How to Wiki

Wiki-ing is an important part of the LASE group for many reasons, such as the collection of information in a convenient location, record keeping, the dissemination of information to future students, etc.

Everyone will Wiki a little bit differently, however there are basic formatting lessons you should learn so you can start contributing to the LASE wiki.

I will only speak about what I know how to do. More advanced things can be found in a real wiki formatting guide; this is a quick start manual and should suffice for most of your editing. Topics covered include: new pages, formatting, editing, adding pictures, and adding files.

Confluence has many features and addons. Feel free to use whatever feels relevant, however, try not to overdo it. Simpler pages are usually easier to read, edit, and maintain.

Creating a new page

1. First identify appropriate section to add page to

2. Hit the plus sign

   1. This will create a blank page

3. Expand the page (all pages should be expanded)

4. If you intend this to be a long page, add a table of contents (TOC)

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Adding labels

Labels help organize pages and improve search

1. Click the 3 dot symbol on the top right

2. Navigate to “Add labels”

3. In the text box, you can add labels that currently exist in the space or make new ones

Creating a new section page

1. Identify where you want the new section to be

2. Hit the plus sign at the appropriate page level

3. Expand the page (all pages should be expanded)

4. In the content section add, a child tree

   1. This gives an overview of all the pages inside this section

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Formatting

• Our main formatting friends are the bullet point (with indentation level), dashes, bolding, headers/sectioning (with levels), and line spacing.

  • Make sure to use bullets/numbering instead of manually adding dashes etc.

• There are other more advance formatting marks. If you need them, you can investigate. Again, feel free to use whatever text formatting, bolding and/or coloring, but preferably keep it simple.

Headings

• To keep things consistent and make it easy to apply site-wide styles in the future, use the headings in order as they appear in your document

• Always start with Heading 1 and then Heading 2 then Heading 3…. and so on.

  • Keep the order!

• Headers will appear in your TOC

  • They will be indented based on their level, i.e. the number that appears after “Heading”

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Editing

• Consult previous page editor/owner first

  • You can also use comments to convey suggestions to page editors/owner

• Confluence will track edits

Adding Pictures/Videos

• Drag and drop to your desired location in the page

• Formatting is a bit tricky

  • When inserting into a bullet point it may show as a small thumbnail, but it can be enlarged as shown below

  • When inserting into a brand new line (with no bullets) it will insert centered

• Add captions wherever possible!

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Adding Files/Links

• Drag and drop to your desired location in page

  • Change the preview style (preferably inline)

• It is preferable to add documents, files, etc. as uploads instead of links to other sites/locations

  • This will prevent loss of information due to dead sites etc.

  • File size limit of ~240 Mb

Linking to other Wiki pages

• Use the link tool

• Search for the page

  • This method is preferred because it formats it nicely (I suspect it also makes it easier to export pages as HTMLs with navigation links etc)

Tables

• Use the addon button

• Search for a “Table”

Code Snippets

• Use the addon button

• Search for a “Code Snippet”

• Use code snippets when you are pasting recipes, code, etc