Detailed Help On Editing The Wiki

About This Page
This page gives more detailed help on editing this Aether Explorers wiki, including tips and tricks for formatting and structuring pages. See also: Contributing To The Wiki

Headings
Most pages are best broken up into sections using headings. To create a heading either:- Then just type the text of your heading and when you hit the Enter key you'll go down a line and back to normal "Paragraph" text.
 * Press the "ctrl" button ("cmd" on a Mac) on your keyboard at the same time as hitting the number "2" key. This will set the current text to a Heading.
 * Select from the heading drop-down at the top of the page (where is says "Paragraph" with a down arrow to the right of it.

Sub heading at different levels (with smaller text) can be inserted using ctrl-3, ctrl-4 etc and you can turn a heading back into normal "Paragraph" text using ctrl-0. The short-cut numbers are shown on the Heading drop-down. The table of contents will automatically indent all the different levels of sub-headings.

Recommendation: Most pages will benefit from an "About This Page" heading at the top describing the point of the page and a (very quick) summary of what is in it.

Inserting An External Link
To link to external sites do the following:- You should end up with something like this: Aether Explorers Website
 * Copy the url you want to insert e.g. http://aetherexplorers.science/
 * Type the text you want to use for the link e.g. "Aether Explorers Website"
 * Highlight that text and then either:-
 * Use a shortcut: Click Ctrl-K (Cmd-K on a Mac)
 * Click on the link button at the top of the Editor
 * Paste the url
 * Hit the "Done" button

If you want to remove a link just click on it and hit the Remove Link button (which is a red link with a line through it). There is also a button there for changing the text of a link.

Inserting An Internal (Aether Explorers wiki) Link Using Quick Search
To link to another page in the Aether Explorers wiki you can use a quick method where you:-
 * Click Ctrl-K (Cmd on a Mac)
 * Start typing the Page Title e.g. "Co"
 * Select the page you want to paste a link to e.g. "Contributing To The Wiki"
 * That's it, a link to that page should now have been inserted!

Bullet Lists
To finish the list just hit Enter until you go back to editing normal text.
 * Select the list drop down at the top and select either bullet or numbered list
 * To increase indent either:-
 * Hit the tab key (like I just did!)
 * or:-
 * Select "Increase indentation" from the list dropdown.
 * To decrease indent (like I just did!) either:-
 * hold down the Shift and Tab button
 * or:-
 * Select "Decrease indentation" from the list dropdown.

Using Tables
Tables can be an excellent way to show complex information in a structured manner, but they can also be used simply as a box or other frame. They offer a variety of editing options, so they are really quite versatile.

Using the "Visual Editor" is the easiest way to include and edit tables. To place one onto your page, click on the "Insert" button at the top of the editor and select "Table". A blank table is inserted into the page and you can then fill the cells with content, add or remove columns and rows, or access various "properties".

Accessing a table's full functionality is only possible through the "Edit Source" function of the page or section. Unfortunately the source can quickly get difficult to read or edit, so it's good to have a manual at hand for what the different bits of code will do to the table. The MediaWiki has an excellent Help Section on Tables that should get you a long way.

Forcing Table Of Contents To Appear At The Top
If you add more than 4 headings on the page a Table Of Contents will automatically appear at the top. If you want to force a Table Of Contents to always be shown (so that you can easily link to subsections, or so people always see a nice TOC at the top) you can do this by clicking the button with the three horizontal lines at the top -> Page Settings -> Show the Table of Contents = Always -> Apply.

NOTE: The new version of WikiMedia that this site runs on shows a Table Of Contents down the side bar when browsing on the Desktop (i.e. not Mobile) and it stays visible as you scroll down the page.

Linking To Subsections Of Other Pages
If you want to link from some text you are writing to a subsection of another page:-
 * Go to that page.
 * Click on the entry for the subsection in the Table Of Contents
 * Copy the url of the full link in your browser
 * Paste it into the page and it will automagically get inserted with the "Page Title#Heading Title" on the page e.g. Contributing To The Wiki

Inserting A Reference/Citation
If you want to link to an external site as a reference which shows as a little number next to your text (like this: ) you can do so using the Citation feature. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Referencing_for_beginners for a more detailed explanation.

As an example the steps I followed for the [1] reference above are:- For a list of example references see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#cite_note-3
 * Click the Cite menu at the top of the Editor
 * Select "Basic" (or just use the Ctrl-Shift-K keyboard shortcut)
 * Enter a formatted reference, for example:
 * "Photonic Hopfions: Light Shaped as a Smoke Ring Behaves Like a Particle". SciTechDaily. Jan 23, 2023. Retrieved Jan 21, 2023.
 * The format of references to news sources (and other publications) should consist of:-
 * The title of the news piece in quotes as a link e.g "Photonic Hopfions: Light Shaped as a Smoke Ring Behaves Like a Particle". (You make it a link by pasting the text, clicking the link icon, selecting External and pasting the URL)
 * The name of the publication e.g. SciTechDaily.
 * The date of publication e.g. Jan 23, 2023.
 * The word "Retrieved" followed by the date you found the article (usually today's date!)

On WikiPedia If you hover over a reference you will see it creates a convenient pop-up where you can verify the source of the reference and click on the link to it if you want. This feature isn't currently enabled on the Aether Explorers wiki but has been suggested at Suggestions For The Aether Explorers Wiki

ATTRIBUTION NOTE: This page is largely based on https://rebelwisdom.miraheze.org/wiki/Detailed_Help_On_Editing_The_Wiki with small changes. Thanks to the original contributors to that page :-) which was created with these licensing terms (same as this page)