Talk:Wiki syntax

Populating this with some useful wiki help

OK the contents of this page were removed by User:Longbow4u, because you're not strictly speaking allowed to copy Wikipedia's help page onto here (different license)

However you are allowed to copy stuff from the Public Domain Help Pages on mediawiki.org. This is a project specifically designed for this purpose. I was involved in at an early stage, and it seems to have progressed a bit now, although they haven't yet made it clear, or set it up properly, to facilitate a wholesale export and import of their help pages. I'll investigate this a bit more. At the very least we can copy content from there 'by hand' -- Harry Wood 15:19, 2 May 2007 (BST)

Circular reference

This page and Wiki_Help refer to each other for help on editing, so I've added a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Wiki_markup so it does at least point to something useful! Seventy7 10:16, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Add info on basic formating for the beginner

The help page should contain information on basic formating like bold/italic, paragraph, linebreak, space as first character, lists and simple links into the wiki and external. Furthermore the links available are not realy helpful for a beginner. In Wiki-Help there is missing a comprehensive page on basic editing features, which is suitable for beginners. --EvanE 15:32, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I've rearranged and commented the links, which should now give better hints on the contents of the linked pages. --EvanE 14:57, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Multi-languages

This page should be multi language enabled.
For a beginner the switch to an english only page might be a to big obstacle. --EvanE 15:33, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I have added the Template "Languages" to give a starting point. While doing so I discovered a name conflict with the page Editing, which talks about the OSM-editors for manipulating OSM-data. Therefore I decided to change the name of the page to Help:Wiki-Editing, which in turn changed the name of this talk-page to Help talk:Wiki-Editing. --EvanE 14:58, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

No need to write a wiki manual

EvanE, well done making a start on writing some wiki help documentation... but don't spend too much effort on it. We should do this: Mirror the PD help pages from mediawiki.org. This would give as a bunch of wiki help pages looking like this. It's just a simple matter of programming. I really should get around to doing it some time. Hmm. Admittedly this has been on my TODO list for ...five years now.

In any case, we don't need you to write a manual on wiki markup etc. You could just copy that one. That's what it's there for.

-- Harry Wood 00:27, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind awareness. I don't intend to write a Wiki-Help-System.

This page is the one, where you are linked to, if you klick on 'Help Editing' in the Edit window. I feel, that there should be valuable information like basic wiki markup immediate available.

On the other hand this page is already and will be translated to other languages, which shows the urgent need for this kind of information.

I've added your link of the 'help content page' on mediawiki to the section "Link to other informations" for those who want more information on wiki and wiki editing.

--EvanE 12:39, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Problem with wikitable

Dont know if this is the right place to ask this question but I will try. Im trying to make a collapsabe table. using text as class="wikitable collapsible" but it does not seem to work? It works on wikipedia and I thought osm-wiki and wikipedia used the same "engine"?

Simple collapsible table
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

--Thod 20:25, 15 May 2012 (BST)

No no. There's lots of advanced syntax tricks which will work on wikipedia and not on this wiki. Mainly this is due to "templates" in place there, which any user could re-create on this wiki if we need them, however there may also be features which only system administrators can install. Not sure, but I think "wikitable collapsible" may be in that category. Anyone know? Anyway for the moment that particular trick will not work here. -- Harry Wood 12:27, 16 May 2012 (BST)

Request: Add a section about uploading images

I am fairly new to OSM and this Wiki. Today I was trying to add something to page (man_made=tower) that needed an image to illustrate my addition. I ran down the list of topics in the Editing Help but could find nothing about how to upload an image.

I noted in the other thumbnail images on that page that there was a user account associated with each of them. I had a hunch and went to my own user page which is where I finally saw the "Upload file" link. I uploaded my image and all is well. But it was far from obvious how to accomplish that.

Might you consider adding a section entitled "How to upload files and images" - User:AlaskaDave 11:31, 22 February 2013‎

Could do. But it's all in the mediawiki help pages e.g. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Managing_files which we are allowed to copy here. -- Harry Wood (talk) 00:40, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Request: define how to add new line

There is no info how to add new line in the wiki, just how to add new pragraph - User:HiB 15:51, 15 September 2013‎

I guess you mean adding <br> tags as you have tried to do with this edit you were asking about.

We could tell people about <br> tags, but they're only really for use in space constrained situations in awkward templates and tables, not for the kind of edit you were making there. Generally some HTML is allowed through, but there are more idiomatic MediaWiki style formatting alternatives a lot of the time, so we're probably not doing any favours to new wiki editors by telling them about these tricks. Certainly it's not really a key thing to convey on this page, assuming that this aiming to be a compact wiki editing guide on a single page

-- Harry Wood (talk) 00:47, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Where do I get help on my talk page markup problem?

I was going to ask this on the Help forum, but an answer here said wiki talk pages would be better. I don't know which one or how to find a help-with-the-wiki forum.

My User_Talk page is suddenly all italic. I've looked for markup tags that are causing it, and can't trace the problem. Can anyone help or tell me where to seek help? Thanks, eteb3 (talk) 14:01, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi Eteb3, the help forum would be okay too, but imho you are right here.

For debugging look in the history of your page. When viewing the versions, then we see that the oldest version which is wrong is after edit https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Eteb3&diff=1914307&oldid=1912245 . It is the line ====Coding opening times of Muslim places of worship''==== which causes the trouble. You notice the '' in it? Remove them and you will be fine again. It is a bit strange that a syntax error at this place also causes the previous part of the page to be italic. --aseerel4c26 (talk) 16:34, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Many thanks! Yes, it's that bug/feature that made it hard for me to track down the error. Do you know is it possible to cycle through actual versions of the page, or does one have to view it only in the 'compare versions' rendering? eteb3 (talk) 17:16, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

You're welcome! To view an old version, just click on the timestamp (date and time). To move forward or backward in time, then you could use the links on top of the displayed page version.

By the way: usually a user's talk page is used for communication between this user and other users. A better place for your idea collection / scrapbook would be a sub page of your user page. E.g. this one: User:Eteb3/scrapbook. Or User:Eteb3/ideas. --aseerel4c26 (talk) 17:49, 18 October 2019 (UTC)