Misplaced Pages

Latest revision as of 16:11, 27 November 2024

This help page is a how-to guide. It explains concepts or processes used by the Misplaced Pages community. It is not one of Misplaced Pages's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus.

Shortcuts H:WT H:MARKUP H:WIKICODE

The markup language called wikitext, also known as wiki markup or wikicode, consists of the syntax and keywords used by the MediaWiki software to format a page. (Note the lowercase spelling of these terms.) To learn how to see this hypertext markup, and to save an edit, see Help:Editing. Generally, coding can be copied and pasted, without writing new code. There is a short list of markup and tips at Help:Cheatsheet.

In addition to wikitext, some HTML elements are also allowed for presentation formatting. See Help:HTML in wikitext for information on this.

Layout

Sections

Article sections in a page will follow that page's lead or introduction and, if there are four or more, the table of contents.

Section headings

The = through ====== markup are headings for the sections with which they are associated.

• A single = is styled as the article title and should not be used within an article.
• Headings are styled through CSS and add an link. See this section for the relevant CSS.
• Four or more headings cause a table of contents to be generated automatically.
• Do not use any markup after the final heading markup – this will either break the heading, or will cause the heading to not be included in an edit summary.

= Heading 1 =
== Heading 2 ==
=== Heading 3 ===
==== Heading 4 ====
===== Heading 5 =====
====== Heading 6 ======

Templates: {{fake heading}} for use in documentation.

Horizontal rule

The horizontal rule represents a paragraph-level thematic break. Do not use in article content, as rules are used only after main sections, and this is automatic.

----

HTML equivalent: <hr /> (which can be indented, whereas ---- always starts at the left margin.)

Table of contents

When a page has at least four headings, a table of contents (TOC) will automatically appear after the lead and before the first heading. The TOC can be controlled by magic words or templates:

• __FORCETOC__ forces the TOC to appear at the normal location regardless of the number of headings.
• __TOC__ forces the TOC to appear at the point where the magic word is inserted instead of the normal location.
• __NOTOC__ disables the TOC entirely.
• {{TOC limit}} template can be used to control the depth of subsections included in the TOC. This is useful where the TOC is long and unwieldy.
• Category:Misplaced Pages table of contents templates contains a number of specialized TOC templates.

Line breaks

Line breaks or newlines are used to add whitespace between lines, such as separating paragraphs.

• A line break that is visible in the content is inserted by pressing ↵ Enter twice.
• Pressing ↵ Enter once will place a line break in the markup, but it will not show in the rendered content, except when using list markup.
• Markup such as bold or italics will be terminated at a line break.
• Blank lines within indented wikitext should not be added due to accessibility issues.

A single newline here
has no effect on the layout.
But an empty line starts a new paragraph, 
or ends a list or an indented part.

HTML equivalent: <br> or <br /> can be used to break line layout.

Templates for line breaks:

• {{break}} can add multiple line breaks.
• {{-}} and {{clear}} adds a break with styling, to clear floating elements. Often used to prevent text from flowing next to unrelated tables or images.

Unbulleted list:

• {{plainlist}} and {{unbulleted list}} both create an unbulleted list.

Indent text

Indentation is most commonly used on talk pages.

Indentation as used on talk pages:
:Each colon at the start of a line
::causes the line to be indented by three more character positions.
:::(The indentation persists
so long as no carriage return or line break is used.)
:::Repeat the indentation at any line break.
::::Use an extra colon for each response.
:::::And so forth ...
::::::And so on ...
{{Outdent|::::::}}The outdent template can give a visual indicator that we're deliberately cancelling the indent (6 levels here)

Templates: {{outdent}}, {{outdent2}}

Blockquote

When there is a need for separating a block of text. This is useful for (as the name says) inserting blocks of quoted (and cited) text.

Normal text
<blockquote>
The '''blockquote''' tag will indent both margins when needed instead of the left margin only as the colon does.
</blockquote>
Normal text

This uses an HTML tag; template {{quote}} results in the same render.

