CARA Documentation HelpPage

This is the help page for Zwiki version 0.21. The links beginning with "ZWiki:..." lead to additional documentation on zwiki.org.

What is this ?
User interface
Navigation
Email subscription
Editing
Formatting rules
Finding out more

What is this ?

This is the ZWiki version of a WikiWikiWeb (or wiki), which is a kind of collaborative website. Wikis try to put as little as possible in the way of people sharing useful content in a manageable way. You can edit any page, add comments, and create new pages on the spot.

Intuitive text formatting rules are used to simplify the process of writing and linking pages. The idea is to keep the text that people edit simple, so it's readable as is, and, most importantly, editable by anyone, without sacrificing attractive presentation.

A zwiki site like this one may also function as a simple mail list.

User interface

If you see "full", "simple", "minimal" links below, you can click them to choose the UI that suits you best (cookies required). If you can't see one of the features described here, try clicking "full".

Many links and form elements have ZWiki:AccessKeys (keyboard shortcuts), which are convenient if your browser supports them.

You can set your user name, time zone and other things in UserOptions.

Navigation

Each page has a unique name, which is used for the title, url and hyperlinks between pages; these are most often made by joining capitalized words together. See ZWiki:WikiName. Links like the last one (two wikinames separated by a colon) lead to another site. In full mode, pages are arranged in a hierarchy.

To return to the front page, click the site logo
To see which pages link to this one, click the page title
To search all pages, enter text in the search field and press enter
To list pages by last edit time, visit RecentChanges (or FastChanges?).
To see previous edits, click the "last edited" link
To see the page hierarchy, click the "contents" link (full mode only)
To jump to a known page, enter the first part of it's name after the last / in your browser's url field. You can ignore capitalization and spacing.

Email subscription

If you see a "subscribe" link below, you can subscribe to a page or the whole wiki to receive comments by mail. If configured, subscribers may also send comments by mail.

To receive comments (not edits) by mail, click "subscribe"; if necessary, enter your email address and click "Change"; click the page or wiki subscribe button to toggle your subscription status (green means you are subscribed).

To send comments, just reply, or send mail to the wiki's mail address. Your comment will appear on the original comment's page, or on the page whose WikiName ? appears in your mail's subject, or on the site's default mail-in page.

Editing

You have full editing rights to any page, unless restricted by the site admin or page owner. SandBox is the place to play with wiki page editing. You could open it in another window to test the things you read here.

Add a comment using the form at the bottom of the page
Click "edit" to change the page's text; it will be formatted and linked according to the ZWiki:TextFormattingRules. You may also be able to upload a file or choose other options here.
Create new pages by adding their WikiName? to an existing page and then clicking on the question mark beside it.
After you have configured a user name, in full mode you may also be able to reparent, rename and delete pages. Use the "manage this page" form at bottom or click the page title.

Formatting rules in a nutshell:

(It's possible for the site admin or a page editor to set different rules; these are the default currently used on most zwiki sites.)

WikiName?'s, [freeform page names in brackets]?, http://URLs , structured text-style links and ZWiki:RemoteWikiLinks are made into hyperlinks
text beginning and ending with *, **, _ or ' is italic, bold, underlined or monospaced respectively
one or more non-blank lines are run together form a paragraph; blank lines separate paragraphs
a one-line "paragraph" followed by a more-indented paragraph makes a heading
a paragraph beginning with - or * or 0. and a space makes a bullet or numbered list item; a more-indented list item starts a sub-list
HTML tags may be used if necessary; on sites which permit it, DTML tags (server-side code) may also be used
Some or all of the above rules may be escaped, by putting ! at the beginning of a link or a line LikeThis; by enclosing text in single quotes LikeThis ; or by indenting text after a paragraph ending with a double colon :
```
      LikeThis  
      escapes <HTML tags> and &dtml-too;
```

Finding out more

ZWiki, ZWiki:FrontPage, ZWiki:ZwikiDocs, ZWiki:ZwikiFAQ, ZWiki:KnownIssues, ZWiki:ZwikiTracker