Howto:How to create new articles
Search the existing articles
Before creating a new article, look first if your subject has been already covered in another article. It is always better to edit an existing article, than to create a new one.
Create a new article
Please read the following rules, before creating an article.
Templates
There are different templates for new articles available. To use an template you must first choose the right category for your new article.
Here a short example: You want to write a new Howto article. Go to the wiki page Create New Page and use the textbox howto to type in your new article name. Please do not delete the already inserted "Howto: " . This detemines in which namespace your new article will be created. Click on the create article button and you will be directed to your new page. However keep in mind that the templates are not obligatory. If you think your new articles doesn't need all the points inserted by the template, fell free to modify them.
If you feel no template is appropriate for your new article, your are of course free to start it from scratch. However, make sure that your new article is in the right namespace and that it is categorized correctly.
The article title
Article names should contain normal words or phrases. For example use "SIP Provider Compatibility Report" instead of an abbreviated form like "SIPCompatRep". Normally a user will look for keywords like "Provider" or "Compatibility". If you use an abreviated title the mediawiki search engine will not find a matching article.
The article text
Don't use abbreviations shorter than three letters. For example use "compact flash" instead of "CF". The mediawiki search engine will not search strings shorter than two characters.
wiki links
If you want to link to other articles in this wiki, use if possible intra-wiki links instead of externeal links. Example:
- Good
[[ Create_New_Page | Create New Page]]
- Bad
[http://wiki.innovaphone.com/index.php?title=Create_New_Page Create New Page]
In some cases you might find it usefull to link to a entire category of pages. You can do this by using category links. Example:
[[:Category:Compat|Compatibility Articles here]]
watchlist
If you think an article very essential content and want to stay informed about every change made to this page, you can use the watchlist feature. To add a page to your watchlist, just use the link "watch" on top of the page.
In order to be automatical informed by mail about recent changes to pages on your watchlist, you have to make some adjustments to your preferences. By using the Specialpage "Preferences" My Preferences you can enable the feature E-mail me when a page I'm watching is changed .
Uploading Files
If you upload an image, we recommend that you use the png - file format. Also do some processing of your images, like cutting of unneeded edges, space etc.
Also we support uploading of pdf and zip files.
Screenshots
- pre-processing
- resize application window that you want to show (good example, bad example)
- cut unnecessary picture areas
- Pressing Alt-PrintScreen places an image of the frontmost window on the clipboard. Pressing PrintScreen by itself places an image of the entire desktop on the clipboard.
- Open MS-Paint. (From Start/Run, issue the command "mspaint".) Create a new empty image, and use Edit/Paste to bring in the screenshot you just took. (If the screenshot is smaller than the default Paint canvas, you'll end up with white areas. Start over: create a new empty image, change its dimensions to 1x1, and Paste again. The canvas will grow for the Paste, but it doesn't shrink.)
- Use MS-Paint to Save As, using PNG as the file format (it is superior to all the rest, JPG is bad choice)
- Don't forget the post-processing.
If you upload an image, we recommend that you use the png - file format. Also do some processing of your images, like cutting of unneeded edges, space etc.
Keywords
In some cases you may want that your article should be found if the search function is looking for certain keywords. However this keywords don't fit in your article context, because they are in a foreign language or simply synoyms of used technical terms. In this case just use the Keyword paragraph, to insert the desired keywords in your article.
Edit an existing article
Often people make just small changes to a page, for example typing errors. Mediawiki offers the posibility to mark changes as minor. You will find the checkbox "This is a minor edit" just over the "Save page" button.
