Using Wiki Pages

To fully understand the power and flexibility of Tiki's wiki pages, be sure to review the The Wiki section. Depending on the features and options enabled, you may be able to:

• Create new pages
• Edit existing pages
• Read pages
• Add Comments to pages
• Find Similar pages
• See what is hot and what is not
• Much, much more

About Wiki Syntax

For detailed information on using Tiki's wiki syntax, see the following pages:

Displaying the Wiki menu

Most wiki features can be accessed from the main menu:

Sample Wiki menu.

Depending on your site configuration, different options may be available. The primary Wiki menu options are:

Option	Description
Wiki Home	Displays which wiki page is viewed as the Wiki Home page. You can configure any wiki page to be the wiki (or site) home page
Last Changes	Displays the last (recently) changed/edited pages. See Displaying Last Changes.
Dump	Create (and download) an archive of the content of the wiki pages.
Rankings	Displays the top (popular) pages, based on activity. See Wiki Rankings below
List Pages	Displays all wiki pages. See Listing Pages.
Orphan Pages	Displays wiki pages that are orphans (that is, have no incoming wiki links). See Displaying Orphan Pages.
Sandbox	Displays the wiki Sandbox for practicing your wiki skills. See Using the Sandbox.
Print	Displays a printer-pretty version of a page (or selected pages) for printing. See Printing Wiki Pages.
Structures	Displays the Structures on the site.
Create a wiki page	Allows you to create a brand new wiki page.

The following image is the menu that most users will see if all options are activated.

The options are as follows:

• Wiki the Wiki Home page is viewed. See A Wiki Page below
• Wiki Home the Wiki Home page is viewed. See A Wiki Page below
• Last Changes this allows the user to see which pages have changed. See Last Changes below
• Dump this allows the user to create a compressed file from the page
• Rankings this will show which pages are hot or how much activity they have had. See Wiki Rankings below
• List Pages this provides a complete listing of all pages in the site. See List Pages below
• Orphan Pages pages do get orphaned with time - that is - the links to them are removed. This option provides a way to find them. See Backlinks & Orphan Pages below
• Sandbox this is a safe place to experiment with Wiki Syntax or HTML. See The Sandbox below
• Print this allows multiple pages to be printed. See Wiki Printing below
• Structures (not shown in the image) are visible to anyone with Admin privileges. Structures are a way of applying an order to Wiki pages, like building a directory tree.

Creating a Wiki Page

If configured, Wiki pages can be created using Smashed Word syntax. This can be defined as a number of capitalized words joined together without spaces like MaryHadALittleLamb. Alternately, a user can specifically tell the system to create a page like this This is a New Page. In either case, when the page is saved the Wiki will add a question mark to indicate a new page. The question mark is a link to the Wiki page editor for that page. After the new page is saved, the question mark is replaced from the original page and the link will be indicated.

TIP: A Fast Way to Create a New Wiki Page

• Edit ANY Wiki Page
• Somewhere at the top of the page, add the name of the page you want to create in double parentheses. Example: My New Page
• Hit Save
• In the altered page, select the underlined Question Mark. Example: My New Page?

You will then be editing the page you wanted to create. This method allows you to see if the page already exists. A link will be displayed if a page with that name exists (instead of the question mark) so you can change the page's name and hit Preview again.

Displaying Last Changes

This page displays the last changed (most recently updated) wiki pages. You can select a specific timeframe (Today, Last 2 days, Last 3 days, Last 5 days, Last week, Last 2 weeks, Last month, or All) to display. You can also use the Find box to search for a specific page.

Use the Wiki Page Listings tab of the Administer Wiki page to enable this feature and specify what information appears on the page.

Displaying last (recent) wiki changes

For each page's change, Tiki displays:

• Time and date of the change
• Page name
• User (and IP address) who made the change
• Description (comment) of the edit
• An Action column with the following links:

  Link	Description
  	Display a detailed Page History for the page. See History.
  v	Display the indicated page version.
  b	Rollback (that is, revert) a page to the specified version. Tiki will prompt you for confirmation before rolling the page back. An alternative to rolling back pages is to remove all the versions of the page that you do not want, until the desired version becomes current.
  c	Display a side-by-side comparsion (diff) of selected version with the current version.
  d	Display a side-by-side comparsion (diff) of selected version with any other version of the page. Some people prefer the Difference tool while others prefer the Comparison tool, you can use whatever you want or both.
  s	Display the wiki source of the selected version. This is nearly identical to what is shown in the Wiki Page Editor when you edit a page.

  Wiki Rankings

  Listing Pages

  This page lists all wiki pages. You can filter the list by Language and Category. You can also use the Find box to search for a specific page and even specify if the page name must exactly match the query. Use the Number of displayed rows field to specify the number of wiki pages to display on each page.

  Use the Wiki Page Listings tab of the Administer Wiki page to enable this feature and specify what information appears on the page.

  No Tabs

  • 7.x
  • 2.x
  • 1.9.x

  

  Listing wiki pages

  
  

  

  Pages can be listed through the option "Wiki > List pages" in the main menu, which will lead to the relative url "tiki-listpages.php". From there, you will be able to search for page names containing certain words and indicating whether you want to find exact matches or not (Tiki 1.9)
  

  

  In Tiki 2.0, this feature has been enhanced and it allows to search pages also by category, set the number of rows that you want in the resulting list.

  For each wiki page, Tiki displays:

  • Name of the page
  • Number or hits (reads)
  • Date and time the page was last modified
  • Name (and IP address) of the user who last modified the page
  • Number of versions of the page history
  • Number of wiki links and backlinks to the page
  • Language of the page
  • Category of the page
  • An Action column with the following links:

    Link	Description
    	Edit the page
    	Copy (duplicate) the page
    	Display a detailed Page History for the page. See History.
    	Delete the page.

    Starting in Tiki 2.0, you can modify multiple wiki pages at once by choosing specific pages and selecting an option from the Perform action with checked.

    

    Displaying Orphan Pages

    This page lists all wiki pages that are orphans (that is, they have no incoming or backlinks). You can filter the list by Language and Category. You can also use the Find box to search for a specific page and even specify if the page name must exactly match the query. Use the Number of displayed rows field to specify the number of wiki pages to display on each page.

    Use the Wiki Page Listings tab of the Administer Wiki page to enable this feature and specify what information appears on the page.

    

    Sample Orphan Pages.

    For each wiki page, Tiki displays:

    • Name of the page
    • Number or hits (reads)
    • Date and time the page was last modified
    • Name (and IP address) of the user who last modified the page
    • Number of versions of the page history
    • Number of wiki links and backlinks to the page
    • Language of the page
    • Category of the page
    • An Action column with the following links:

      Link	Description
      	Edit the page
      	Copy (duplicate) the page
      	Display a detailed Page History for the page. See History.
      	Delete the page.

      Starting in Tiki 2.0, you can modify multiple wiki pages at once by choosing specific pages and selecting an option from the Perform action with checked.

      

      Working with Wiki pages

      You can perform many tasks from a wiki page. Tiki displays the following buttons a typical wiki page:

      No Tabs

      • 7.x
      • 2.x

      

      Sample wiki page with icons, droplists, and buttons (Tiki 7).

      
      Depending on your site configuration, different buttons may be available. The primary Wiki menu options are:
      Icons
      The icons at the top of the page can be used to:

      • Edit the page in the Wiki Page Editor.
      • Display a printer-friendly version of the page (with no menus, sidebars, or banners — only the central content area).
      • Create an Adobe PDF file from the current page.
      • Creates a copy of the page and saves it to your Notepad in the MyTiki section. See Notepad
      • Allows the page to be monitored. When a change is made to the page, an email is automatically sent to every user who is monitoring the page. See Page Notification below
      • Toggles the edit icons

      Droplists

      • structure
      • Provides a listing of every page that references this page. See Backlinks & Orphan Pages below
      • language

      Buttons
      The buttons across the top have the following meaning:

      • Edit this page this opens the Wiki Page editor for this page. See the Wiki Page Editor page
      • Source
      • Remove this allows a Wiki page to be deleted. NOTE: A deleted page can be recovered by admin.
      • Rename this allows the page to be renamed. See Page Renaming below
      • Lock/Unlock a page can be locked to prevent it from being edited. If this is done, only the Author (if enabled) or Admin will be able to unlock it.
      • Permissions Group Permissions can be assigned to a page. See Page Permissions below
      • History this provides a detailed History of the page. See Page History below
      • Similar this is a search facility for finding similar pages. See Similar Pages below
      • Slideshow
      • Undo Button this will undo the last edit. See Undo Edit below
      • Export this allows the page to be exported to a text file on your system. See Page Export below
      • Comment users can add comments to a page. See Page Comment below
      • Attach File

      
      The following image is for the Wiki Home Page before any content was added to it.

