Updated April 4, 2013
This is a guide to hopefully help most users, new and old, get the hang of editing pages on this wiki. This basically covers most of the practical stuff that isn't covered in the Wiki How-to/Q&A page. Includes screenshots and such to help you understand things.
As always, the Wiki Rules apply here, and everywhere else on this wiki :P
Also if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to post on here and I'll see what I can do.
Quick links to each section
Creating Pages
Editing Pages
Creating Pages
There are 2(two) ways to create a page.
1. Type in the page name you want in the textbox on the sidebar (beside the 'new page' button)
2. Type in the page name you want in the address bar
(i.e. http://aqwwiki.wikidot.com/whatever-page-name-you-want <- Do NOT use this link, it's just an example. Dashes can be replaced by spaces as they work the same way)
After that, click the 'create page' button. Simple so far? Here's where many users mess up.
If you create a page that has an apostrophe in it, (like the Alchemist's Rifle), the title will start off looking like 'Alchemist S Rifle'. You'll see that both links work as they're both legit, although the second one just looks very odd. Make sure to fix that when you're creating the page because Wikidot treats all apostrophes, dashes, etc. as spaces. Don't ask me why.
Under the 'Title of the Page', there is an 'initial content' dropbox which gives you preset page templates. USE THEM!!! It's important that you use THESE templates, and NOT the ones on the Templates page. Why? Because those templates are missing the [[include image-tags]] line which is essential to most pages (the reason why we couldn't put that line in those templates is stated on top of that page). That page is just for reference.
If you don't use a template, and instead mess about trying to create the template by typing it all out by hand, you're bound to make mistakes, then make too many edits to try and fix things, then other people will have to fix the page, which causes frustration for all. Worst case scenario, the page gets deleted, and no one wants that. Also, when you use the presets, don't remove anything from it. Use it as it is. If the fields have no value, fill it in with 'N/A', none, 0, etc. where appropriate.
Editing a page
Now that you know how to CREATE a page, let's get to EDITING it.
After creating a page, you'll want to add info to it, not just leave a template on there (or nothing at all…) or maybe you want to change info on an existing page.
At the bottom of each page, there is an "Edit" button at the bottom of each page. Clicking this will allow you to edit the page.
Here are a few tips and tricks to make your edits efficient and save you (and us) a lot of headaches.
Preview Button
A problem I've seen happening a lot is people making way too many unnecessary edits. Like making an edit to add in a closing tab that they forgot, or adding their name, or changing a letter in a set of text, etc…which should NOT happen in most cases.
There is a very convenient Preview button to the left of the 'Save' button when creating a page. If you're editing an existing page, it would be here. USE. IT. OFTEN. It saves a lot of unneeded editing and also saves us a lot of headaches. Having to look through all those edits are a real pain when trying to find where someone messed up a page (whether on purpose or by mistake).
Put simply: the Preview button save edits…and headaches :P so use it.
Note: There are some things that you won't be able to see in previews like Tabs* after the first one. It didn't used to work for collapsibles either, but now it does, so maybe wikidot will fix the tab viewing during previews in the near future. But for now, it doesn't work so you'll have to be careful when working with tabs (not that you shouldn't be careful with everything else, just be extra careful with tabs :P)
* One way to fix that problem would be to remove the "[[/tabview]]" part from the end, and then click Preview. That way all the tabs would just show up in order from top to bottom. Once you've fixed any problems you see in them, put the "[[/tabview]]" line back in and you're set.
Formatting
Formatting is very simple but very important. We want things to look nice, not cluttered and ugly.
I've seen people adding text within the asterisks (aka, Bold), which is a big no no. When you see two pairs of *'s, it means the words in between are bolded <— like that. You don't add other words in there. You add them AFTER the **'s.
I'll use the Earth Elemental page as an example.
And here is an example of improper formatting.
Here are the changes, in case you were wondering. Doesn't really show the spacing changes, but they're there if you look carefully.
IMPORTANT: You see that last line where it says 'Thanks to whoever'? It's where you can put your name in for adding to the page. However, you must do this WITH your edit, NOT after your edit. Adding your name on it's own does NOT count as contributing to the page, even if you've done so before. If you care to put your name onto a page, do so when you edit it. Names will be removed if they've been added without anything else contributed to the page with that edit. This is also stated in the Wiki How-to/Q&A page, but I put this note here because I get a lot of questions asking things like "why'd you remove my name? I added to the page!" Well now you know :P
Checklist for Creating/Editing pages
This is a quick and short list of things to look out for when making or fixing pages.
Quick List
1. Page Link + Title
2. Correct Templates
3. Tags and Parenting
4. Format + Spelling
5. The Info
Detailed List
1. Page Link + Title
- Pages should be named exactly how it is in-game. Exceptions would be names with symbols like "Experiment #9", in which case, the page link would be "http://aqwwiki.wikidot.com/experiment-9" but the title would need to be changed from "Experiment 9" to "Experiment #9"
2. Correct Templates
- If the page is a weapon page, use the weapon template, not the cape template (or any other). If there are unrelated or missing fields from what you're used to seeing on a page (i.e. a weapon page missing the "Base Damage" field or a "Price" field on a location page), then it's probably the wrong template or it got removed/changed, for some odd reason…it'll need to be fixed.
3. Tags and Parenting
- There have been a lot of cases where an item is missing tags/parenting. These are vital to pages, especially if the name of an item doesn't exactly make it obvious what it is. So when you create a page, please remember to tag and parent it to the appropriate page after you're finished creating it. If it's part of a quest, use a questitem tag. If it's obtained from a merge shop, tag it with mergereward, and so on. If you don't know how to do these things, refer to the Wiki How-to Q&A thread.
4. Format + Spelling
- There should be appropriate capitalization, spacing, etc. so instead of "N/a(droped from monster)", it should be "N/A (Dropped by Monster)". Item drop list(s) and "Thanks to" should be in alphabetical order.
5. The Info
- Last (well technically should be FIRST if you're the one creating a page), simply check to make sure everything is what it should be. If you see a location picture on a helm page, there's a problem. So use the Preview button often, as said in the first post, and double check your work.
- If you find any broken image links, check on our image database first to see if there's an existing backup image already before adding another one.
That's it for now. I'll be adding to this as I find other things that could/need to be shown how to do. In game images and non edited pics are allowed. Doesn't matter if you cropped a letter, still a edited image.
When editing monster pages be sure to record non-critic attacks and without debuffs (like Necromancer's Weaken)
Again, if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to post on here and I'll see what I can do.
Hope this helps.
~Hina