CTools Online Help Document -- Wiki

Wiki

Includes:

Description
Starting a Wiki
Adding a new document (page) to your wiki
Moving from one document to another in your wiki
Formatting

- Basic formatting
- Advanced formatting -- macros and links

History
Adding a comment
Setting up Wiki notifications by email

Description

A Wiki is a kind of collaborative website in which multiple users can add and change the content.

The CTools Wiki Tool gives users the ability to create a Wiki that is dedicated to a particular course or project site. Members of that site can monitor, update and edit the content of the wiki. The CTools Wiki Tool also allows users to add images, link wiki pages to other documents, and view the change history of the wiki. The website owner can control what permissions the members have, including access, reading, writing, editing, etc.

Starting a wiki

To begin a wiki, you will essentially turn the Wiki Tool’s Home Page into your first wiki document.

1. Click the Wiki link in the left–hand menubar.

2. Click the Edit link in the horizontal bar row of links near the top of the wiki window.

3. You can remove any text you see in the text box, and add any text.

For formatting instructions, see the section “Formatting the Text,” below.

4. Click Save.

You will see your new text on the Wiki Tool home page.

Adding a new document (page) to your wiki

To create a new wiki document, you will put link in an existing wiki document.

1. Open the document (wiki page) you want the link to the new document to appear in.

2. Click Edit.

3. Type a name for your new wiki document between square brackets as follows:
[ ------ ], where ------ is the name you want for the new document.

4. Click Save.
You will see a link to this new document near the bottom of the page. It will be followed by a question mark.

5. Click on the link to the new page.

You will see:

------------------
Page Does Not Exist.
The page you just accessed does not exist, and so has been created for you. You may now edit this page to change its content.
------------------

What this means is that that when you click the link for the first time (which you just did), you are “creating” the new wiki document.

6. To add text and otherwise set up your new wiki document, click Edit.

After you have opened a wiki page for the first time (“created” it) the question mark will no longer appear after the link to that document.

Moving from one document to another in your Wiki

To create a new wiki page, you will add a command to an existing wiki page. Once the new page is created, you will see a link to that page from the previously existing page. You can use this link, which appears in the lower half of the page, to navigate from one doc to an adjacent document.

To move from one wiki document to any other wiki document in the website, you can use the breadcrumbs.

“Breadcrumbs” is the term used for a row or path of navigation links that are written out in a line. When a webpage has a row of breadcrumbs, it is typically in the top-left quadrant of the main content window.

In the Wiki Tool, each breadcrumb is a link to a wiki document. The example below contains five links to five documents. The first wiki document, called documentA in this example, is the first “home” Wiki document. It contains a link to documentB, which contains a link to documentC, and so on.

documentA > documentB > documentC > documentD > documentE

You can jump to any wiki document by clicking on its link in the breadcrumbs.

Are you finding what you're looking for? Please send feedback about this online help guide to ctools-doc-comments@umich.edu Thanks! (For questions about using CTools, send email to ctools-support@umich.edu)

Formatting the text

This section includes:

Basic Formatting

Bold
Italics
Strikethrough
Large heading
Medium heading
Small heading
Line break
New paragraph
Unordered list
Numbered list
Subscript
Superscript

Advanced Formatting -- Macros and Links

General considerations
anchor
image
Interna link
External link
mailto (email address)
table
color
bgcolor (background color)
index

BASIC FORMATTING

Note: For all formatting, first click the Edit button along the top of the wiki page. This will open a text editing box. When you have finished making changes, click the Save button below the box.

Bold

WHAT IT DOES:

Makes text bold.

THE SYNTAX:

__your text__

Where "your text" is the text to make bold.

EXAMPLE:

__Hello__

RESULT:

Hello

Italics

WHAT IT DOES:

For italics, type the text as follows:

THE SYNTAX:

~~your text~~

Two tildes ~~ before and after "your text," where "your text" is the text to make italicized.

EXAMPLE:

~~Goodbye~~

RESULT:

Goodbye

Strikethrough

WHAT IT DOES:

Formats the text with a strikethrough.

THE SYNTAX:

--your text--

Two hyphens before and after the text to have the strikethrough.

EXAMPLE:

--Good afternoon--

RESULT:

~~Good afternoon~~

Large heading

WHAT IT DOES:

Formats the text as a large heading, for example for a title.

THE SYNTAX:

h1 your heading text

Where "your heading text" is the text you want to format as a large heading.

EXAMPLE:

h1 The Sound and the Fury

RESULTS:

The Sound and the Fury

Medium heading

WHAT IT DOES:

Formats the text as a medium-size heading.

THE SYNTAX:

h3 your heading text

Where "your heading text" is the text you want to format as a medium heading.

EXAMPLE:

h3 Chapter 3

RESULT:

Chapter 3

Small heading

WHAT IT DOES:

Formats the text as a small heading.

THE SYNTAX:

h6 your heading text

Where "your heading text" is the text you want to format as a small heading.

EXAMPLE:

h1 Assigned tasks

RESULT:

Assigned tasks

Line break

WHAT IT DOES:

Creates a line break.

THE SYNTAX:

Place this where you want the line break to be.

New paragraph

WHAT IT DOES:

Starts a new paragraph

THE SYNTAX:

Leave a blank line where you want the new paragraph to begin.

Unordered list

WHAT IT DOES:

Creates a list that is neither numbered nor ordered in a particular way.

THE SYNTAX:

Place a pound sign (*) before each item in the list. Note: You must put a space between the * and the item name.

* first item
* second item
* third item

EXAMPLE:

* Susan
* John
* Tom

RESULT:

º Susan
º John
º Tom

Numbered list

WHAT IT DOES:

Creates a numbered list.

THE SYNTAX:

Place a pound sign (#) before each item in the list. Note: You must put a space between the # and the item name.

# first item
# second item
# third item

EXAMPLE:

# January
# February
# March

RESULT:

1. January
2. February
3. March

Subscript

WHAT IT DOES:

Formats text in subscript.

THE SYNTAX:

%%text%%

Where "text" is the text you want in subscript.

EXAMPLE:

H%%2%%0

RESULT:

H₂0

Superscript

WHAT IT DOES:

Formats text in superscript.

THE SYNTAX:

^^text^^

Where "text" is the text you want in superscript.

EXAMPLE:

5 x 10^^3^^

RESULT:

5 x 10³

ADVANCED FORMATTING -- MACROS

Macro tip:

With macros in brackets [....], you are working from one wiki page to another.

With macros in curly brackets {....}, you are working within a single wiki page.

anchor

To create an anchor

WHAT IT DOES:

Creates an anchor on a page.

THE SYNTAX:

{anchor:anchor name}

EXAMPLE:

{anchor:chem}

RESULT:

An invisible anchor named "chem" will be added where you put this macro.

To link to an anchor

WHAT IT DOES:

Link to an anchor within the page:

THE SYNTAX:

{link:name of link|#anchor name}

EXAMPLE:

{link:chemistry|#chem}

(The anchor, chem, was first created in the example above.)

RESULT:

Chem

A link -- "Chem" -- that will take you to the location of the anchor within the page.

To link an anchor to another page

WHAT IT DOES:

Links an anchor to another page in the wiki.

THE SYNTAX:

[anchor:pagename]

Where "pagename" is the name of the page you want to link to.

EXAMPLE:

[anchor:Anthropology]

RESULT:

Anthropology?

This will create a link called anthropology? that will take you to a page with that name. If that page doesn't exist yet, it will be created.

image

To add an image to a wiki page, you will link to an image that is in the resources area of your worksite.

1. Open the wiki document you would like to put the image in.

2. Click Edit.

3. To add an image, put the following line in the text box:

{image:worksite:/filename.jpg|alternate text}

Where “filename.jpg” is the name of the image file (it may end in .jpg, .gif or another extension) and “alternate text” is the name of the image that will be read by screen readers for visually impaired users.)

