image into the article.
- The |thumb denotes that we are making the image a thumbnail. (Note the vertical bar placed before the word thumb. In wiki markup, the "|" is used to separate different functions we want the same command to perform. We will use this bar between each of the following amendments to the wiki markup for our image.)
- The |left says that we want to place the image to the left.
- The |300px denotes the size we want the image to appear. The "px" is the abbreviation used for "pixels", a unit size for measure digital images. When we change the image embed from a simple embed to a thumbnail, the image really does become a thumbnail, or smaller, version of the original. In order to get the image to the same size, you may have to alter the pixel size which is as simple as changing the number in front of the "px".
- The |Kentucky General Assembly is what we want the caption to say under the image.
YouTube Video
Videos serve as an excellent method of communicating an idea in a concise and appealing way. Embedding a video into your page takes no time at all.
- Step 1: Find the YouTube video you want to embed on YouTube and copy the video code from within the URL of the video page. The video code is found at the end of the url of the page that the video is featured on directly following "v="
- Step 2: Decide where you want your video
- Step 2: Insert the video code into the wiki markup command for embed video
For example:
If we wanted to include a video in our article about international trade...
First, we would find our video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAE4c4ZBuqk
Second, we would copy the YouTube video code from the url. In our example this code is dAE4c4ZBuqk (taken directly from the end of the url of the YouTube page).
Next, we would paste the YouTube video code into the wiki markup code for embeding video, which is: {{#ev:youtube|pastedcode}}
So, we would type: {{#ev:youtube|dAE4c4ZBuqk}}
And the video would appear:
Categories
Categories are used for grouping related articles together. This is a great tool to find related information to what you are looking for or to make it easier for your article to be found. Categorizing is simple, use the following code:
[[Category:Education]]
This will create a category much like what you see at the bottom of the page. You can follow the category link at the bottom of the page to see what a category page looks like.
When categorizing your article it is important to search the wiki you are editing on to see what categories are already in existence that your article may fall into. Remember, wikis are extremely sensitive to precision, so using the exact spelling and capitalization can determine if the link is active or not. If you search around and cannot find a category that fits your article, just create a new one. Use the code shown above and whatever text you insert after "Category" will become the name of the category. For new categories, when the page is saved for the first time, the category name will appear as a red link. Just click on that link and you will be directed to the new category page. Provide a brief description of what type of articles can be found in the category and upon saving this category page the name will automatically appear as an active blue link whenever you use that tag on another article.
Categories will appear at the bottom of the page. There is no limit to how many categories you can use for an article.
Templates
Templates are commands previously made that can be linked to within your article in order to eliminate some of the time it may take to create charts and other visually divergent arrangements on your article page. Templates can serve as a way to insert tables with article-specific data. For instance:
Both of these pages contain the "Officeholder" template yet the same template contains information specific to each individual person.
Templates can also be inserted into an article as a banner to inform the reader/contributor that what they are reading needs more sources, could be expanded, is mislabeled, is ambiguous, or has a slanted view point. The follow are examples:
