Help:Markup

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Wiki pages are designed to be easy to create and edit, and require a minimal amount of technical knowledge. If you can create a forum post, you can edit a wiki page. Read this page for some basic theory and common codes, and you'll be well on your way. Also keep in mind that you can always click the edit tab on an existing page to see how it was formatted.

For information on how to create pages, read the New article help page.


Wiki Code

Wikis use their own syntax (markup) for formatting text. Below is a list of common syntax you can use to format your pages. A more extensive guide to wiki editing can be found on Wikimedia's site.


Text Formatting

What you see Code you use
Italic Text ''Your Text'' (2 apostrophes)
Bold Text '''Your Text''' (3 apostrophes)
Bold Italic Text '''''Your Text''''' (5 apostrophes)
Underline <u>Your Text</u>


Section Headers

To keep pages organized, separate the text into sections. Section headers do this nicely, and are automatically added to the table of contents. Headers should be hierarchical and descending, as needed. There are several levels of headers formed by equals signs that will display in descending point size and font colour.

What you see Code you use
Heading 1 ==Heading 1==
Heading 2 ===Heading 2===
Heading 2 ===Heading 3===


The single equal sign is not used in articles. It's automatically used for formatting the title of pages. Use the double equal signs for the first heading.

Do not put numbers at the beginning of headings as the wiki automatically inserts them in the Table of Contents box.


The Table of Contents Box

Wiki format automatically creates ToC boxes like you see at the top of this page, after 4 headings have been created. If you have only 3 headlines but need a ToC box then type __toc__.


Lists

One of the most common formatting tool is the list used to present short facts in sequence.

There are three types:

  1. Bulleted - place asterisks (*) at the start of each line you want to bullet.
  2. Numbered - place the hash (#) sign instead.

To add subheadings, simply use 2 or more such punctuation signs. The wiki script will automatically arrange them on the page.


What you see Code you use
  • Item One
  • Item Two
    • Item Two and a half
      • Item two and three quarters
  • Item Three
* Item One

* Item Two
** Item Two and a half
*** Item two and three quarters
* Item Three

  1. Item One
  2. Item Two
    1. Sub item
    2. Sub item
    3. Sub item
  3. Item Three
  4. Item Four

# Item One
# Item Two
## Sub item
## Sub item
## Sub item
# Item Three
# Item Four

  • Female Classes
    • Amazon
      Assassin
      Sorceress
  • Male Classes
    • Barbarian
      Druid
      Necromancer
      Paladin

* Female Classes
**Amazon<br>Assassin<br>Sorceress
* Male Classes
**Barbarian<br>Druid<br>Necromancer<br>Paladin

Pink 
cardigan
Green 
trousers
jumper
socks
pants
vest
Pink 
cardigan
Green 
trousers
jumper
socks
pants
vest


Soft Returns

The wiki script ignores single returns. If you wish to create a new paragraph you need to hit return twice to leave one blank line. If you want to list something directly underneather another line of text then you need to use <br>



Preformatted Boxes

To make a preformatted box, for showing text with fixed width, especially when showing different types of code, simply add one space before it begins, and the wiki script will automatically place it in a red-tinted box with a special outline. For example:

Aren't I dramatic!

Use this tool primarily to show code in explanatory pages, but it's also possible to use it for short notes, since items in this sort of box do not receive additional wiki formatting, and will stretch pages infinitely wide. Use a soft break to keep such lines from running endlessly off to the right, if they are longer than a few words.

Creating Links

Creating links is very simple and there are two methods to do so: an external site link for outside sources and an internal site link for content inside the DiabloWiki.


Internal Links

An internal site link use two brackets [[ ]] on either side of the title, with an optional title (if specified, separate with a | character). [[Topic|Link Title]]. If you add link brackets to the same article currently shown, the link will turn bold instead of into a link. It's also possible to modify the link title without changing the link by adding characters after the right side brackets (]]) like this: [[Topic|Link Title]]ing.

The following code:

[[Help:Contents]]<br>
[[Help:Contents|Help]]<br>
[[Help:Contents|Help]]ing<br>
[[Help:Contents|Help]]ers<br>

Will look like this:


Help:Contents
Help
Helping
Helpers



Linking to Categories and Templates

Linking to categories can be helpful, since the search option will not generally display a category page even if that's the most useful page for their desired information. It's also helpful for newer wiki users who may not know to scroll to the bottom of a page to find the automated category links.

The problem is of course that adding the "[[ ]]" around a category name will only add that page into the category, so to create a clickable link to a category and avoiding this, type: "[[:Category:xxxxx]]" where "xxxxx" is the name of the Category.

The only difference from actually adding the category is the ":" before the "Category". An optional title is often good to use here, so people don't get confused by the "strange" name. Remember If that page is meant to be in that category, add a tag for it at the end of the page as well.


InterWiki Links

Links between the main Diablo Wiki and other DiabloWikis like Diablo 2 Wiki can use a shortcut called "InterWiki". It's a template that makes it quick and easy to make a link across wikis.

You can use it like this:

{{iw|Article_Name Article Name]}}

Will display like this: Article Name (mind you, this article does not exist).