      

      Depending on your site configuration, different buttons may be available. The buttons across the top have the following meaning:

      • Edit Button this opens the Wiki Page editor for this page. See the Wiki Page Editor page
      • Remove Button this allows a Wiki page to be deleted. NOTE: A deleted page can be recovered by admin.
      • Rename Button this allows the page to be renamed. See Page Renaming below
      • Lock/Unlock Button a page can be locked to prevent it from being edited. If this is done, only the Author (if enabled) or Admin will be able to unlock it.
      • Perms Button Group Permissions can be assigned to a page. See Page Permissions below
      • History Button this provides a detailed History of the page. See Page History below
      • Similar Button this is a search facility for finding similar pages. See Similar Pages below
      • Undo Button this will undo the last edit. See Undo Edit below
      • Export Button this allows the page to be exported to a text file on your system. See Page Export below
      • Comment Button users can add comments to a page. See Page Comment below

      The Icons at the top have the following meaning:

      • Opens the editor for this page. See the Wiki Page Editor page
      • Provides a listing of every page that references this page. See Backlinks & Orphan Pages below
      • This will display a printer-friendly version of the page by removing menus, sidebars, banners and anything else except the central column.
      • Will create an Adobe PDF file from the current page.
      • Creates a copy of the page and saves it to your Notepad in the MyTiki section. See Notepad
      • Allows the page to be monitored. When a change is made to the page, an email is automatically sent to every user who is monitoring the page. See Page Notification below

      Page History

      
      
      Please see: History

      Similar Pages

      Similar Pages show a listing of pages with names similar to the current page. Pages are created and named using words combined together, so Similar Pages will show pages where one or more of these words are the same as the words in the current pages. As an example MyPage, NFLResultsPage OpinionsPage are similar because they share the word Page

      Undo Edit

      The Undo button can be used to Undo the last edition of a page. If the Undo feature is enabled then a user that can edit pages will be able to Undo what they did even if they can not Rollback pages or Remove page versions.
      Pressing the undo button removes the current version of the page making the last version in the history the current page; if no version is in the history then the page is reverted to an empty page.
      Note: A users will only be able to Undo their editing and not the editing that any other user has done unless the user has permission to remove page versions.

      Page Export

      The Export button can be used to export the current version of the page. When clicked your browser will prompt you to save the file. The exported page can then be edited and later be imported back into the Wiki. You can also export all the versions of a page. This link is inside the Page Editor.

      Page Comments

      Wiki pages can allow comments to be posted to them. The comments can be threaded, in a similar way as they can be in forums. If the feature is enabled, and the user belongs to a group with the needed permission, a button "add comment" will be shown below the page.

      

      Page Renaming

      The Rename button can be used to rename a Wiki page; all wiki links referencing the page will be updated as well. An error message will be generated if the new page name is already in use.
      Note: A user must have a permission to rename pages.

      Backlinks & Orphan Pages

      Every page has a list of Backlinks. Backlinks are links from any page to the current page (the page you are reading), you can use the Backlinks option to see which pages are linking to a particular page and find Orphan pages (pages with no Backlinks). Orphan pages are unlikely to get visited very often. On many occasions, Orphan pages are old pages that were removed from the Wiki and should have been deleted.

      • In order to display orphan pages the feature must be enabled through Admin > Wiki > Page Listings
      • See Backlinks

      The Sandbox

      Like a real Sandbox, in Tiki, the Sandbox is a place to play. You can test out ideas here, experiment with Wiki Syntax or HTML safely. The contents of the Sandbox are never saved, so when you have something perfected - copy the contents and paste them into a Wiki page.

      Page Monitoring

      Page monitoring allows a registered user to receive an email when ever there is an edit or new comment applied to a a wiki page. Logged in users can click the monitor button at the top of a wiki page to turn monitoring on or off per a page.

      For instance, for this page, a registered user will have the option to monitor it (add a "User Watch" to it), as indicated in the following image:

      

      Click to expand

      Later on, the user can click on the equivalent icon (eye with the red cross) again to stop monitoring the page:

      

      Click to expand

      Since wiki pages can belong Wiki Structures, and Wiki structures can be monitored, you can get an email each time a page has been added below the hierarchical level of the page you are interested in (regarding a common structure of wiki pages).

      Keep in ind also that if you are interested in pages of the same type of content, you can use add a Watch on a content Category, so that any other pages (or other tiki objects) assigned to or unassigned from that category, will send you an email reporting you that change in the objects of that category.

      For an overview on the possibilities of Monitoring wiki pages (user watches, group watches, structures, categories, etc), see Watches.

      Page Permissions

      NOTE: in Tiki 1.9 permissions can be applied to an entire wiki structure.

      Users in a group with permissions tiki_p_admin_wiki can set permissions per a page. Click perms and then select the permissions you wish to apply for what user groups to that page. If no individual permissions are applied to a page, global permissions apply.
      If tiki_p_creator_admin is set too and if the user is the creator, he can also redifine the perms.

      As soon as one permission is applied, all global permissions are overridden and thus you will probably have to apply a few individual permissions so one or more user groups can view and edit the page.

      
      Useful Links
      • Why Wiki Syntax is Important
      • The Color Picker II is located at http://www.pagetutor.com/pagetutor/makapage/picker/
      • Web Developer extension for Mozilla Firefox

      ---

      • The wiki syntax is not standardized across applications. There is an initiative to publish the Wiki-Syntax as an RFC from the IETF. See RFCWiki
      History Source