Creating pages

As many are new to this type of website the following may assist those who are unsure how to get started. It may look daunting at first, but it’s really not as difficult as it appears. Just follow the simple steps below and you should have a respectable page up and running in n o time. If you have any problems at all, just post a thread here and someone will always assist.

Good luck!

Creating a new page

Have a look at this page

As the aim of this site is to disseminate information, this is best achieved if all the pages have a consistent layout. The page in link above shows the basic, preferred layout for all pages. It does, however, leave reasonable scope for individually styled layouts within the main body of the page.

By clicking the “edit” tab at the top of the “New page” page and you will be presented with a text box containing the “code” which generates the page. Code is perhaps a rather misleading term as it’s predominantly the text that forms the page, just with a few added commands, so don’t be put off.

You can’t edit the code of “New page” as it’s protected, so don’t worry, just copy all the “code” from the text box. If you wish, you can paste this into a simple text editor like Notepad for safe keeping or simply leave it on your clipboard.

Now do a search on the page you wish to create. So, if you want to create a page called "Making biodiesel from windfall apples", search for that page, unsurprisingly the search result tells you there is no such page and asks you if you want to create one. Click the link that says “Create the page "Making biodiesel from windfall apples" on this wiki!” and you will be presented with a similar text box to the one you have just copied the code from. Paste the code from “new page” into this text box and click the “Save page” button, button left. Congratulations, you have now created your new page called "Making biodiesel from windfall apples”. By clicking the edit tab at the top of the screen you can now start populating and building your page.

Building a new page

Once you’ve created your new page you can start to populate it with text, photos and graphics.

Click the edit tab at the top of the page and just try some experiments. In the text box overtype the text starting “Brief intro”. This will be your introduction to the page so give a brief description of what the page is about and then click the “Show preview” button at the bottom of the page. As you would expect to get a preview of what the page will look like. Now click the “Save page” button and your page has been saved to the wiki data base.

Next try altering the text in one of the headings and note how the contents box changes to suit when you click preview. Try adding text under a heading or two and see how that looks. You should by now, be getting a feel for what you are doing.

Try adding a picture. Copy and paste this code somewhere on the page:

[[File:Venturi_cores.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Fabricated venturi body and steel cores]]

You should be presented with a photo of venturi cores and body made by a very talented contributor when you click preview.