The first time the article name is written, underscores MUST be used. The second time does not need to be the exact article name as you can write it in plural or singular, or perhaps a completely different word.


Linking to Images

Sometimes you might want to link directly to an image instead of embedding it on the page. If so there are two ways to do this:

  • Use a direct, external, link to the image url: Image
  • Use an internal wiki link to the image page: Image

The former way works exactly like any external link (read more about that later), for the link title, URL or a little bracketed link. The latter works just like Category Links, with a ":" in front, and with the possibility to change title with a pipe ("|").

All about uploading, adding and organising images in the wiki.


External Links

External links are made similarly to internal links. The difference is that it uses single brackets ([ ]) and naturally also must contain an external URL. Another difference between internal and external links is that instead of a pipe ("|") to separate the link source with an alternative title, it uses a simple space. This naturally means that it isn't possible to link to pages that uses spaces in the URL. It's easy to distinguish external links in the wiki by the "external link icon" that appears on those links (example).

There are three types of links that can be used; either a clickable URL, a clickable number in brackets, or a clickable link title. The last one work very similar to internal links. Do note that it isn't possible to add letters at the end of an external link to make it part of the link title. The entire link title needs to be within the brackets.


Regular URL Link

Writing the following:

http://www.diii.net/

Will display like this: http://www.diii.net/

In cases where it's needed to show the whole URL, just write it out in the document, and it will automatically be parsed.


Numbered Link

Writing the following:

[http://www.diii.net/]

Will display like this: [1]

This is a numbered link that is excellent to use when sourcing other pages. It will be numbered from how many similar links are on a document, so the first such link is [1], and the third one is [3].


Link in Title

Writing the following:

[http://www.diii.net/ Diii.net with custom title]

Will display like this: Diii.net with custom title

This is naturally the most commonly used link, and is used much like the internal links.


External Links Without Icon

It's possible to remove the little external link icon from links, and this is mostly used when linking within the Diablo community, such as links to the other Diablo Wiki, or to Diii.net. This works similar to the "InterWiki" link explained above, but will work with ANY web link.

It only works for simple links that does not contain any odd characters like "?", "=", or "&", you can use the Wiki Link template like this:

{{wl|[http://www.diii.net/ Title]}}

Will display like this: Title

For more complex URLs, full html formatting is required. Just add "<span class="plainlinks">" directly in front of your link, and "</span>" directly after for the same effect as above.


General Linking Guidelines

When you know how to make a link in the code, it's also imperative that you know how to use this knowledge in the wiki. It's quite simple on the whole:

  • Link any word that has an article with the same name in the wiki.
  • Only link words that would make the article you are reading more clear in context for the link. Sometimes it might have an opposite effect if linking the word "stash" when it's not used to describe the ingame stash, but perhaps a general description of a cache of some sort used in a novel. Know when NOT to link.
  • Only link the first of the same word mentioned in an article.
    • If an article is long, or has several sections, you should link it so that it's easy to get to the link, wherever you are. One link per section is a good guideline.


Images

To insert an image, just add the following code, that you can see is very similar to other wiki links: [[File:filename.jpg]]. Make sure you don't forget to write the file extension. The valid image files for DiabloWiki are:

  • .gif
  • .jpg
  • .png

Images will automatically be justificated to the left side on a page, but it's easy to change this with variables, to make boxes around images and to change their size. Read more about images on the Image Help page.


Images as Links

An image can be used to link elsewhere than its own image page. To do this, simply add a variable to the image like this:

[[File:Diablo_III_Logo.jpg|link=http://www.diablowiki.net/]]

Will display like this: Diablo III Logo.jpg

The size attribute is used here to avoid blowing the image up to a massive size. To learn more about how to use and format images, see the Image Help page.

This works with both internal and external links.


Categories

Categories and subcategories are the backbone of a wiki's navigation. (Especially since the wiki search options aren't very intuitive.) Every page should be slotted into at least one category, to enable other users to find it easily. If you are making new articles, it's very important to make sure they are put in the right category.

Please also note that you need special formatting to link to categories.


Creating Tables

If you are familiar with html then wiki table syntax will seem logical; however, if you are not familiar with html it is still relatively simple to follow.

Here's an example of one of the mediawiki table notations:


{|
! 1
! 2
! 3
|-
| 4
| 5
| 6
|}


That will look like this:

1 2 3
4 5 6

The tables are automatically formatted with the site style so you aren't required to add any style elements to the tables. The only time you would really need to add an element to the table is if you want to specify a width or want to make a table that is different than the standard DiabloWiki style.

As you can see the wiki code 'looks' like a table and you can expand on this and format more complex tables. It's easy enough to look at other tables as well, to get inspiration if you want to do more advanced things with it.


Try it out!

There is a special Wiki Sandbox that you can try out your editing skills in, without making unnecessary changes to existing articles.


Further Reading



Wiki Help Index [e]
Help Contents

Community Portal
Markup - Create article - Sandbox
Help FAQ
Wiki Support
Category Structure
Naming
DiabloWiki Policies
Help Category
Link us

Wiki Tools

Article History
Boilerplates
Deleting pages
Disambiguations
Moving Articles
Redirects
Stubs
Templates

Glossary

Articles
Categories
Images
Tables
Talk Pages
Vandalism