New User Guide/Editing

The ability of any user to edit articles is the backbone of any wiki. This guide explains the more basic aspects of editing the wiki.

General Stuff* Use the 'Show Preview' button at the bottom of any edit screen. It's right next to 'Save Page'. By using it, you can avoid making several tiny edits before showing it to everyone else. It also avoids clogging up Special:Recentchanges.
* Use the 'minor edit' button whenever making small edits. This also helps not clog up recent changes because it can be set not to show minor edits. Edits to your user pages should always be minor. Most edits to talk pages should be minor as well. Use your judgment.
* Whenever you are making a comment on a talk page, ALWAYS sign your comments by typing four tildes (~~~~).

Links
Linking is an important aspect of editing a wiki. It allows you to point to other pages easily.

Internal Links
Internal links take you to any other place within PvX, it is achieved by putting a set of square brackets around the place you want to link to. Example:

```
The text [[Main Page]] displays this: Main Page
A broken link (linking to a page that does not exist) shows up like this.

```

If you wish to create a link to one page that displays different text (for example, you want to link to your userpage but don't want 'User:' to show up in the text):

```
The text [[User:Wizardboy777]] shows up like this: User:Wizardboy777
However, the text [[User:Wizardboy777|Wizardboy777]] shows up like this: Wizardboy777
Whatever text appears after the bar is what the link will display.

```

External Links
External links link to any specific URL. Simply typing in a URL will create a link (e.g. - http://www.google.com). However, this doesn't look nice. To create a link with different text, look at the following example:

```
The text [http://www.google.com Google] displays: Google
Note that, unlike internal links, there is only one square bracket here.

```

Note, however, that the only way to check that an external link is valid is by testing it yourself.

Inter-wiki Links
It is often necessary to link to pages on GuildWiki (gw) or GWWiki (gww). To facilitate this process, PvXwiki has implemented inter-wiki links. These are very similar to internal links. The only difference is that you must include a 'gw:' or 'gww:' in front of the page name. Example:

```
The text [[gw:Main Page]] displays like this: gw:Main Page
Notice that the link is a slightly different color. Also, it will not be red if the page does not exist.
Another thing to notice is that the 'gw:' still appears in front. There's an easy way to fix this.
[[gw:Main Page|Guildwiki]] displays like this: Guildwiki
Also, [[gw:Main Page|]] (note the bar at the end) displays as Main Page

```

Text Formatting
Sometimes, in order to accentuate a point, it is necessary to format text in certain ways.

Italics and Bold
*Italicizing* and **bolding** (or even ***both***) is easy to accomplish on a wiki. In order to italicize, simply surround the desired text with two apostrophes (''). To bold, surround the desired text with three apostrophes. To do both, use five. Example:
''Example'' displays *Example*
'''Example''' displays **Example**
'''''Example''''' displays ***Example***

Line Breaks
You may notice that if you just hit 'enter' and start typing on the next line that you don't actually end up with a line break in the actual text. There are several ways to accomplish line breaks.
* Hitting enter twice will result in a line break. However, this break is often somewhat larger than desired. This is more of a between-paragraphs kind of thing.
* Typing <br> will also result in a somewhat-smaller line break.
* Typing {{clear}} will also result in a small line break.

Whenever using indents or bulleted/numbered lists, a line break will automatically be put in.

Bulleting and numbered lists
Accomplishing lists with bullets or numbers is made easy by the wiki. To do a bulleted list, simply start each line with an asterisk (\*). To do a numbered list, start each line with a number sign (#). Examples:
* This is the first part of a bulleted list.
* This is the second part of a bulleted list.
* This can go on forever

And numbers:
1. This is the first part of a numbered list.
2. This is the second part of a numbered list.
3. This can also go on forever.

Also, you can create smaller bullets (or numbers) within a bulleted or numbered list simply by typing two (or more) of the respective character. Examples:
* Part 1 of list
* Part 2 of list
	+ Part 1 of sub-list
	+ Part 2 of sub-list
* Part 3 of list

Numbers:
1. Part 1 of list
2. Part 2 of list
	1. Part 1 of sub-list
	2. Part 2 of sub-list
3. Part 3 of list

Indents
**Indenting** (sometimes referred to as **tabbing**) text can be important. Indents are easy to accomplish - simply put a colon (:) at the beginning of the line. Multiple colons make a bigger indent. Example:
Comment #1

Comment #2
Comment #3
Comment #4
Comment #5
Response to Comment #3
Response to comment to Comment #3
Response to Comment #1
Comment #6 (new subject)
**How it looks in the edit window:**

```
Comment #1
:Comment #2
::Comment #3
:::Comment #4
::::Comment #5

:::Response to Comment #3
::::Response to comment to Comment #3

:Response to Comment #1

Comment #6 (new subject)

```

Also, if you put a space in front of something to indent it, it appears in a grayish box with a dotted border, like some of the above examples.

```
See? It's magic. But note, lines of text in these will not 'wrap around'.

```

Font options
Font size and color can be easily customized using simple html tags. To change either of these, you must first open a <font> tag. Type <font (don't add the closing > yet) in front of whatever text you wish to modfiy. Then you can change the color and size. After that, put a </font> tag after the block of text to be modified. Examples:
* **Size**:

```
<font size=20>THIS IS SIZE 20</font> displays THIS IS SIZE 20

<font size=5>This is size 5</font> displays this is size 5

```

```
<font size=1>This is size 1</font> displays This is size 1

```
* **Color**:

```
<font color=red>This is red font,</font> but this is black - displays This is red font, but this is black

```
* **You can even combine them**:

```
<font size=5 color=blue>This is big blue font, <font size=10>but this is bigger</font></font> displays:

This is big blue font, but this is bigger

```

There is also an easier way to create big and small text. Simply use <small>, </small>, <big>, and </big> tags. However, this gives you less precise control over the size.
Another thing you can do is create subtext and suptext. Use the <sub> and <sup> tags. Examples:

```
The equation y = x<sup>2</sup> is a basic parabola. will display The equation y = x2 is a basic parabola.

H<sub>2</sub>O is the chemical formula for water. will display: H2O is the chemical formula for water.

```

Templates
Templates are very useful. They allow you to insert even an extremely large amount of code with a very small amount. {{clear}} is a template that you have already used. Templates are kind of like internal links. The main difference is that you use curly brackets ({{ and }}) instead of square brackets. Using a template inserts its code into the page, and if that template is updated, any pages the template is on will also be changed.

Template Syntax
Inserting a template normally is all well and good, but some templates aren't that simple. Certain templates, such as the {{Untested-trial}} template and the userbox template, also accept variables and there are others that you won't want to update whenever the template changes. Examples:
* {{mini skill bar}} simply displays this thing:

* In order to get skills, you must pass variables to it. In this case, skill names.

* Note that writing 'Optional' displays a blank skill.

Useful Templates* **{{**Clear**}}** - adds a line break
* **{{**build-stub**}}** - tags a build as a stub, or incomplete build article