Mediawiki beginner user guide
Welcome to KNILT. If you are here, you are probably enrolled in ETAP 623 or another course that requires you to create webpages on the KNILT platform. If you are wondering what programming language is used to create these pages, you are not alone. For many students, KNILT is their first use of MediaWiki, a high level script language used to create wikis. MediaWiki is written in a language called PHP. This means that each MediaWiki command executes a PHP program. If you are interested in learning more about MediaWiki, you may do so in - where else? - Wikipedia. Just click on this link to learn more about MediaWiki. If you are really interested in exploring MediaWiki in depth, you should visit the MediaWiki website.
Fortunately, you don't need to become a MediaWiki expert to build your KNILT portfolio. Just learning a few basic steps will get you through your course. I explain them below.
What do I need to know to complete my coursework in KNILT?
The MediaWiki website contains a link to the main MediaWiki help page. This is the same link entitled "Wiki Help" that you should see on the left side of your KNILT pages. The MediaWiki help page contains many links to other pages that provide instructions on the use of MediaWiki, but you don't need to become a MediaWiki expert to use KNILT.
To use MediaWiki to complete most of your coursework in KNILT, you need to know three basic things:
- How to create new KNILT pages
- How to link KNILT pages to each other and to external links
- How to format and edit KNILT pages
Here're a set of textual and video tutorials on the basic things listed above:
- MediaWiki Beginner User Guide for KNILT: Creating pages and links
- MediaWiki Beginner User Guide for KNILT: Formatting text
- MediaWiki Beginner User Guide for KNILT: Adding images to your page
You can also visit and bookmark the specific MediaWiki help manual pages that explain them. Here are those links.
- MediaWiki help page for creating new pages
- MediaWiki help page for creating internal and external links
- MediaWiki help page for formatting MediaWiki pages
If you are like me, you will visit each of these pages frequently until you master the information they contain. To help you get started, I have prepared some explanations and short videos on each of them. Use the links below to navigate to the pages containing this information.
How to set up your ID portfolio page
- How to set up your portfolio page: Creating/linking a new page:
- How to set up your portfolio page: Copying text from an existing page, creating headings and table of contents:
- How to insert an image?
More tips
- Do you know, you can display/embed a video in your page?
- video from Youtube: <youtube height="360" width="640">paste your video url here</youtube> (use the basic youtube url ending with "watch?v=...")
- Show a video from an uploaded file: <youtube height="360" width="640">File:file name of the uploaded video</youtube>
- Tech-savy users can also fine-tune their pages Using HTML and CSS in KNILT |(not essential, for advanced users only)
- How to set an image as the link to a specific page or URL