User:Wizardboy777/Newbie 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

 * Note the 'Show Preview' button at the bottom of any edit screen. It's right next to 'Save Page'. It's also your friend. By using it, you can avoid making several jillion teeny tiny edits to a page that you then reverse because you don't like how they turned out. It also avoids clogging up Special:Recentchanges, which is nice to anyone watching recent changes.
 * 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 userpage should pretty much always be minor. Most edits to talkpages should be minor as well. Use your judgment. If it's not important, it's a minor edit.
 * 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 are easy to accomplish. They allow you to point to any page within the wiki - even if it doesn't exist. In their simplest form, an internal link simply surrounds the name of the desired page with square brackets. 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 Wizardboy777 shows up like this: Wizardboy777 That bar ( '|' ) is found above the enter key on a standard American qwerty keyboard - hold shift and press the forward slash. Whatever text appears after the bar is what the link will display.

Inter-wiki Links
It is often necessary to link to pages on GuildWiki. 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:' 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. Guildwiki displays like this: Guildwiki Also, gw:Main Page (note the bar at the end) displays as Main Page You can also link to GuildWars Wiki in the same way. This is done by using 'gww:' as opposed to 'gw:'.

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 suround 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  will also result in a somewhat-smaller line break.
 * Typing

will also result in a small line break.
 * Examples:

This is a line of text.

This is a line of text after hitting enter twice. This is a line of text after typing

This is a line of text after typing

Also, 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 ever
 * And ever
 * And ever
 * And ever
 * And ever
 * And ever

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:
 * Hello.
 * Hi again.
 * Hi.
 * I am awesome.
 * I win.
 * I win more.
 * And I win again.
 * Loser.
 * :P

Numbers:
 * 1) Hello.
 * 2) Hi again.
 * 3) Hi.
 * 4) I am awesome.
 * 5) I win.
 * 6) I win more.
 * 7) And I win again.
 * 8) Loser.
 * :P

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 my examples above did. See? It's magic. But note, lines of text in these will not 'wrap around'. If the text is too long for the box, it just stretches out into oblivion like this: jdbgvkjdfvbdiuvdkvbdvjsdhvbjkvbdsjkvbdsjvksdbvjksdvbsdjkvbsdkvsdcbsdjvkbdvjkdbsvjkdsvbjkdvbdsjkvbsdjkvbsdjkvbdvjkbdsjkvbdkjvbdsj,vbdsvjksdbvjkdsbvksdjvbksdjvbjksdvbsdklvbsdilvbsdkjvbsdjklvbdskjlvbsdklvbdsvlkbsdvbklsdjkvbjsdvbklsdvbdsjklvbjsdkvkbjsdklvbsdjklvsdbjkvbsdkljvbksdvbdjksvbsdjklvbksdvbjsdbjvjdksvbdsivbuvbkjkbvdjs

Font options
Font size and color can be easily customized using simple html tags. To change either of these, you must first open a tag. Type  yet) in front of whatever text you wish to modfiy. Then you can change the color and size. After that, put a tag after the block of text to be modified. Examples:
 * Size:

THIS IS SIZE 20 displays THIS IS SIZE 20 This is size 5 displays this is size 5

This is size 1 displays This is size 1
 * Color:

This is red font, but this is black - displays This is red font, but this is black
 * You can even combine them:

This is big blue font, but this is bigger displays: This is big blue font, but this is bigger

There is also an easier way to create big and small text. Simply use, , , and tags. However, this gives you less precise control over the size.

Another thing you can do is create subtext and suptext. Use the and tags. Examples: The equation y = x2 is a basic parabola. will display The equation y = x2 is a basic parabola. H2O 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.

is a template that you have already used. Templates are kind of like internal links. The main difference is that you use curly brackets ( 🇦🇩 ) 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 template and the userbox template, also accept variables and there are others that you won't want to update whenever the template changes. Examples:


 * simply displays this boring thing:
 * It has no skills in it! Useless, huh?
 * In order to get skills, you must pass variables to it. In this case, skill names.
 * displays something much more complex - the typical nooby mending whammo bar.

Sometimes, especially with signatures, you actually want the code in the to appear on the page instead of the template. In those cases, you put subst: at the beginning of the template. Example:


 * displays my signature:
 * Howver, if you look at the page, you just see that template; you can't see the code actually creating the signature. That's why I use the following:
 * also displays my signature:  &not; Wizårdbõÿ777  ( sysop )
 * Looks exactly the same, right? Wrong. Hit the edit button and look at this section. The code inside my signature template is actually appearing on this page.

Useful Templates


- adds a line break
 * - tags a build as a stub, or incomplete build article
 * - Tags a build for trial, the pahse in which it receives the most community input. The type variables are the types of play it is designed for use in - general PvE, random arenas, alliance battles, etc.
 * - Same as the trial tag, except people are now allowed to rate the build.
 * - A build that has been vetted and has over a 4.75 average.
 * - A build that has received an overall rating of less than 3.75. Insert the time parameter by typing five tildes.