5. Click Save.

EXAMPLE:

{image:worksite:/bath.jpg}

bath.jpg is the name of an image file in Resources in this site.

RESULT:

Internal Link

WHAT IT DOES:

Creates a link from one wiki page to another.

THE SYNTAX:

[pagename]

Where "pagename" is the name of the page to link to. If you don't want to use the page name for the link, you can specify other text for the link. If the page doesn't exist yet, it will be created when you click the link.

EXAMPLE #1:

[Group Profiles]

RESULT #1:

Group Profiles?

A link to the page "Group Profiles" will be created. If the page is new, a question mark will appear with the link until the page is edited.

EXAMPLE #2:

[Click me|Group Profiles]

RESULT #2:

Click me?

A link -- "Click me?" -- to the page "Group Profiles" will be added. If the page is new, a question mark will appear with the link until the page is edited.

External Link

WHAT IT DOES:

Creates a link from a wiki page to an external site.

THE SYNTAX:

{link:URL}

EXAMPLE #1:

{link:http://www.google.com}

RESULT #1:

http://google.com

This will add a link -- http://google.com -- to the wiki page.

EXAMPLE #2:

{link:Movies|http://www.imdb.com}

RESULT #2:

Movies

This will add a link -- "Movies" -- that will take you to http://imdb.com

mailto

WHAT IT DOES:

Creates a clickable email link.

THE SYNTAX:

{mailto:emailaddress}

EXAMPLE:

{mailto:ctools@umich.edu}

RESULT:

This will add this clickable mail address: ctools@umich.edu

table

WHAT IT DOES:

Creates a table.

THE SYNTAX:

{table}
head1 | head2
row1col1 | row1col2
row2col1 | row2col2
{table}

EXAMPLE:

{table}
Project | Assignee | Due Date
Air project | George | June 10
Water project | Susan | June 30
Fire project | Fred | July 15
{table}

RESULT:

color

WHAT IT DOES:

This will change the color of some text on a wiki page.

THE SYNTAX:

{color:colorname} text {color}

Where "colorname" is the color you want the text to be, e.g., red, blue, etc., and "text" is the text you want colored.

EXAMPLE:

{color:red} Warning! {color}

RESULT:

Warning!

bgcolor (background color)

WHAT IT DOES:

This will change the background color behind some text.

THE SYNTAX:

{bgcolor:colorname} text {bgcolor}

Where "colorname" is the color you want behind the text to be, e.g., red, blue, etc., and "text" is the text you want there.

EXAMPLE:

{bgcolor:yellow} Sample Text {bgcolor}

RESULT:

index

WHAT IT DOES:

Creates an index of the pages in your wiki.

THE SYNTAX:

{index}

Place this where you want the index to appear.

EXAMPLE:

{index}

(Placed in the site called CTNG-Support.)

RESULT:

History

-- Gives a list of all previous versions of that page, with the name of the user who altered it, the date.

-- Allows you to view any previous version.

-- Compare the contents of any version with the current version

-- Compare the contents of any version with the version immediately previous.

-- Allows you to revert to any previous version.

Adding a comment

1... To add a comment after a wiki entry, click the Comment command under the entry, type your comment, and click Save.

2... You can also add a comment directly after someone else's comment. To do this, click Comment after the specific comment, type in your text, and click Save.

3... To edit your comment after you have saved it, click the Edit link after your comment, make your changes, and click Save.

Setting up Wiki email notifcations

You can have notifications of changes in the wiki sent automatically by email.

1. Click the Wiki button in the left-hand menubar.

2. Click the "Watc" icon along the top of the window.

3. Choose one of the following options:

- Send me each notification separately

- Send me one email per day summarizing all notifications

- Do not send me notifications for this subspace

- I do not have a preference

4. Click Save.