Help:Wiki markup

&larr; Help: Contents

This page is a tutorial for learning to work with the essential rules of wiki-formatted text, or "wikitext". Wikitext is designed to be as simple as possible so that an article may be quickly typed and styled without having to take a break to type out long HTML codes. The goal is to make it as easy as possible to channel your thoughts into writing the perfect article (or even a not-so-perfect article!).

Text formatting
Creating italicized or bold text is the simplest rule — simply use the apostrophe character in groups of two or three to create the style. (Be sure to use the "straight" apostrophe and not the curved "smart quote" characters used in some text editors and word processors!)

To create a tabbed list or a block of text using a monospace font, start the line with a space. (Be sure not to make the line too long, or it will stretch the page horizontally!) Text can also be indented in blockquotes using the colon character.

Lists
Both unordered and numbered lists are simple to create as well: simply use the asterisk or hash characters at the beginning of a line to create the entry. To create nested lists, simply add an extra asterisk or hash to the front of the line. You can even mix and match the kinds of list in a single group!

Links and URLs
In a wiki, it's important to help build the web by creating links to other articles in every appropriate context. Use the following techniques to create "free links" to other OpenVistA Wiki articles:

You can also make external links to other websites using the following formatting rules:

See also: Interwiki links

Sections
If an article is long enough, you can divide the page into different sections. OpenVistA Wiki will automatically generate a table of contents based on the content for all articles with more than three sections.

You can also create a horizontal divider by using four dashes in a row.

Images and other media
See: Help: Image markup

Tables
See: Help: Table markup

Mathematical formulae
See: Help: Math markup

Variables
The MediaWiki software has a number of built-in variables for common elements that may change depending on the date.

NUMBEROFARTICLES is the number of pages in the main namespace which contain a link and are not a redirect (i.e. number of articles, stubs containing a link, and disambiguation pages).

See also: Help:Template

Suppressing markup
It's also possible to tell MediaWiki to ignore any of the above rules using a simple tag:

Preformatted Terminal Output
To show preformatted text, use the &lt;pre&gt; html tag

&lt;pre&gt; MU-beta>D ^XUP

Setting up programmer environment This is a TEST account.

Access Code: ***** MU-beta>D ^XUP

Setting up programmer environment This is a TEST account.

Access Code: *********** Terminal Type set to: C-VT100

You have 117 new messages. Select OPTION NAME: EVE 1  EVE       Systems Manager Menu 2  EVENT CAPTURE  ECX ECS MAINTENANCE     Event Capture 3  EVENT CAPTURE (ECS) EXTRACT AU  ECX ECS SOURCE AUDIT     Event Capture (ECS) Extract Audit 4  EVENT CAPTURE DATA ENTRY  ECENTER     Event Capture Data Entry 5  EVENT CAPTURE EXTRACT  ECXEC     Event Capture Extract Press  to see more, '^' to exit this list, OR CHOOSE 1-5: &lt;/pre&gt;