Wazeopedia:Beginners guide

The wiki is supposed to be quick and easy to use so you can get information written down quickly. Once you learn a few simple how-tos, it is easy. Just hit the edit button and type.

Before you begin, please read about wiki etiquette on the forums. This wiki is for technical documentation and best editing practices for waze editors. Every time we change the wiki, it causes confusion for some editor, so we do our best to make sure that changes are necessary and well-done.

You can develop new wiki pages in what is called your name space. Then you can ask for peer review before moving the information to its final location.

Easy things

How to log in

In order to edit, You must log in. If you can see your name at the top of the wiki page, you are logged in. If you see the link log in, click it. Login with your Waze username (first character capitalized) and waze password.

How to create or add to your user page

Click on your name near the top of the page.

• If your name at the top of the page is red (red link) then the page has not been created yet. Click the link "edit this page" to create the page
• Click inside the editing box. Start typing. Don't know what to type? Add the wiki template {{PrivateMessage}} to create a link to send you a PM on the waze forum.
• Hit preview. Like it? Hit save. Congratulations. You created a wiki page. This is your user page.

How to create a new page in your name space

Decide what your new page is going to be called. Use the normal rules for wiki title capitalization (sentence-style capitalization). If you want spaces in the page name, you'll use underscores "_" when you create the title.

Click on your name at the top of the page. Now look at the address bar at the top of the window. It should contain something like https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/User:Wazer_name

Change the page name in the address bar by adding a slash followed by your page title. The result should look something like https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/User:Wazer_name/My_new_page. Hit return

Choose the "edit this page" link. Edit the page, preview, and save

Edit an existing page

Go to your new page. See the edit tab at the top of the page. Click it. Start typing in the editing box. Use the "Show preview" button at the bottom of the page. Use the "Show changes" button to see what you have changed. Use the "Save page" button to save your changes.

How to Upload a file

If you want to add an image (see below), you may want to do this. Look for the Upload file way down on the left side of the wiki page. Follow the instructions on the page. Use the Upload file button.

How to add an image

The wiki uses the File tag to show images. These images have to be uploaded to the wiki already. You can use one of the images already on the wiki or you can upload a new file. The image file you want will have a name something like File:Pennsylvania_counties.jpg.

You can use the image of a photograph to insert an image. Or you can Edit Source and do it the old fashioned way. Type [[, then the image file name, then |thumb]]. This will add your file in a size small enough to fit on the page. You can read more about how to get the image the right size and position on the page.

How to link to another page

There are two ways to do this. You can use the chain link image. Or you can Edit Source and see what the chain link tool does for you. To link to pages on the wiki, use the wikilink tag [[. To link to pages not on this wiki, use the external link tag [.

[[Creating_and_editing_road_segments#Confirm_the_road_by_updating_details]]

This is a wiki link. To get the page name, go to the page you want, click the section you want in the menu, and copy everything after "wiki/" from the address bar and paste it inside the tag. To control how the link looks, add link text after the pipe | [[Creating_and_editing_road_segments#Confirm_the_road_by_updating_details|confirm]]

[//maps.psiee.psu.edu/paatlas/]

This is an external link. To keep it from looking like [1], add a space and some link text after the URL. [//maps.psiee.psu.edu/paatlas/ PASDA]. If you copy an https URL, leave out everything before the // to avoid the "locked" icon.

How to add formatting

Try out the formatting links above the edit box for bold and italic. Click on Advanced or Special characters. to see more options. Try some headings, lists, tables, and special characters. Click "Help" for more information.

How to use a wiki template

Some wiki templates are just reusable bits of text. Others take parameters that can control what they look like or what they say. You can look at the list of all available templates or you can look at the list of all templates used in a page that you are editing (see below). The wiki template documentation tells you how to use the template - use Edit Source on your page and follow the instructions given in the examples.

Things you can find out about a page

History of changes

Look at your user page. Click the history tab at the top. How many versions are there? Compare any two versions to see the changes.

Templates used in a page

Edit the wiki page. Use the preview button. Look for the list of Templates used in this preview. Click to open the list.

Intermediate wiki skills

Add and format a table

In the bar above the editing box, look for the table icon in Adanced > Insert. Insert a table. You'll find more information on changing the format at [2]

Use a wiki magic word.

Edit Source your user page. Type this into your user page: {{FULLPAGENAME}}. Preview. What do you see? It should be the same as the name of your page. You will often see magic words in wiki pages.

See all subpages of a page

Edit Source, and then add this to your user page to list all pages in your namespace: {{Special:Prefixindex/{{FULLPAGENAME}}/}}