Center text

<div class="center" style="width: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">Centered text</div>

Template {{center}} uses the same markup. To center a table, see Help:Table#Centering tables. Please do not use <center>...</center> tags, as it is obsolete.

Align text to right

You can align content in a separate container:

<div style="text-align: right; direction: ltr; margin-left: 1em;">Text on the right</div>

Or; make the text float around it:

<div class="floatright">Text on the right</div>

{{stack|Text on the right}}

Lists

Do not leave blank lines between items in a list unless there is a reason to do so, since this causes the MediaWiki software to interpret each item as beginning a new list.

Unordered lists

• H:UL

* Item1
* Item2
* Item3
* Item4
** Sub-item 4 a)
*** Sub-item 4 a) 1.
**** Sub-item 4 a) 1. i)
**** Sub-item 4 a) 1. ii)
** Sub-item 4 b)
* Item5

Ordered lists

• H:OL

# Item1
# Item2
# Item3
# Item4
## Sub-item 1
### Sub-sub-item
#### Sub-sub-sub-item
## Sub-item 2
# Item5

Description lists

• H:DL

To list terms and definitions, start a new line with a semicolon (;) followed by the term. Then, type a colon (:) followed by a definition. The format can also be used for other purposes, such as make and models of vehicles, etc.

Description lists (formerly definition lists, and a.k.a. association lists) consist of group names corresponding to values. Group names (terms) are in bold. Values (definitions) are indented. Each group must include one or more definitions. For a single or first value, the : can be placed on the same line after ; – but subsequent values must be placed on separate lines.

Do not use a semicolon (;) simply to bold a line without defining a value using a colon (:). This usage renders invalid HTML5 and creates issues with screen readers. Also, use of a colon to indent (other than for talk page responses) may also render invalid HTML5 and cause accessibility issues per MOS:INDENTGAP.

; Term : Definition1

; Term
: Definition1
: Definition2
: Definition3
: Definition4

HTML equivalent: <dl> <dt>...</dt>, <dd>...</dd> </dl>

Templates: {{defn}}

Retaining newlines and spaces

• H:POEM

The MediaWiki software suppresses single newlines and converts lines starting with a space to preformatted text in a dashed box. HTML suppresses multiple spaces. It is often desirable to retain these elements for poems, lyrics, mottoes, oaths and the like. The Poem extension adds HTML-like <poem>...</poem> tags to maintain newlines and spaces. These tags may be used inside other tags such as <blockquote>...</blockquote>; the template {{poemquote}} provides a convenient shorthand. CSS styles may be applied to this tag, e.g.: <poem style="margin-left: 2em;">.

<poem>
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
  A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
  Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
  With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
  Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
  Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
</poem>

Poems and their translation can be presented side by side, and the language can be indicated with lang="xx". Following the last side-by-side block, {{Clear|left}} must be used to cancel "float:left;" and to re-establish normal flow. Note that this method does not require a table and its columns to achieve the side-by-side presentation.

Markup

<poem lang="fr" style="float:left;">Frère Jacques, frère Jacques,
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?
Sonnez les matines! Sonnez les matines!
Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.</poem>
<poem style="margin-left:2em; float:left;">Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping?
Brother John, Brother John,
Morning bells are ringing! Morning bells are ringing!
Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.</poem>{{Clear|left}}

Renders as

Frère Jacques, frère Jacques,
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?
Sonnez les matines! Sonnez les matines!
Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.

Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping?
Brother John, Brother John,
Morning bells are ringing! Morning bells are ringing!
Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.

Format

Text formatting

To ''italicize text'', put two consecutive apostrophes on each side of it.
Three apostrophes each side will '''bold the text'''.
Five consecutive apostrophes on each side (two for italics plus three for bold) produces '''''bold italics'''''.
'''''Italic and bold formatting''''' works correctly only within a single line.
For text as {{smallcaps|small caps}}, use the template {{tl|smallcaps}}.

function <code>int m2()</code> is nice.

