Wiki Tool

The Wiki tool allows you to easily create a series of linked web pages within your OWL-Space site, with the ability to link to content in your Resources tool or on the web. You can also allow students and TAs to modify the wiki pages or add their own, for collaborative creation of resources, projects, and more.

When you first enter the Wiki tool, you will be taken to the home page of the wiki. You can always return to the home page by clicking on Home or the house icon in the tab bar at the top of the Wiki tool. The default home page is very basic, but you can add more to it by clicking on the Edit tab (pencil and paper icon) at the top of the Wiki tool. The Edit tab allows you to edit the current page of the wiki.

The main section of the editing page is a text box where you can enter the content of your wiki page. Just above the text box is a tool bar. The first button on the toolbar is a paper and disk icon; clicking on this will save your changes and return you to the wiki. The second button is a B icon which has one of two effects. If there is text highlighted in the box below, it makes that text bold. If there is no text highlighted, then it inserts the word "bold" at the location of the cursor, makes that bold, and highlights it, so if you begin typing you will overwrite the word "bold" and leave behind bold text of your choosing.

Notice that the bold text is enclosed in double underscores (two _ characters on each end of the bold text). Instead of using the B button in the toolbar, you can simply type in __ __ around any text you want to make bold (in fact this is exactly what the B button does automatically). Similarly, double dashes (-- --) make a strikethrough effect, and double tildes (~~ ~~) make italic text. There is a column of help tips on the right side of the text box which lists all these formating characters.

The next button on the toolbar is an I icon, which creates italic text exactly as the B button does bold. The following button, an "x squared" icon, does the same for superscripted text, and the one after that, an "x-sub-two" icon, does subscripted text.

The next item on the toolbar is a Headings... selection box. Clicking on one of the heading levels in the box will change any highlighted text to a heading, or insert a new heading at the cursor location if no text is highlighted. Heading are preceded by a heading code, such as h1, and end at the end of the line (there is no code at the end). So "h1 Hello" would create a level 1 heading that reads "Hello." There are six levels of heading, h1 through h6. h1 is the largest, and h6 is the smallest. h1 and h2 have horizontal lines beneath them. Headings are also listed in the Help Tips.

The next button on the toolbar looks like a page with lines on it. This button creates tables in the same way that all the other buttons work (converting highlighted text or inserting a new table). A table is enclosed between two "{table}" tags. Each line in the table is one row, with columns separated by pipe characters ("|", located above the enter key). To see an example, press the table button without any text highlighted. You can see how the table is structured, and make changes and additions to customize it if you wish.

The next button, a page and chain link icon, creates a link on your page to some file in your Resources tool. A page will appear where you can browse through the Resources interface to the file you want (you can also add new files or folders in this interface). When you find the file you want, click on Select in the Actions column next to that file. This will show the file in a separate list at the top of the page (you can remove files from the list by clicking on Remove). You can add as many files as you want to the list, then press Continue at the bottom. A link to each file will be placed in your wiki page at the location of the cursor.

The last button, showing a small picture icon, works the same as the link button just described. The only difference is that if you use this button to add an image file, the image will be directly embedded in your wiki page rather than simply adding a link to it. If you want to add a link to a picture rather than embedding it, use the link button instead.

Just above the toolbar are two tabs, Edit and Preview. The Edit tab is where you can make changes to your wiki page. Clicking on the Preview tab will show you what the version you are currently editing will look like when it is viewed. You can flip back and forth between Edit and Preview as you make changes to make sure they are giving the effect that you want.

You can save your work when you are done by pressing the Save button at the bottom of the page, or pressing the save button in the toolbar.

You can show/hide the Help Tips panel by clicking on the (+) or the green arrow icon.

The View tab at the top of the Wiki tool always returns you from any other tab to viewing the current wiki page.

The Info tab shows you all the options set for the current wiki page, as well as detailed information about the current page. The top section shows various permissions for the page. You can disable some actions for the current page by unchecking the boxes in the Enable/Disable... row. Uncheck Edit, for example, if you don't want anyone to be able to change the page. Press the Save button below these options to save any changes.

Beneath the Save button is detailed information about the page: which other wiki pages link to it, which pages it links to, printer/HTML/Word/pdf format of the page, RSS feeds for the page, the page owner, and various page IIDs.

The History tab shows the revision history of the current page. It allows you to view the current version, any of the previous versions that are still saved, and even allows you to discard the current version and restore one of the old ones.

The Watch tab allows you to choose to have emails sent to yourself when this wiki page is changed. You can choose whether you get an email for every time the page is changed, a summary of all changes each day, no emails, or no preference.

There is also a search box in the tab bar of the Wiki tool. Entering text here and pressing the enter key will search all the wiki pages on your site. Any that contain a match for the text you entered will be listed in the results.

There is also a printer icon and an orange icon with white lines (RSS icon). The printer icon will open a printable version of the current wiki page in a new window. The RSS icon will take you to the RSS feed for the entire wiki.

Directly beneath the tab bar is a list of pages you have recently visited. Click on the name of any page to go to that page.

To create new wiki pages, you simply create a link to them in an existing wiki page. Links to other wiki pages are entered as a page name enclosed in square brackets. For example, to create a new page called "test," go to your wiki home page and choose to Edit it. Type "[test]' somewhere within the content of your home page, then save the page. When you are returned to the home page view, you will see that test is a link, with a question mark attached to it. This means that it is a link to a page that does not yet exist.

Click on the link to test. You will be taken to a page that says test did not exist, so it has been automatically created. Whenever the Wiki tool tries to get to a page that hasn't been created yet, it creates the page automatically. Now that test has been created it, you can use the Edit tab to customize it as you see fit. So, you can create as many wiki pages as you want, simply by creating links to them in other wiki pages.

When pages are automatically created, they are copied from a page called default_template. You can edit this page to customize the format for every new page that is created in your Wiki tool. There may be a link to default_template in the recent changes section of your wiki home page (if you kept that section), otherwise you can create a link to default_template somewhere within your wiki.

There are many other text shortcuts and formating options you can use in your wiki pages. To see a complete list, go to the help page, either from a link in the recent changes section of your home page (if there is one) or by creating a link: [help page].