<syntaxhighlight lang="cpp">
#include <iostream>
int m2 (int ax, char *p_ax) {
  std::cout <<"Hello World!";
  return 0;
}</syntaxhighlight>

#include <iostream>
int m2 (int ax, char *p_ax) {
  std::cout <<"Hello World!";
  return 0;
}

Use <small>small text</small> only 
when necessary.

To match, for example, the font-size used in an ], the "small" tag can also be used to 
<small style="font-size:87%;">reduce a text's font-size to 87%</small>.

Better not use <big>big text</big>, unless <small>it's <big>within</big> small</small> text.

Mr. Smith or 400 km/h

Mary {{pad|4.0em}} had a little lamb.

Special characters

Special characters can often be displayed using numeric character references or character entity references. See Character encodings in HTML for more information. For example, À and À both render À (A-grave). Percent-encoding can't be used, as it works only in URLs.

Diacritical marks

Diacritic marks, using character entity references.

À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ
Ç È É Ê Ë
Ì Í Î Ï Ñ
Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö Ø Œ
Ù Ú Û Ü Ÿ ß
à á â ã ä å æ ç
è é ê ë
ì í î ï ñ
ò ó ô õ ö ø œ
ù ú û ü ÿ

Punctuation special characters

Using character entity references.

Escaping punctuation characters

The <pre>, <nowiki>, and <code> markup tags are also available, for writing "" for example. These tags prevent these characters from being recognised as wiki markup, which is a possibility in some circumstances.

Commercial symbols

Using character entity references.

Greek characters

Using character entity references.

Egyptian hieroglyphs

WikiHiero is a software extension that renders Egyptian hieroglyphs as PNG images using <hiero> HTML-like tags.

Example:

Markup	Renders as
<hiero>P2</hiero>

Subscripts and superscripts

• The Manual of Style prefers the <sub> and <sup> formats, for example x<sub>1</sub>. So this should be used under most circumstances.
• The latter methods of sub/superscripting cannot be used in the most general context, as they rely on Unicode support that may not be present on all users' machines.

x<sub>1</sub> x<sub>2</sub> x<sub>3</sub> or
x&#8320; x&#8321; x&#8322; x&#8323; x&#8324;
x&#8325; x&#8326; x&#8327; x&#8328; x&#8329;

x<sup>1</sup> x<sup>2</sup> x<sup>3</sup> or
x&#8304; x&sup1; x&sup2; x&sup3; x&#8308;
x&#8309; x&#8310; x&#8311; x&#8312; x&#8313;

&epsilon;<sub>0</sub> = 8.85 &times; 10<sup>&minus;12</sup> C&sup2; / J m
1 ] = 1 E+4 m&sup2;

Characters in the Private Use Area, and invisible formatting characters

Invisible and PUA (Private Use Areas) characters should be avoided where possible. When needed, they should both be replaced with their (hexa)decimal code values (as "&#(x)...;"). This renders invisible characters visible, for manual editing, and allows AWB to process pages with PUA characters. The latter should also be tagged with the {{PUA}} template for tracking and future maintenance.

Mathematical characters and formulae

Mathematical characters

• See also Misplaced Pages:Mathematical symbols, WikiProject Mathematics and TeX.

Mathematical formulae

• Formulae that include mathematical letters, like x, and operators like × should not use the plain letter x. See math font formatting. For a comprehensive set of symbols, and comparison between <math> tags and the {{math}} template see section TeX vs HTML.

• The <math> tag typesets using LaTeX markup, which may render as an image or as HTML, depending on environmental settings. The <math> tag is best for the complex formula on its own line in an image format. If you use this tag to put a formula in the line with text, put it in the {{nowrap}} template.

• The {{math}} template uses HTML, and will size-match a serif font, and will also prevent line-wrap. All templates are sensitive to the = sign, so remember to replace = with {{=}} in template input, or start the input with 1=. Use wiki markup '' and ''' inside the {{math}} template, as well as other HTML entities. The {{math}} template is best for typeset formulas in line with the text.